AustLit

Zelda D'Aprano was born of Italian and Jewish background. She left school at 14 and married at 16. In 1963 when she was 37 she returned to school and completed the Leaving Certificate. She has qualifications for dental nursing (1961)and chiropody (1967). Her working life includes 15 years as a dental nurse at Larundel Psychiatric Hospital, and stints as a clerk in the Meat Industry Union, a mail sorter and a machinist in a clothing factory. D'Aprano was a member of the Communist Party of Australia 1950-1971, and an initiator of both the Women's Action Committee in 1970, and the Women's Liberation Movement in Melbourne in 1971. In 1969 she chained herself across the doors of the Commonwealth Building in protest against the decision of the 1969 Equal Pay case. She fought for better conditions for pregnant women in the workplace, and fought against drinking laws that discriminated against women. She championed the rights of workers through her involvement in various left-wing organisations. D'Aprano helped establish the Women's Liberation Centre in Little Latrobe St, Melbourne and was the Women's Liberation Movement representative on the 1975 International Women's Year committee. She has written numerous articles for magazines, plus her own autobiography, Zelda : The Becoming of a Woman which reflects the vulnerability of growing up in an immigrant family. She has also penned a biography of Kath Williams, called Kath Williams - The Unions and the Fight for Equal Pay. In 1995 she received a Special Mention Award from the Centre for Australian Cultural Studies (Canberra), and in 2000 she received an honorary Doctorate of Laws from Macquarie University.