You Had a Baby. He Kept His Job (GUEST CHAT)

A conversation with my mum, Margaret Redden, about what it was like to grow up, work, and have children as a woman in South Australia in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, and the kinds of inequality women were simply expected to accept.

Show Notes

Books mentioned:

• Storm Boy by Colin Thiele
• Other books by Colin Thiele: Blue Fin, The Fire in the Stone, February Dragon

Film:

• Storm Boy (film adaptation)

Topics touched on:

• Women in teaching in the 1960s–80s
• Temporary teaching status for women
• Lack of maternity leave and having to resign
• Superannuation inequality
• Women’s unpaid labour in farming communities
• Inheritance and farming succession

Content Note
This podcast gets into bodies, panic attacks, trauma, sexism, mental health, and the occasional emotional sinkhole. Please look after yourself only listen when you feel safe to engage with potentially triggering material. 
Also, I swear.

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Credits
Recorded on the lands of the Ramindjeri and Ngarrindjeri peoples.
Sovereignty never ceded.

Recorded & edited at Ridley Farm Studio by Luke Ridley
https://ridleyfarmstudio.com.au...

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Okay, this is the second take, and we all know that I like to do one take. So I would like to welcome you to another episode of The C-Word with Catherine Redden. Oh, and I've got to put the microphone there. And today we have a very special guest who's going to talk to us about what it was like. Oh, we've got to get the microphone in the right spot. Doesn't have to be perfect. We're having to talk about what it was like growing up in that oh when we were teenager. In the 60s. In the 60s and 70s and 80s about what it was like to be a woman and growing up. And that very special guest is my mum, Margaret Redden. Hello, mum. Hello, Catherine. How are you? That was very formal. We're not sure if the microphone's going to work. Um it's only my second interview, so we'll see how we go. I've got some questions for mum. Um mum. Can you take me back to when you were about 18? What did you think your life was going to look like?

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Well, Catherine, when I was 18, I was at Teachers College. And I was really only there because I didn't have the marks to get into university.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Oh, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

And at Teachers College you got paid, and I think if I remember rightly, it was something like five dollars a fortnight. Might have been more. Um dollars? Yes, more dollars. Yes, the dollars came in in '66 when I was 17. Okay. And so um a friend of mine was going to teachers college, and uh she said that I should go to I I had a different um viewpoint. I wanted to go and spend the rest of my life on a beach. Oh. So after I left school, I flew straight to my sister's place in Western Australia. They had a farm on the beach, and I spent six weeks on the beach and thought life was pretty good until I got this phone call from my friend saying, You're in teachers' college with me, get back here at the beginning of February, which is what I did. So by the time I was 18, um, I was that was when I was in my second year of teachers' college, and I was having a wonderful time, and I had no intention of going teaching. I thought I would eventually go into journalism.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Or perhaps politics. Oh, really? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Could you s so seriously, Mum, did you think that would have been possible for a woman?

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Well, this was the problem. Um, because there weren't very many women in politics, but you see, I was brought up in a family of uh politically minded people and also politicians, and so I knew it was possible. Um, however, every time I mentioned it to my parents, they poo-pooed and said, No, you're not going to do that, Margaret. Um, but I I did have this uh feeling that I could manage that, um, and I really thought at some stage I would just do it just to piss my mother off.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

I haven't had you swear before. And so what stopped you?

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Well, uh at the end of the third year, because we only had three years of um teachers' college in those days, I got my teachers' it wasn't certificate, diploma. And at the end of the third year we went to a um an assembly and the the principal of our teachers' college was the one and only Colin Tealey, and we loved him.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

I'm just going to interrupt you then because I've got quite a lot of listeners in America. Ah, oh so we should say that Colin Tealy wrote books, yes, and one very famous book called Storm Boy, which was made into a movie, and if you well, if you're in Australia, you might not know it anyway, but it is a beautiful book. Um would you call it Young Adult?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Yes, I would. However, Tealley was such a wonderful writer with a an unmatched vocabulary that you could read it as an adult and enjoy it just as much. It was true Australian, good literature, forerunner of people like Tim Winton and those who it it was and and he wrote 25 or more books.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Did he write that many books?

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yes. Yes. Um, many of or probably most of which I read in my time. We all did in those days.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

So what I'll do too is I'll put the um so on a podcast when we have things called show notes, and I'll put the name of the book in the show notes because it actually really is a beautiful book. Yeah, okay. So what did Mr. Tealy say about you becoming a politician?

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Well, I was up the back and not listening. Uh it was an assembly, there were 300 of us, and so I was talking to whoever was next to me, not that really interested, and my friend Penny Shields said, put your hand up, and I said, Okay, so I'll put my hand up. And I said afterwards, what was that all about? And she said, Oh, they're very short of teachers in the country. Um, and so you put your hand up because you said you'd be happy to go to the country, and I said, Oh, well, that's fine. I probably am happy to go to the country. That's that's good. I was brought up in the country because that's right.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

So just for a bit of context, teachers college is in Adelaide, which is our capital city, but you did grow up in the country.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

I did, yeah. I did, and um, yeah, I was quite happy to go. Not really happy to go teaching, but well, you know, it was a job until I grew up a bit and worked out what I was going to do. Um, I'm still like that at age 77.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

I think it's really common when you're young though. I mean, I'm the same too at 54. Yes. If you just become a podcaster.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Yes, and meanwhile meanwhile, life happens. It's it's fine. So um so that's what happened on that day, and so that's how I was posted to the geranium area school.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Now, just before we get to the geranium area school, let's talk about university and the trousers. Oh yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Well, it was the 1960s when fashion took many different roads. There was the mini skirt, which we wore, and we had to wear our undies the same colour as the miniskirt because uh when we put our arms up, everybody could see our pants.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Um, and then people, uh women were starting in in fashion in real life, not in teachers college, um, were starting to wear pants suits and oh my goodness, just plain, you know, pants or jeans with tops. Um and we were it wasn't that the girls at Teachers College wanted particularly to be fashionable, it was that the um the temporary, the prefab classrooms on stilts at Waddle Park Teachers College were so cold and there was no heat. There was a little radiator at the front to keep the lecturer warm, and the rest of us shivered. And so we thought, we'll blow this, we'll go and ask our vice principal, um, Miss Golding, if we could have pants. Well, Miss Golding was completely uninterested in the idea, and so we um some girls and I put up a petition, and we got, I think, probably every girl and a few boys in the teachers' college to sign it, and and she still didn't listen, so then we decided that we weren't going to go to lectures on another day, and so we sat on the on the main lawn in the middle and made a noise. And finally she came out and said, Alright, you can wear pants suits, and that was matching pants and jacket.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Was it a private college or was it public?

SPEAKER_00 7:52

It was public, government college, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

So so was there do you know if there was an actual rule that said women can't wear pants?

SPEAKER_00 8:00

I don't know. No. You know, we were easily bluffed in those days.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

And when you're a kid as well. I mean not a kid, but you're a young person.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Well well, there were very few of us that questioned everything. Oh, 21 would have been the drinking age, wouldn't it? Yes. What about voting? Do you remember? Uh I think voting was 21 too, but those two ages dropped in the 60s. I'm not sure of the dates, but when Don Dunstan came into power, he was responsible for a lot of those changes. Um and late-night um uh uh hotels opening later and and pub meals and all that sort of thing changed when Don Dunstan was in.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Did you know that Ruby helped? So Ruby's my niece, who's 19, who does not mind being mentioned on the pod. She helped bring in that at St. Michael's the girls could wear pants. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

And that was that was oh, that was last a few years ago. It was two years ago, and yes, girls were allowed to wear pants, and they and they were very cold, but um there was uh there was a trend not to. Um the the girls in charge, so to speak, in those senior years, would not dream of wearing pants, and so nobody else did. And Ruby finally got sick of all this, and she she has a lot of close friends, and she and her close friends got together and said, Well, blow this, we're going to wear pants. Because the boys, um, occasionally when a girl would wear pants to school, the boys would even get stuck into them. Oh really? Oh, and call them, you know, m I know. Yeah. Those sorts of words. And um and so they were they were really discouraged.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

It is interesting, isn't it, Mum? You know, when I was at school, when I went to boarding school in the late 80s, we well, there were no pants on our in our uniform.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

No.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

It would have been unheard of for a Loreto girl to wear trousers. Mm.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

And that's 20 years later.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

It's weird, isn't it? The boys would tease girls for wearing pants. So strange. They did. Right, let's see what other questions I've got here. So when you got when so you did a sit-in, sorted. Yes. And they let you wear pants. Yes. Was it controversial after that?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Or wearing pants, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Or did it you just started wearing them?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

We did. We we complained about the expense because obviously a pants suit was going to be more expensive than just a pair of jeans. Yes. But um we uh we agreed and we had the choice and that's what we wanted. And what did Nana think? I don't remember. Oh, so it can't have been much then. No.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Well you we would have known if Nana had an opinion, I think you would have known it.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Yes, I'm sure that Nana probably just agreed with it all. After all, Nana belonged to the women's cricket team in Wallaroo. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

You know Nana was quite out there, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 11:04

She was very out there, yes, so I think she just agreed.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

And Nana did work during the Depression, yeah. She did. And during the Second World War, well, I mean you were farmers, so she but I think she had she what did she do?

SPEAKER_00 11:19

She was part of she was a part of the land army, I don't think, but living at Mount Compass, she and a group of people um were um uh given the opportunity to I think they were coast watchers, um, and so they took it in turns to patrol or to be at part of the southern coast um looking out for the enemy because you never knew where where the enemy were work.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

It's actually really interesting because I had heard her say that, but I hadn't put together that it was Mount Compass, which for my Flurio listeners will know very well. So it would have been around here on the south coast that she was looking out for the enemy.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Yes, I know that one of the posts um was up on the bluff. Oh very, very cold, and another post was at Port Elliot, at wherever it is, wherever that obelisk is, I forget what it's called. Freeman's knob. Right. Um so yes, they they manned those posts, um, took it in turns. So mum did that. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Now we're gonna talk about so you went to geranium. Um, and yes, listeners, that is the actual name of the town that I grew up in, where the farm was. So you went to geranium area school in the late 60s. Yes, 69 was my first year. Uh and then I know that well I don't I thought I knew, but something you had something happened when you got married or when you had means to do with your employment.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Yes, yes. Um it was that women were not considered to be permanent teachers, they um because in those days they were expected to marry and have children um and therefore ceased to teach. And so we were TAs, temporary assistants.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

You were you didn't even have a permanent job.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

They sent you all that way out there on the train, no permanent job. No, but of course, in those days, anybody that took a country position wasn't going to be kicked out of it.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

No, but but but still, I mean, so what we're saying is that all women who were teachers at that time were temporary assistants.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

AKA casual. Yeah, yep. Wow. Although not in not with casual rates like you know now. It was still So you didn't get a special ray. Do you get paid less than the men? Do you know? I believe so. Yeah. I'm not too sure about that, but what we all knew and thought was wrong was that the men could join the superannuation scheme.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

And the women couldn't because we were temporary. And so the men's scheme um then meant that when they retired, they uh retired on three-quarters of their salary for the rest of their lives. Yes. Um and the women never had the opportunity to do that. And actually we shouldn't gloss over that, mum.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

So that's called it that's called a defined benefit. Ah, because I did work in superannuation. Yeah. And they don't do that anymore, basically because, well, it would have sent everybody all doesn't matter what, it would have sent the banks and superannuation companies broke if they kept doing it. Um, but what's fascinating about that is now a lot of your colleagues would have retired. So you're 77, and your male colleagues would have retired on a defined benefit of a lot of money. So let's just I'm just gonna do a hypothetical and it will be more than that. But just for for ease, let's just say their leaving salary was a hundred thousand. Yes, they would be earning $75,000 for the rest of their life. Yes. On top of any it was on top of the accumulation. Yeah, so then just again for um you know, for people for American people or people not in Australia, we have a superannuation. I didn't think I'd be talking about super. We have but although it's pertinent to women, but now our superannuation is called accumulation and we've had it since the 90s, but before that it was called defined. And I'm just realizing that your colleagues who are women have not had access to that and did the same work. Yes, absolutely. That's horrific.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

The other um runoff effect it had was that women were not as ambitious as the men to climb up the teaching ladder. Why? Because we weren't going to get any long-term benefit from it.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Oh, so you were kind of like forced to marry in lots of not forced, but it was seen as a viable alternative.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Well, yes, because the men um with in in mind the fact that if they retired as a principal, for example, yes, they were retiring with a much higher salary than as a you know, first year, second year, ten year teacher. And so there was that ambition there just to get the the money at the end of the road. Whereas the women were we weren't getting anything. No. The other thing was that you could keep on teaching after uh women could keep on teaching after they were married.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

But once they had a child, because there was no maternity leave, right? That's when they had to resign. We c we couldn't take leave or anything, we had to resign.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

So let's just walk through this because so you got because I know the laws changed because I know at one stage the law was when you got engaged you had to resign. Oh wow. And then it was married, and and then in I was born in 71. So when I was born, because you it's not only did you not have maternity leave, but you weren't able to take any leave to have a baby. So you that's that's why you had to resign.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Yes. That's oh yes.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Yes. And in those days, back in the early 70s, most people went on to have children fairly soon after they were married. Yeah, and early. So you were I was twenty-two, nearly twenty-three when I married uh when I had you, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

A bit younger.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

I might have been a bit younger.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

I'm 54. Anyway, we can I'll put it in the show notes. As you're interested.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

It's young, the early twenties. Yes, yes, yes. And that was the expectation which we all went along with. After all, what else were we going to do? We didn't have our career anymore.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

And how did you feel about that, mum? Like, did you have any you know, and I know it might you don't have to answer at all, but like when you got married and had kids, did you kind of think, what is going on? I was cross. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Oh well, because the the the men were still at school. Like I married at Duranium and and uh was continued my association with the community there, and so all the male teachers were still happily bearing children and at the same time having uh a lovely time at school and earning their money and climbing up the ladder. And uh we I just felt I was left behind.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Yeah, and and you know, having their wives look after their children.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Yep, that's the way it was. Uh and I t really didn't like that much, but um, you know, that's life, that's what you do in those days. There was no banging up against it at that stage.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

No, I wonder how that law changed. It probably was a trade union.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Uh definitely. Yeah. The education union, yes. Was it Don Dunstan or Oh, I can't remember now. Um yes, it may have been. Um but yes, it was it was the education union, the teachers' union.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

So the reason you resigned was because there was actually no leave available to you whatsoever. And so would you say that's why women in many professions had to resign? Well, they would have been forced to, because they had to take leave to have a well, it seems ridiculous, doesn't it? Of course you have to take leave to have a baby. Yeah, well you do. Because you who's gonna look after it? Like you were very very much expected to look after it.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

And on that, um the husbands, when when you had a baby, if the husband was a teacher, he he couldn't get leave to come and be with you. No. Like there wasn't really any such thing as leave. There was sick leave, yeah, which was oh, only a few days a year. Um, and I don't know that it even accumulated in those days. But if you if you weren't sick, you didn't get to go anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Um So it wasn't so much a fact of being forced to resign as in you've got pregnant, you must resign. It was more structural in that there's no leave for you. No, like if you if you there's no leave available for you. So if you'd had someone to care for the baby, could you have gone back to work?

SPEAKER_00 20:17

I honestly don't know. I do not know. Uh there was I I there would have been um a backlash from other women. I I remember only because I remember after I resigned, had children, I went to a meeting of um combined school welfare clubs, and uh there was a big fuss made about all these married women coming back to work and not giving the younger teachers a chance.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

Really?

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Mm. And quite you know, really quite vehement about it. And I thought then, well, oh I suppose, but you know, I I didn't hadn't really thought about it until then. But though those women were very they were cross that their daughters couldn't get a job as a teacher because these women, these married women, had the jobs. And I used to get a bit of a chat about that when I was at Lamaru in 1980. That's when I started in 1986. When you went back. When I went back, yes. Um Did you go back full-time in 86? No, I didn't. I wasn't full-time until 90.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

When I got permanency, because of course I had to start again. I wasn't I was a non uh person really when I started again. It was contract work.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

So mum did a lot of contract teaching well, all the time really, didn't you? Mm until n nineteen ninety, yeah. Was that pretty much from when I just don't want this to turn off. Um from well, cr when Christopher was little you went and did a few months, did you? Um when you were little.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Okay. Um you were one and the principal came and saw me and he said, Look, I've got to ask you this. We've got um a a class of students who want to do Year 12 modern history next year. Nobody in the school has got any qualifications to do that. And he knew that I had done all the histories in Mum's very good at history. Year twelve. Very good at the quiz. And he said, Look, um, you know, would you be able to just come in or structure the lesson so that it's not every day, it might be three days a week in the morning, something like that. So I went to see my mother-in-law and to ask her grandma if she could look after you for three mornings a week, and she jumped at the chance. I did. Yeah, of course she did.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

And um should have been young, wouldn't I mean grandma would have just about she wouldn't have been very in her 50s, I think. Yeah, she's probably my age. So just to sort of set the scene, um geranium, I probably should have done this at the start. Geranium is a small town, and again, I kind of laugh at this when I'm describing it to people overseas. Really does mean small. So probably when you went there, mum, it had a couple of hundred people. Yes, more students than residents because they came from such a wide area. And when I was at school at Geranium Area School, I went there for 10 years. So an area school is kindergarten to year 12. It had about 300 students when I started, but the town only had about 50 people. It was a big farming community. Um, and my grandparents, we lived on the outskirts of town, and my I mean my grandparents weren't next door, but they might as well have been. They were not far. Easy bike ride or walk, but I suppose at one somebody dropped me off. Oh, yes, yes. I'll dropped you off in the mornings and picked you up at luncheon. Just gonna go through my questions here. Oh, I had a question here about you going back. But so when I was one, so you'd only been out of teaching for a year or so. Yes. And then you went back for what how long was that for? Just that year. Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

And then Christopher was born? Then Christopher was born, and then I started doing the uh occasional um uh relief teaching, a day here and a day there.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

How did you find raising children and mum on the farm, you did the farm books? Was that after granddad died? Yes, it was.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

I didn't do the farm books until the 80s, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

But even so, was there work on the far?

SPEAKER_00 24:52

I laughed.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

I'm only laughing because of course there was work on the farm to do, but I'm just my question is did you find it difficult to be raising? So you you had three children under five? Yes, or four, whatever it was. You had three young children. Dad, um my dad always was a hard worker and he he worked seven days a week, yes, plus church and football. Yes, and what else? Whatever else there was. So did you find that I mean of course you found it hard, but did you find it hard?

SPEAKER_00 25:25

No.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Oh, you didn't find it hard.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Not really. Well, I I avoided working on the farm and and that wasn't hard because uh Peter and his brother worked the farm and they had people your granddad a little bit. Yes, and and they had workmen when uh during the busy time, so I was definitely not part of the workforce.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

But you did you find it hard? I mean, just the housework and looking up, you didn't find any of that hard.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Um it was only hard in the sense that I really had never done any housework before. I'd never brought up any children or been terribly interested in children before, let alone babies. Um but you know, I'm a quick learner. And uh I think I'd been living at in our house at geranium for nearly two years before I worked out somebody was going to have to clean out the gutters when we got to Rachel.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Which wasn't that often in the Mali.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

No, it didn't rain very much. So, yes, you know, the when when you've got a certain level of intelligence, you can put your mind to just about anything, I guess. And uh no, I I I loved it really. I loved that little community where a lot of us had young children that all the same age, and we got together a lot at mothers and babies and all this sort of thing. So yeah, uh, it was good. It was fine.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

And so what about when you were teaching at Lamaru full time in the in the mid to late eighties, whenever that was, nineties, and you had started doing the farm books. Yes. Cooking for shearers. Yes. I'd got and left you and went to boarding school.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Yes, you didn't know how I was going to cope.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Well, mum, I did a bit of work.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

You were very worried.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

I did I did a I did a bit of work.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

Yes, you were very concerned. I was also studying for my degree then, my bachelor, because as I said earlier, it was only a three-year diploma, and um I knew that getting my degree would put me in um a a good stead for staying at staying teaching because around about that time in came the ten-year limit where a teacher could only spend ten years at any given school, and then they had to move. Now, of course, the people that made up that rule all lived in the city, and they were thinking, well, you know, a nails worth to North Adelaide is not that far. But of course, people teaching in the country were scratching their heads and working out how that was going to apply to them. It didn't apply to principals, vice deputy principals, and other members, I really can't remember, but there were some people, it might have been coordinators, but don't quote me. Anyway, literally being quoted, it's a podcast.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Oh sorry, I know. But so tell me though, I'm interested in your workload at that time. How did you find that?

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Like my total workload, motherfucker. Yeah, everything. Everything. Well, I was also studying to do my degree. So um and and Nana lived in Adelaide and she was elderly very uh well. She was getting elderly. She was getting elderly. Um my mother-in-law Shira was a wonderful um support, um, absolutely wonderful. She um especially with looking after uh all three children when I needed to um go to Adelaide for my study, which was um every probably twice a term, I had to spend a weekend of of um practical study um in Adelaide, all that sort of thing mounted up. Um but no, I was organised.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

So do you think did you ever think, oh, if I wasn't a woman this would be easier?

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Well, in a way, but you know what you say about if.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

No, what do you say about if about if if my Oh yeah, no, what that's dad saying if my auntie had balls, she'd be my uncle. Yes. Um so I didn't dwell on that. Um but do you think that that was expected of women? I know it's uh I might just say mum and I are sitting on the bed and it's I'm getting a sore back. Are you getting a sore back?

SPEAKER_00 29:55

No. Oh, aren't you? No, I don't have sore back. What are you doing then? I'm just stretch.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

All right then, Mum. Um, do you do you think it was just expected of women to do all of that, especially in a farming community?

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Yes, it was. Um, and me studying as well as driving half an hour each way to school on a road full of trucks um and sheep crossing. Um yeah, it it was difficult, but I just had the feeling that, well, what do you know, what can I do about it? I'm choosing to do this, I'm choosing to teach, I'm choosing to study, um, I'm choosing to go to Adelaide often to see by that time some of my children lived in Adelaide at boarding school, so that's just what I had to do. Yeah. I do remember Hamish saying to me he was the last one to to be with us, and he he was the only one left, and he said to me once That's that's my youngest brother. He said to me once, I do hope when I get married that my wife won't be as tired as you and I think I used to get very tired.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Yeah. Yeah, because I would um because it was a lot of marking. Oh, I didn't mention that I uh Waterpart Teachers College was w taught primary school teachers, and I expected to be when I got my posting to geranium, as I was expecting to be um a primary teacher, which horrified me. I didn't like little kids much really. Um and then of course I suddenly realised I was told that I would be teaching secondary, senior secondary. Um so that was a lot of marking uh at at night as well as I remember the marking. You remember the marking and the study that I had to do, the essays I had to write. It was all in long hand in those days, no computers. So, yes, I used to get very tired.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

I I remember the weekends in Adelaide when you were studying for your degree. I remember the marking. I remember shearing time was the hardest. It was, that was very busy. Because we on the farm the shearers would stay with us. Yes. And again, if you don't if you don't know what that means, is shearers uh then under their award had to get fed breakfast, oh yes, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner. And just to let you know, like morning tea was always sandwiches and cake. Yes. And lunch was a three-course meal.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

Two, two, lunch was two and dinner was three. That was usually three.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Yeah, and so mum had to cook all of that. Um and I didn't have a dishwasher. But she did have children. I did have children. And the the shears did help us wash up.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Some of the shears were lovely, they used to wash up.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

Yeah, yes. Um, but uh yeah, it was you know, and I think I think you probably I don't know. I mean, looking back, you probably you're saying that you just did it because you had to.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Well you do. Yeah. We were well, there was no no I had no illness or anything, I didn't have anything holding me back physically, so um, and you learn shortcuts with things, and so yeah, that's what happened.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

So do you think dad's life has changed as much as yours did? Just meaning not since we were married. No, just meaning um, you know, when you went to Uni in the Pants thing, you had to resign when you got pregnant.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

Um what comes to my mind is when we were married, the only colour shirt your father had ever worn until then was white. And as I said earlier, fashions were changing a lot, and I persuaded him after a long protracted to and fro argument about wearing a different coloured shirt, and I persuaded him to buy an apricot pink shirt. So that was that was really hard for him. I almost felt sorry, almost, w uh bullying him into wearing a pink shirt. And you'd been bullied into giving up your job. Yes. No, I think that the changes in a m in a farming man's world in those days was all for the good. It was all the technology in farming that was changing, um, which made them uh better farmers. Um it it was that was there was nothing that held them back. Except maybe women's lib. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Well that's what it was called, women's lib.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Yes, it was called women's lib. And all of So you lived in that time. Oh yes. What do you remember from that? Germaine Greer going browless and burning it. She was in London, I think, at the time. Oh yes, and you know what was women's lib?

SPEAKER_01 35:17

It was women I d I hesitate to ask that because we're actually winding up. But tell me tell me what down, we're winding down. What was women's lib? Women's liberation.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Women's liberation was spearheaded by women who who made us, made all women feel that we had more rights than we realized in the way of rights to work and and rights to live the way we want to, um to not get married if we didn't want to, uh rights to um an equal wage, which of course is still not happening. Um it's ten years, the gap. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

The average gap is ten years. Oh, I hear that. Um so just sorry, just meaning that a woman would have to work for ten more years to earn the same wage as a man was. Yes, yeah. And then he would be ten years in front, anyway.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

That's nuts. Um and so in into our world on radio, a little bit on TV, but a lot on I remember women standing up and speaking at and I can't even remember why I was at these gatherings. I guess it was to do with Because you're very social. All that no, but but I you know it was conferences and things. Oh, okay. Teacher conferences, and there'd be these women standing up and and saying, you know, you can you can do this and you can get this job and you can apply and you can, you know, be what you want to be, and we're all sitting there thinking, Well, I I guess so.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

So I mean it is because I guess until that time, if it was just given that you had to resign when you had children, and then and then these women are saying, Well, that's not right, why is because clearly it's not fair. No. Um so you remember going to those conferences and demonstrations?

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Oh yes, I went to demonstrations. Yes. Oh, but that wasn't about women, that was about pay and conditions. Oh well, it wasn't. It was. Yes, we marched down King William Street and made a noise on the steps of Parliament House and got our photos and the appetizer.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

And I guess that was about the time too where um the single mother benefit was introduced. I don't know when that was introduced. No, I don't have to. I'll have to put that in the show notes. And then also the other very important thing was no fault divorce.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

Oh yes, I remember when that came in. Actually, I think that might have been the eighties. Well, it might have been because the demonstrations I went in uh was involved in were the eighties.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

Those particular I mean I I don't have any recollection of that.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

We we I don't think we talked about it at home. Well it was 1987 or eight, the big one.

SPEAKER_01 38:13

And you were eighty seven and eighty-eight I was at boarding school. Yes. But still, like it's funny I don't even remember hearing about it at boarding school.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

No, well.

SPEAKER_01 38:23

So we didn't talk about that at home.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

Well, no, I I didn't really think that anybody at home would be interested. No. I just said I was going to Adelaide today with some friends.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Oh, did you?

SPEAKER_00 38:35

And then my friend turns up in the appetite.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

That's right. That's right. And I guess as we wind up, is there anything else you wanted to say about what it was like growing up as a woman? Um, I mean, I know it's a big question. Like, is there any anything that you wish had been different or easier?

SPEAKER_00 39:02

No, but again, something that comes into mind when I was growing up as a female um were the s the succession um things that happened in families. Do you mean what so we're talking about money when people die? Property. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

When when we hold on to your hats, things are about to get ugly. My family We could talk about this a lot, actually.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

I know. My my family were of of German descent, a long time back, but of German descent. And there were in my dad's family there were four boys and a girl. Now, um the girl got nothing from any will. So that was Auntie Margaret. And that was Auntie Margaret. The boys uh were given lots of Margarets in my family. The boys all went farming except for one. Um, so that was three boys. Uh they were all given farms. I don't think sold farms. I actually think their father split the landholdings up into um equal areas, and dad being the older son got the home the home place, it was called. Um and and that was what happened with a lot of families. The women it was considered that the woman would be married and have financial stability that way. In fact, when we were first married, our local insurance agent came and we no. Well, I don't know quite how that happened. Our local insurance agent came. No, I think it was the will. The man that we went to about our wills, we made new wills. And Peter in his will That's my dad wrote that Oh, I know what's coming. If he died before me, um he he left everything to me. But if he died no, no, if yes, he he left everything to me, but if I remarried, everything automatically went straight to the children.

SPEAKER_01 41:13

And this was common in farming communities, and I think it still is common. Oh yes. Um, because the dead man did not want another man to inherit his property. That's right. So if his his widow remarried, that would mean that an I just sounds so dumb when you talk about it, doesn't it? It is okay. It is okay. But it's actually um a how a lot of the property laws started. Yes. Um, because when after um, you know, when people started domesticating animals and farming crops, they men got all funny about, and it's when they started to regulate who women could have sex with because they really wanted to leave their property to their biological son. Um, you know, and that thing too, mum, I'm I'm only we got I'm only gonna reference this obliquely, but we know of a woman who you're very close to whose husband who's your age, whose husband died, they were on a farm, and she did not inherit anything. No, that's right. That that's happened in the last couple of years. Yes. It all and they're a German family. Yes. And that all went to the sun. Now I think we'll probably say in that case she's being looked after.

SPEAKER_00 42:34

She's being looked after, and by the way, it all went to the son and not the daughter.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

Oh, she didn't care anything.

SPEAKER_00 42:40

No, the daughter. No, nothing.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

Now and this is That better not be happening to me. Um, so that's in the last three years. Yeah, so you know, just it that it's 2026 and in Australia there are farming families, so a woman who was married to someone for 50 or 60 years and helped with the farm and you know, has not been left a thing. Nope. Not a thing. Yeah, I don't know why that's not challenged. She probably could, but doesn't want to.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

Well, the challenge occurred with another family we're very close to when there were five girls and one boy. Oh, I know this one. And and um the father died and left everything to the wife, that's fine. The wife then died, and she left, in accordance with her husband's wishes, left the farm, which was then quite large, to the son. Yeah. And left their little house in geranium that they'd retired in, little two bedroom house, to be split between the the four the f five daughters. Yeah. Now they um Went to a lawyer about this. Oh did they? Oh yes, as much as they loved it. I didn't know that. Yes. As much as they loved their brother. Oh, maybe I did know this. Um they went to a lawyer. Yes, we were friendly with the son. That's right. Um and so they went to a lawyer. It didn't go to court because they had advice from the the lawyers that because they had been left something, therefore it was legitimate. That was obviously the choice of the person who made the will. If they'd been left with nothing, it there might have been a chance of of contesting it. So there you are. Let's leave on a happy note.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

Okay. Um What do you really like about being a woman? I know I hope it's a happy note. Yeah, it's a happy note.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

I like I tell you what I like about being a married woman is that every now and then when th This is a shock to me.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

It's not n sorry dad, it's not it's just Oh God, I can't delete. Delete, delete. Jesum.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

Because I'm married to a very strong-minded man, as you know. Stop it. And every now and then when things just get beyond me, or I'm overwhelmed about something, yeah, and I don't know what to do, I know that I can just leave it all to Peter and he'll do something. And that's very comforting. Because I'm not a bloke. I just I think women don't think like blokes in lots of ways. Um, and that's probably too much of a generalization to finish on, but no, I I quite like that. I can go to bed with a headache and read a book while it all gets fixed by by my husband. That's nice. Mind it doesn't happen very often. I was gonna say, when was the last time that happened?

SPEAKER_01 46:00

No, no, it does happen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Um uh is there anything else you want to say to the listeners? Oh look, I'm sure any listeners who are still awake.

unknown 46:12

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 46:13

This is a long podcast, it's normally not this long. Thank you so much for listening. I've really enjoyed this. I've loved it actually. I'll be I'll be poking Catherine to to have another go at something.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

Oh, yeah, we'll talk about other things. That'll be lovely. Thanks, Catherine. No worries, mum. Thanks for I was gonna say thanks for listening. Thanks for talking to me. Okay.