Farewell to a socialist feminist rebel

BY DEBBIE BRENNAN

Delia Maxwell, socialist
feminist fighter and a member of Radical Women and the Socialist Alliance,
lost her battle against cancer on November 2. Born in 1932, Delia's life
spanned much of the turbulent 20th century. Always a fighter for a better
world, she inspired others to join the struggle.

Delia was radicalised by the anti-communist witchhunts of the 1950s.
Becoming active in the campaign to defeat the Communist Party Dissolution
Bill, she commenced her career as a socialist feminist organiser.

Delia loved politics, art, food and people, seeing them as inseparable.
She put as much into making preserves for Radical Women fundraising as
into rallying for justice or defending a picket line. She was the embodiment
of what Lenin meant when he said that “every revolutionary must learn to
cook and every cook must learn to make a revolution”.

Struggle was certainly the theme of her life. In the 1960s, government
discrimination forced her to leave her teaching job and raise three children
at home, but didn't stop her from marching in the anti-Vietnam War moratoriums.

As a staunch unionist, Delia was a mainstay in a fierce battle between
teachers and the union-busting management of Melbourne's Northern Metropolitan
Institute of TAFE. When management victimised her, Delia wouldn't let the
bastards beat her, staying until she was ready to go. Her retirement
party was a huge victory celebration.

After “retirement”, Delia led VCE examination markers in a fight for
decent pay and conditions.

Delia was excited by the protests against corporate globalisation and
wouldn't let cancer keep her away from M1 protests, on May Day this year.
Although gravely ill, she was determined to do her part to get the Socialist
Alliance on the ballot for the Victorian election.

Delia Maxwell was a feminist class warrior. Her spirit of rebellion
and optimism will never leave our side as we carry on what she worked toward
all her life: a world free from sexism, racism, homphobia, environmental
degradation and inequality. Thank you, dear Comrade Delia!

From Green Left Weekly, November 13, 2002.

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From GLW issue 516