For everyone Essential link in the chain of history: meet activist Alva Geikie
Alva Geikie was a teacher at Princes Hill Secondary College in 1969 when she saw a newspaper article about feminist trailblazer and trade union activist Zelda D’Aprano chaining herself to the doors of the Commonwealth Building to demand equal pay for women.
Zelda was incensed by an Arbitration Commission decision to adopt the ‘principle’ of equal pay for equal work in award rates – but only for those performing ‘work of the same or like nature as men’, which excluded women working in female-dominated occupations, including teachers.
Alva shared Zelda’s rage. “I read about it in the paper and thought, ‘This is disgraceful – that only 18% of women would be eligible for equal pay,” she says.
“I rang Zelda and said, ‘Look, I’m really interested in what you’ve done, and I would be interested in joining you if there’s further action. So, I met her, realised she wasn’t crazy, and we decided we’d have the second chaining. And then I went home to my flatmate [fellow teacher Thelma Solomon] and said, ‘Are you interested?’”
Ten days later, on 31 October 1969, the three women chained themselves to the doors of the Arbitration Court, where the equal pay decision had been handed down. It coincided with a statewide teachers’ strike so that Alva and Thelma could attend without risk of penalty.
“If I’d been arrested, or lost my job, that would have been a dreadful thing, because I didn’t have anybody else to support me,” Alva says.
The Builders’ Labourers Federation donated the chain, and the doors could be opened just enough that staff needed to bend down and crawl in sideways – to the women’s great amusement.
“Equal pay wasn’t phased in for teachers until 1971, following a major union campaign.”
Born in Brunswick in 1936, Alva attended state schools in Coburg and Preston. “Going to Preston Girls, there were no boys telling you what to do,” she recalls. “We played cricket and tennis – nobody told us to get off the pitch. All the leaders were girls, and the teachers were females, so it seemed obvious to me that girls could do whatever boys could do.”
Alva was a feminist before she knew the word, she says. As a 13-year-old, she told her brother to help their mother clean the dishes. When he responded: “But that’s a girl’s job”, she answered, “Don’t you eat?”
Finishing school in Year 10, she obtained a Diploma of Needlecraft from the Emily McPherson College of Domestic Economy (now part of RMIT), before working at Myer as a dressmaker for two years – “an awful job; we got paid very little”. Those skills took her overseas where in the early 1960s she made costumes for the Old Vic Theatre in London.
“Education was not deemed to be important for girls then,” Alva says. “Most people assumed girls would, after leaving school, work for a few years, get married, have children and stay at home. In some jobs, women had to resign when they got married. Women could only get a bank loan if they had a male to guarantee it.”
Back in Australia, Alva undertook her teacher training at Preston Technical School (now Melbourne Polytechnic) before starting at Princes Hill SC. “That’s where I got my real introduction to women’s equality in the workplace. About 1968, one of the teachers applied for equal pay and she got knocked back. Equal pay wasn’t phased in for teachers until 1971, following a major union campaign. So, I was definitely aware by then.”
Soon after the “chain-up”, Zelda, Alva and Thelma decided to form a group that “would not just talk”, Alva says. “We felt women’s organisations had been too quiet and polite in the past and had not improved women’s lives a great deal.”
Around 14 women showed up to the first meeting. “Oh, it was really funny,” Alva recalls. “Two left because we didn’t hate men, two left because we weren’t political enough, and two left because we were too political.” Among those who stayed was feminist activist Bon Hull, who became integral to the group.
From there, the Women’s Action Committee was born, determined to point out sexism in Australian society. Its first stunt was the Equal Pay Tram Ride, in which members of the committee insisted on paying only 75% of the fare on a Melbourne tram, given they were paid 75% of the wage earned by their male co-workers.
Next was a pub crawl – “to advertise the fact that women were not permitted to drink in the bar of a hotel but had to pay extra and drink in the ladies lounge,” Alva explains. This was followed by a demonstration in 1970 against the Miss Teenage Quest in which “female contestants were paraded around like cattle”.
While the Women’s Action Committee may have remained small, their well-organised activities garnered plenty of attention. “I think our main achievement was that we made enough noise,” Alva says. “Zelda left school at 14 to work in factories, but she was clearly very intelligent. She had this amazing informal education, but also that life experience and the union experience. So, she had a vision for what she wanted to achieve.”
The Committee campaigned on feminist issues from sexist advertising, to workplace discrimination, to abortion law reform. In 1975, they spearheaded Australia’s first pro-choice rally, with an impressive turnout of more than 500 women.
Together, the group also set up the Women’s Liberation Centre – the foundation of the women’s liberation movement in Melbourne. Inspired by the suffragettes and organisations such as the Union of Australian Women, those campaigners for women’s liberation “really worked hard” for the cause, Alva says. “Some worked 12 hours a day, for months on end, with no pay.”
“To me, the women’s liberation movement was one of the greatest social movements of the 20th century. And it’s important that we know about it.”
Now, Alva regrets that the group failed to recognise the specific issues for Aboriginal women. “When you come from a minority like that, where your male counterparts are not part of that ruling elite – and they got shot, they got jailed – then you’re in a very different situation. We had an open door. But now I can understand why the Aboriginal women didn’t want to come.”
Alva contributed to the joint Women’s Liberation Movement and Women’s Electoral Lobby submission for the Equal Pay Case in 1972. Later, she worked as a teacher of English as a Second Language in TAFE and with Aboriginal communities on Cabbage Tree Island, before retiring in 1999. In 2005, she was successfully nominated by Zelda for an Edna Ryan Award honouring her significant contribution to community activism.
The State Library of Victoria recently acquired Alva’s extensive collection of original documents, photographs, speeches and newsletters, including her two-volume history, The Women’s Action Committee and the Women’s Liberation Movement, Melbourne 1969–1975. “To me, the women’s liberation movement was one of the greatest social movements of the 20th century. And it’s important that we know about it,” she says.
Last year, Alva travelled to Melbourne for the unveiling of a bronze statue depicting Zelda D’Aprano holding her famous chain and a sign that reads: ‘No more male & female rates. One rate only.’
As Victorian Trades Hall Council assistant secretary Wil Stracke said at the event: “The statue is more than a tribute to one woman. It reminds us that we are part of a chain of history of women who fought for change.” And, in that chain of women,
Alva Geikie has been an essential link.
