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ROCHELLE SIEMIENOWICZ
Blurry but not forgotten. Credit: Barbara Creed
‘You canʼt make change without making trouble,ʼ says documentary filmmaker
Catherine Dwyer about what sheʼs learnt from the feminist activists of the late ‘60s and
early ‘70s. They were the fed-up women who changed Australian society forever, and
the subject of her debut film currently in production, Brazen Hussies.
Dwyer herself looks and sounds nothing like a brazen hussy or a troublemaker. The
gendered nature of profile-writing makes me want to note that she looks very young,
she's quietly spoken and perhaps a little shy, admitting over a latte on a chilly
Melbourne morning that this is her first interview with a journalist.
But would we describe a male documentary filmmaker that way? That's part of the
problem.
There's an evident determination and a confidence in Dwyer's mission, and even some
measured anger. ‘Weʼre discouraged from being angry or making trouble,ʼ she says.
‘As women weʼre taught to smile and be nice and pleasant, but thatʼs why this film is
so important – to be reminded of how change happens through ordinary people
actually making trouble.ʼ
A red-hot sizzle reel of archival footage has just been released to promote the
upcoming documentary. Hereʼs a moment worth savouring:
‘What youʼre really saying is that you men are superior in every way to
all women?ʼ asks the interviewer in her 1970s BBC-Australian accent.
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This is just one of many entertaining and instructive zingers. We also see women baring
their breasts, chaining themselves to bars, marching with placards, and speaking out in
parliament. Familiar feminist faces like Anne Summers and Germaine Greer appear
alongside Indigenous activists like Naomi Mayers and Isabel Coe. Most intriguingly of
all, a young Elizabeth Reid, the Womenʼs Advisor to the Whitlam government, and the
first person to hold such a role in the world, speaks to the media with her childʼs head
resting on her shoulder. This all feels like documentary gold, and you wonder why the
ABC didnʼt make it years ago. These being the times we live in, a fundraising campaign
is underway to finish the thing.
The money raised will finance the interviewing of key figures from the womenʼs
liberation movement. Itʼs a little awkward to say it out loud, but thereʼs an urgency to
talk to them before more of them die. ‘Weʼve already lost so many,ʼ said Dwyer, ‘and I
live with constant anxiety that weʼre not going to get to them in time.ʼ
Some of the interviews have already been completed, and Dwyer herself has
researched extensively and sourced the archival footage. ‘I love hunting for footage. Itʼs
like hunting for treasure,ʼ she says, noting that the ABC news archives had been
fantastic, but also already well-utilised and therefore familiar. Some of the most
interesting rarely seen material came from more obscure sources. These included the
Super 8 ho me movies of Melbourne film academic and feminist Barbara Creed,
capturing womenʼs marches and the intersecting gay rights movement.
Catherine Dwyer may be a first-time writer-director, but sheʼs no stranger to vivid and
inspiring footage of women fighting for equality. She served as an editor and post-
production producer on Mary Doreʼs 2014 Brooklyn-made documentary about second
wave feminism in the United States, Sheʼs Beautiful When Sheʼs Angry. That film was a
sold-out audience favourite when it screened at the Melbourne International Film
Festival in 2015 and it was through those screenings, where she appeared as a Q&A
guest, that Dwyer met up with Sue Maslin (at a Women in Film & Television screening
of The Dressmaker) and pitched the idea of an Australian version.
‘Working on Sheʼs Beautiful When Sheʼs Angry was my first proper film job, my first
credit as assistant editor, and it was so inspiring. It made me wonder what had
happened back here in Australia at that time,ʼ says Dwyer. ‘I was worried it had already
been done. People have definitely been trying over the years, but they were told
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nobody would be interested. The fact it never got made has a lot to do with how
difficult it is for women to have their stories told.ʼ
The 36-year-old Dwyer grew up in Perth, the daughter of a feminist academic, but
came to Melbourne when she was 18 to do ‘a highly theoretical Bachelor of Arts at
Melbourne Uni.ʼ Sheʼd always been interested in cinema, storytelling and feminism, but
spent some years ‘lostʼ in admin and hospitality jobs before she moved to New York,
where she completed an editing course and applied for an internship on Sheʼs Beautiful
When Sheʼs Angry. Mary Dore (who spent more than 20 years getting her own film
made) has become a mentor. ‘Iʼm going to use what I learnt on that project to do it
over here with our particular story,ʼ Dwyer says, and is unashamedly ‘leveragingʼ her
film off the previous filmʼs proven audience potential. Sheʼs hoping that more funding
will allow her to quit her freelance editing and café jobs and focus full time on making
the film.
Thereʼs a lot more than an Aussie accent to distinguish the Australian experience of
second wave feminism from the US version. Apart from kicking off a few years later,
our feminist uprising coincided with a supportive government. ‘It was a very interesting
time here,ʼ says Dwyer, ‘because unlike in the US with Richard Nixon, we actually had
a Prime Minister who was taking women seriously and actually embracing the womenʼs
movement, and he appointed a Womenʼs Advisor for the first time. There was a
shortlist of very impressive women on it like Anne Summers and Eva Cox, but it went to
Elizabeth Reid and she was very famous at the time.ʼ
It turns out this wasnʼt an enviable or easy role for Reid, yet so much got accomplished
in that short time of the Whitlam government. ‘The single motherʼs pension, the family
law act that meant no fault divorce, and there used to be a 27 per cent luxury tax on
contraceptives which Whitlam abolished in his first three days,ʼ said Dwyer. She notes
that as a young feminist herself, before doing this research, she was quite ignorant of
the movers and shakers of the time, and of the vast gains that were made so quickly.
Our fight is not about being women, but about being Indigenous.”ʼ
History is so quickly forgotten, especially when itʼs female. For all the social and political
gains women have made, weʼre still living through the #MeToo moment. ‘This is what
young feminists are fighting for now,ʼ says Dwyer. ‘The ability to tell womenʼs stories
and have them taken seriously. Who has the authority to speak? Who is seen as
worthy of speaking and telling a story, and of being believed?ʼ
Knowing our history, and being inspired by it, is part of that process. As Dwyer writes in
her directorʼs statement, ‘Like the women of the second- wave whoʼd almost forgotten
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the history of the suffragettes, we need to be reminded of the legacy of this incredible
era.ʼ
Brazen Hussies sounds like one of those documentaries that needs to be made sooner
rather than later. Dwyer hopes it will be ready to show the world by the second half of
2019. If you feel like supporting the project, the fundraising page at the Documentary
Australia Foundation is here.
First published on
Rochelle Siemienowicz is a journalist for Screenhub. She is a writer, film critic and
cultural commentator with a PhD in Australian cinema. She is now the the co-host of
Australia's longest running film podcast 'Hell is for Hyphenates'. She has written a
memoir, Fallen, published by Affirm Press. You can follow her musings on Australian
film and television on Twitter @Milan2Pinsk.