Feminism – Lismore Women’s Group Standing Tall Together

“Upwardly Socially Mobile….”

The magnificent women in this group are: Back Row-Helen Colbourne, Jillian Delaille. Judith Light, Brenda Shero, Kereith Power. Front row: Bess Dwyer, Mim Adamson, Julia Stewart, Judy David, Margrette Young, Beth Hansen and Libby (help me?)

Judith Light pre-release of debut poetic memoir Judy’s Journey to Light. Here are two photos of the original Lismore Women’s Group that Judith credits for saving her life and accompanying her through the Hawkesbury Agricultural College Diploma of Social Communication and their discovery of feminism and the joy of a sisterhood.

The poem is titled – Life or the Box pp.148

LIFE OR THE BOX?

(Discovering other women. Dedicated to the Lismore Women’s Group 1978)

There were times of dreams

put down as ‘silly, girlish schemes.’

‘Forget such rot. And heed our, should not.’

I learnt to see, all the limits on me.

Welcomed the box.

Sat safe in the dark; learnt to stay small

(there’s no love for the tall.)

‘If you are Little and Lady, I’ll love you.

Quiet and pretty is fine.

Snuggled into my broad shoulder,

upon my knee. You’ll be MINE.

We will make music together; you can dance to

MY heartbeat.

You are my ego’s fodder.

When you look good and be sweet.

Came a whispered learning.

A sister-shared surprise,

reaching out from peer yearning,

I started, at last, to rise.

Out came the ugly duckling,

brought alive by the magic ‘me-too.’

Caring and sharing from others,

antidote to the scorn of brothers.

WOMAN POWER!

Bursting through.

I want to tell you, and thank you,

you sisters who helped me to grow.

Together we shattered the myths and the lies.

Broke out of that box and reached for the skies.

Lit up ignorant night, released Pandora’s flight.

Together, we DID. We lifted the lid.

And now.

If my brother wants me.

It’s going to have to be a brother,

who can stand beside

the GIANT that is me!

Footnote:

Not only thanks to my wonderful women friends from the Lismore

Women’s Group, but to the only counselor available in those days

to see me through my divorce.

Beloved Harry Freeman – head psychiatrist of the Richmond Clinic

psych hospital.

It was he who said, ‘You need a PEER group.’

To which I replied, ‘Where am I going to find a peer group?’

And he said, ‘You are a woman, aren’t you?’

Coincidentally the Lismore Women’s Group was announced in the

Echo Newspaper.

Joining this group was one of the most powerful steps