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Wollongong women active on campus

13 March 1996

By Nikki Ulasowski WOLLONGONG -- Fifty women attended the year's first women's collective meeting at Wollongong University. The meeting discussed ideas of what the collective should be and what campaigns should be organised. Ideas flowed, such as campaigns for increased child-care, against sexual assault and violence, for freedom of reproductive choice and to explain what feminism is. The following day a further 11 people attended the Reclaiming Feminism meeting organised by the socialist youth organisation, Resistance. The women's officer of the Student Representative Council, Megan Chisholm, told Green Left Weekly, "The first collective meeting showed that there are a lot of women on campus who want to be active and start organising. The women's collective can facilitate that. "We will be able to do anything that women want to organise. I want to encourage all women to get involved. This helps to increase skills; it empowers women. It is important for young women to see what feminism is about, to see that we need to do something instead of being complacent." One of the key activities will be fundraising to send women students to the Network of Women Students in Australia conference (NOWSA), which will be held during July in Perth. Chisholm commented, "NOWSA is really important; it aids as a networking source as well as empowering women students and encouraging activism. "Once upon a time women didn't have the right to vote or equal pay legislation. Women in the past won these rights through action. Today women still don't have reproductive rights as well as so many other basic needs, which stops women from controlling our own destinies. Feminism is about claiming identity for women and continuing the struggle for our rights."

This article was posted on the Green Left Weekly Home Page.
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