Zelda D'Aprano remembered

[canetoad]

You probably have never heard of her, she was a fierce advocate and fighter for equal pay for women. I met her in the 80s.

Zelda D'Aprano, fierce fighter for justice and women's rights

A large and admiring crowd assembled in Brunswick Town Hall to celebrate and pay tribute to the life of Zelda D'Aprano, who died in February aged 90. She was perhaps most famous as the courageous women's liberationist who chained herself across the doors of the Commonwealth Building in Melbourne in 1969, in protest against the limited nature of the recent decision on equal pay in the Commonwealth Arbitration Court.

Over the next several decades she became an earnest and fierce – but always good-humored – supporter of the many causes she deemed necessary to overthrow the patriarchy.

Zelda was a working-class woman, a mother, a trade unionist and a Communist, who would leave the party in 1971 in protest against its sexism. Her action in chaining herself to the doors of the Commonwealth Building, in the tradition of the English suffragettes, was Zelda's best-known protest in a long life of activism dedicated to achieving social justice and improving the lives of women.

She was joined in the equal pay campaign by other Melbourne activists, many of them fellow members of the Communist Party and all active in the burgeoning women's liberation movement.



Zelda D'Aprano, chained to the Commonwealth Building in 1969 in protest at the lack of equal pay for women.

Zelda's story at link: https://www.theage.com.au/national/zelda-daprano-fierce-fighter-for-justice-and-womens-rights-20180410-h0yl1i.html