I sat down with my kids and watched Brazen Hussies recently. It is a 2020 film documentary that left them slightly amused and seriously bemused by ‘ye olde’ behaviour – like women not being allowed in pubs and having to chain themselves to the bar in protest; that equal pay wasn’t something you just expected (even if we aren’t quite there yet); that there wasn’t free healthcare or access to legal terminations; or that there were men actually saying that a women’s place was in the home.
For them, these were bizarre and strange ideas that were somewhat fantastical from a world they couldn’t really relate to (the world of their grandparents’ youth). It reminds us how much the world has changed in a relatively short period of time.
While the film focused on how a daring and diverse group of Australian women reignited the feminist movement in Australia between the 1960s and ’70s it highlighted how in many ways the Northern Rivers Rainbow Region (and The Echo) is a product of that time of change when people were on the streets protesting the Vietnam War, challenging the norms that they had been brought up with, and moving to places like Byron Bay, Mullumbimby, and Nimbin to create new communities, new politics, and new ways of living.
By the 1980s the hippies were beginning to venture out of the hills (even occasionally putting on some pants!) and were creating their own political parties like United Shire, getting active in local organisations like the local fire brigades, starting up local community centres, domestic violence (DV) services and refuges, and working hard, often in volunteer capacities, to create better communities.
Sometimes it feels like we are watching the world unravel with Roe v. Wade overturned, Nazis marching in the streets, the Bondi attack, clampdowns on protests, and all levels of government reducing transparency.
As Rosemary West sums up in Brazen Hussies about the rights of women and the importance of recognising what we have achieved, she says, ‘I think it’s important for young women today, because things don’t necessarily keep on improving, and they might find themselves in exactly the same position as we were in if they don’t understand and defend the progress that we’ve made.’
Sitting there listening to this with my children I realised that advances in the rights of everyone from race, gender, and sexuality, to healthcare, and access to resources, can’t be taken for granted. We all need to take action so that we don’t go backwards, as recent events have demonstrated how easily these hard won improvements can be lost.
Aslan Shand, editor
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