Zelda D’Aprano: smashing the bronze ceiling

(FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE POINT IN 2022)

How many of Australia’s statues represent female figures? No. Lower, go lower. Much lower.

The answer, startlingly, is that less than 4% Australia’s statues represent historical female figures.

Australia has more statues of animals than of women, and only 1% of Melbourne’s statues are of historical women, standing alone.

The campaign to redress this ridiculous imbalance is underway, with artist Jennifer Mann selected to construct a statue of working-class feminist activist Zelda D’Aprano at the iconic Victorian Trades Hall Council in Carlton, facing onto Lygon Street.

Jennifer’s figurative proposal Chain Reaction, cast in bronze, has been commissioned by the Victorian Trades Hall Council and the not-for-profit A Monument of One’s Own campaign with support from the Victorian Government through the Women's Public Art Program.

Zelda, born in Melbourne in 1928 to a Ukrainian father and Belorussian mother, left school at 14 and worked in factories, as a biscuit maker, usherette, a seamstress, dental assistant and finally, in 1968, as an office worker for the Australasian Meat Industry Employees' Union (AMIEU), where she found many female workers dissatisfied with the inequalities that they faced in the workplace.

An “enthusiast and idealist”, and always a unionist, Zelda joined the Heidelberg branch of the Communist Party of Australia as a working mother when she was 21. But inside politics, as in the workforce, her leadership and advocacy were often thwarted. She left the CPA in 1971 to protest its sexism.

IEU post on ‘Zelda Day’, 2024.

In 1969, the meat industry was being used as a test case for the Equal Pay campaign. Zelda attended a hearing at the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission but was disappointed at the lack of female contribution.

“I just couldn't believe this, and I thought, here are all the women, here we are, all sitting here as if we haven't got a brain in our bloody heads, as if we're incapable of speaking for ourselves on how much we think we're worth,” Zelda later recalled. “And here are all these men arguing about how much we're worth and all the men are going to make the decision.”

Frustrated by the situation, Zelda joined a meeting of the Victorian Employed Women's Organisation Council (VEWOC) and brainstormed a dramatic gesture to bring attention to the Equal Pay case.

On 21 October 1969, Zelda chained herself to the Commonwealth Building in Spring Street, Melbourne, where the hearing was being held. She was cut free by Commonwealth Police but repeated the gesture with teachers Alva Giekie and Thelma Solomon soon after at the entrance to the Arbitration Court. These stunts drew enormous attention to the Equal Pay campaign, and led to Zelda co-establishing the Women's Action Committee, which campaigned on equal pay for women, and against sexual discrimination.

In 1972 the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission finally extended the equal pay concept to 'equal pay for work of equal value'.

VEWOC spearheaded the women’s liberation movement. To highlight women’s pay inequality, they took a tram ride and insisted on paying 75 percent of the fare. They protested against Miss Teenage contests and helped open a Women's Centre in the CBD, which became the focal point of campaigns relating to discrimination at work, discrimination against lesbians, sexist advertising, abortion law reform, rape culture, and access to childcare.

Zelda became a feisty speaker at public meetings, demonstrations, marches and at schools, and was frequently interviewed on radio and TV. She also became a writer, peace activist, member of the Union of Australian Women, grandmother, and great-grandmother. 

In 1995, she received a special mention for her "Outstanding Contribution to Australian Culture" from the Director of the Centre for Australian Cultural Studies in Canberra. In 2000, Macquarie University awarded her the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws; in 2001 she was among the first 100 women admitted to the Victorian Honour Roll of Women.

Trades Hall Council introduced special awards in her name for women trade unionists. In 2004, she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) and in 2017 La Trobe University awarded her an honorary DLitt degree.

Upon her death in 2018, academic Marilyn Lake remembered Zelda as an “earnest and fierce – but always good-humoured – supporter of the many causes she deemed necessary to overthrow the patriarchy”.

A Monument of One’s Own seeks “statue equality”

The organisation’s aim is “to achieve monumental change, one statue at a time”.

Such wordplay is no surprise since the campaign’s co-convenor is acclaimed writer and historian Professor Clare Wright who described the commission as "an exciting milestone in our campaign for commemorative justice in Australia”  

“We are proud to be leading the charge for the equal memorialisation of women in public art, and to be engaging with Victorian women artists in the interpretation of women’s history, a history of achievement that has benefitted us all.”