This an autobiographical extract by Elizabeth Williams is taken from Different Lives – Reflections on the Women’s Movement and Visions of its Future, Penguin Books, Melbourne, Australia, 1987 (Jocelynne A. Scutt, ed.).
'Aboriginal First, Woman Second'
by Elizabeth Williams
"In 1972, I was eighteen years old, pregnant, and living in a housing commission flat in Sydney with my mother. Before becoming pregnant I worked as an office girl for Willow Ware kitchen suppliers. I had not heard of the women’s movement. My knowledge of it as a force came some years later.
I was raised the youngest of fifteen children and was told I was as good as anyone else and usually better. I am more assertive than other members of my family and it is probably true that a certain aggressive consciousness of identity tolerated in my time was not tolerated earlier. I profited from the time I was born into. And these days young Aboriginal people are much more aware, a welcome sign.
During 1973-75 I lived in a de facto relationship in Sydney, then decided to move to Wagga Wagga to improve my lifestyle and that of my child, particularly our housing. I also wanted to escape a failed relationship. The move was the beginning of a whole new existence for me. At this time my only income was the supporting mother’s benefit.
Then I was fortunate to get the health worker’s position at Griffith in New South Wales. The job was with the Health Commission and I worked with the local Aboriginal people and those living in the outer-lying areas. Working with my own people gave me a sense of well-being and fulfilment I had not previously experienced.
I gained insight into the problems of Aboriginal people, and being involved in helping meant I enjoyed the work tremendously, despite constant exposure to deprivation and inhuman conditions. I felt I was doing something real to help.
You can understand the local black community of Griffith being a little upset that a black from Wagga (some 150km away) should be selected a health worker in their area. This problem was quickly overcome.
My name was a great help: Williams can be an advantage (and sometimes not) in Aboriginal communities from the Northern Territory to Western Australia. I had some hassles with the white office staff, but was sure to let them know I considered myself the expert and would not allow them to make me a puppet. My attitude made the blacks proud.
The community I worked in suffered beyond human endurance, subjected to all that is preventable. Health problems were, and remain, many. Heart disease, liver disorders, middle ear infection, malnutrition, alcoholism. Overcrowding in the ten small cottages well below standard was as high as twenty-five to one house – a conservative figure.
The women were obviously the stronger of the two sexes. The families were kept together with the best know-how possible on the women’s part, but to see the hardship was saddening and frustrating.
I was humbled on many occasions. One man in particular, an alcoholic, would always send for me when he needed to get to hospital. He wouldn’t go for anyone else. It didn’t matter how drunk or how sick, where he was, or what time. He knew I’d make sure he got the right treatment – by that I mean treated like a human being as well as having his physical needs taken care of. Each time he recovered, he would bring me something to say ‘thank you’ and tell me there should be more like me. He died. So too did others, young and old. Deaths upset me and made me angry, especially when small efforts could have saved life...
Then, in 1980, I decided to marry. I had to resign and move to Canberra with my husband. He, bless him, is not only white but a welfare officer. Among many Aboriginal people this automatically gives him an approval rating of about three, on a scale of one to ten. Never mind. We are quite happy and have a lovely black (well, almost) baby.
Living in Queanbeyan, near Canberra, in that year a group of us set out to show a different side to young blacks. Always we’ve been promoted on postcards, tea-towels or coasters standing on one leg leaning on a spear and (not forgetting) with a kangaroo. While holding our culture in high regard, we are tired of being seen only in that way. We set out to show just how beautiful black can be, organising a black modelling show. The women’s movement didn’t grant full support, the reasons probably being cosmetic beauty is not desirable if you are a woman. (A little like not wearing a bra to prove a point and suffering the physical pain of being a little too large.)
Our aim was to show we are able to achieve in any field. We taught basic modelling and staged a fashion parade with an audience of 700 at a local shopping centre. It was a proud moment. All our models looked superb and carried off the show with great style. Although it didn’t go on to bigger things, we proved a point. And we aren’t ready yet for the world of big fashion. It’s hard at this stage to worry too much about the clothing that makes the body look extra good, when it’s difficult to feed the body to be healthy.
It’s one thing to get a job in an Aboriginal organisation, but it can be daunting for an Aboriginal to apply for a job in an all-white organisation, in competition with able white applicants.
When I applied for the position of co-ordinator with the Queanbeyan City Council family daycare programme I was unsure of myself. The post had never been held by a black. But the council showed their good sense in selecting me. Working with the programme, apart from the commitment I have to everyday questions and the direction of activities, I believe this appointment will stand me in good stead when I return to an Aboriginal organisation, which I intend to do eventually: my life should be there, doing what I can.
During my time as co-ordinator I’ve taken on another role, becoming something of an Aboriginal liaison person: Aboriginal people come to me for help and advice, and I can help through what I have learnt of the system...
In December 1981, I was appointed by the Minister for Health as director on the Queanbeyan Hospital Board. My experience in community work and being Aboriginal helped. The following year, in December, I was nominated as chairperson by two other women directors, and was elected by majority. I had no idea of the flack in store for me.
My election upset a few people – some on the board. At that December meeting the tension was high. I was stunned. This was the first time I had experienced such strong feelings against me. I asked the chief executive officer to continue chairing the remainder of the meeting.
My election as chairperson of the board of Queanbeyan Hospital upset a few people... The board wasn’t to meet again until February 1983, due to the Xmas break. That left me two months to prepare myself for the big test. Being a small community, news travels fast. People I thought would be happy with my new appointment now presented a complete turnabout. Some showed outright rudeness, ignoring me. Some were disgusted I would even consider myself capable of performing the duties of chairperson. Others urged me to resign. To avoid further abuse I found myself walking the back streets and staying home.
Just when I thought calm had arrived, I received a letter from my predecessor. My first reaction on reading it was shock. I read it many times before the words sank in. Before the letter arrived, I was under tremendous pressure to resign. Now I was angry. This man had such a nerve to send me what was an awful letter. Little did he realise his words would have the opposite effect of what he intended. I would now do the job and do it well, in fact better than any of my white male predecessors.
I received support from my husband and family. They along with the black community are very proud of me. The four women voting for me on the board were supportive, as well as some women outside, members of the women’s movement. Although I strongly appreciated their support, I knew that the order in which I had it was as woman, then as black, then the democratic vote, while I at all times am black first, woman second, then the democratic vote.
This was the first time a black Australian had held the position of chairperson of a hospital board. In the past, our only position in any hospital was as patients (if we were allowed in) or domestic staff, cleaning the floors and treated very much like the trash we cleaned. It’s a jump from the floors to the head of the table. I consider my appointment a great advancement for the Aboriginal cause and hope many will follow my lesson, learnt through this ordeal: that opinion has not changed. It’s still very clear that if you’re black and don’t rock the boat, you might be suffered, as a token. I am not a token, and won’t be.
Over the years the Catholic church has funded me as a delegate to their Justice and Peace conferences. I was with our renowned Mum Shirl [Smith] visiting the Sisters of Justice Mercy Convent in Canberra when asked to represent them at a seminar in Perth, Western Australia. I thought about being bogged down with religion and nearly decided not to go. I need not have worried. No one tried to convert me and I came home with lots of new-found knowledge. I presume I’m invited to the conferences for my provocative viewpoint; I know it is not for my religious background.
At the Western Australian conference I saw at first hand just how badly blacks are treated in that state. We were to spend a day visiting organisations such as St Vincent de Paul and the Salvation Army, half-way houses. I had no interest in seeing these places and went to as many Aboriginal organisations as I could. My days there showed me a lot. I visited the Aboriginal Legal Service office and from there, Bob Riley was my guide for the remainder of the time. The Perth Children’s Court had sixteen courts in session at once and mainly all Aboriginal kids. Their treatment was appalling. It seemed common practice for police to lock them into lockers and bash the outside with bats.
We went to a settlement roughly 5 kilometres from inner-city Perth. Five vans had been donated by a mining company – with one toilet, one washing tub, one shower and one light to service all the families living in the vans. That visit above all was upsetting. The babies were sick. The adults showed such loss it is difficult to describe. They are terrorised by police. The young women are raped; bashings are common. Just a little way through the scrub was a park area where the practising Klansmen bashed Aboriginal people to the point of death. I was devastated with what I saw. I met a woman about forty years old, who thought I could do something. If only I could. It was hard for her to understand I was there for my own interest, and was not connected to a higher power, or its messenger.
After visiting Western Australia, I think we over here in the eastern states of Australia don’t have any problems at all. To see such apathy about the destruction of Aboriginal culture was so clear in WA, even more so than in the Northern Territory or South Australia. Although bad throughout the country, that destruction showed dramatically in Western Australia.
Later, for a conference in Alice Springs the one memory that stays with me is that the locals consider us of the quarter-caste or half-caste to be white. A strange feeling for me – then I knew what it felt to be of no race at all. It is a sad day when blacks reject you because of your percentage of white blood, however small.
In some ways I have adopted the women’s movement and in some ways the movement has adopted me. This has been to my advantage on occasions, but I dare say it works both ways, and the advantage has been reciprocated. I appreciated the support of feminists through the hospital board episode, and their continuing solidarity. But it helps the feminist movement to have me to promote to the position.
Though I know some strong and caring feminists, I have some negative thoughts also. Thinking about the way the women’s movement operates, having worked with women’s refuges, it seems to me that the obvious good of having refuges is often spoiled by ‘feminist’ power plays and double-dealing. Amongst the enlightened and liberated women of the ‘movement’, there continue to be patronisers and those who would use Aboriginals for their own purposes...
I am determined to help bring about a more sharing and equitable society; agitation by women and blacks has led the way to achieving the goal. The knowledge and skills I am developing in the white world will be useful when it is time for me to return to working with black Australians. I am learning skills through feminist friends, too. Still, I believe that black Australia’s main concern, women or men, is racism, not sexism."
