Zelda

Zelda D’Aprano

Our house was a single-fronted cottage in the slum area of Carlton. There were no distinctive features to differentiate it from most of the small cottages ...

Zelda D'Aprano, a working-class woman at the forefront of the Women's Liberation Movement in Australia, shows in her autobiography the same raw spirit she evidenced when chaining herself to the Commonwealth Building in Melbourne to protest unequal pay on 21 October 1969. The life of a remarkable woman who often battled alone for what women today take for granted.

Zelda is a moving, down-to-earth recounting of the past, an insightful criticism of how society is structured and reminds us of the exuberance of the Women's Liberation Movement.

Zelda was at the forefront of a new era of women’s social and political activism. Here, in her own proud, defiant and charismatic voice, Zelda shows why she was a hero — and why she remains an icon —of the struggle for our collective rights and freedoms.

—Professor Clare Wright OAM

Zelda is a classic in Australian political history and women’s history, whose re-publication by Spinifex is warmly welcomed.
In this eloquent autobiography, written in the 1970s, leading women’s liberationist Zelda D’Aprano tells her personal story of how trade union activism led her to a deep understanding of women’s oppression and how to mobilise against it. Zelda was a courageous, gutsy, working class woman, whose passionate commitment helped achieve key reforms for women including equal pay and economic justice.

—Professor Marilyn Lake AO

1995 | ISBN 9781875559305 | Paperback | 200 x 130 mm | 408 pp