Zelda

Discover the fierce, honest autobiography of Zelda D'Aprano, one of Australia's most relentless grassroots activists and pioneering voices for women's liberation.

Raised in a working-class immigrant household in Melbourne during the Great Depression, Zelda D'Aprano navigated poverty, factory labor, and domestic hardship before stepping into the forefront of political agitation. When systemic wage discrimination blocked female workers from receiving equal compensation, she took radical direct action by chaining herself to the doors of the Commonwealth Building in 1969, igniting a national push for workplace justice and bodily autonomy.

Through unsparing reflections and archival insight, this expanded edition of Zelda provides a vital historical record of grassroots movement-building, examining:
The harsh realities of mid-twentieth-century factory machining and labor exploitationThe formation of the Women's Action Committee and foundational street protestsInternal debates across trade unions, communist politics, and feminist consciousness-raisingThe vital need to preserve working women's personal histories from patriarchal erasure
Essential reading for labor historians, feminist scholars, and anyone fighting for gender equity and workers' rights.