“We’re Not Afraid of the ‘F Word”: Storying Our Voices and Experiences of Women and Gender Studies in Australian Universities

© 2014 by the board of trustees of the university of ill inois I could tell her house from the others as soon as I turned down the street—a modest bluestone cottage in an inner suburb of Melbourne, complete with a rambling front garden of roses, lavender, alyssum, and daisies. I had not had time to think about meeting her, but now that the moment was approaching, I felt extremely nervous. As far as women’s liberation went, she was the “real deal,” and the opportunity to interview her felt like a once in a lifetime occasion. The iron gate squeaked as I opened it, and not wanting to make any more noise than necessary, I hesitantly pressed the doorbell. Moments later, a delicately framed woman with white hair came to the door. “Hi . . . Merle? I’m Liz,” I said and reached forward to introduce myself. She took my hand and gently kissed my cheek. “Welcome to my home,” Merle said and gestured for me to come inside. We walked down a narrow corridor to the end of the house, the walls lined with black and white family photos and more recent colour snaps of her children and grandchildren. Nodding for me to sit down, Merle placed herself on a wooden chair opposite. “Before we begin,” she spoke quietly and with authority, “I am curious to know how and why it is that you come to be here with me in my dining room?” Some of us might know Merle Thornton as the mother of Sigrid Thornton (a well-known Australian actor); as the feisty feminist who famously chained herself to the bar at the Regatta hotel in Brisbane in 1965 for women’s right to drink and inhabit the same public social spaces as men (Thornton, “Our Chains”); or perhaps as the political activist who fiercely and “We’re Not Afraid of the ‘F Word”: Storying Our Voices and Experiences of Women and Gender Studies in Australian Universities