The Australian Women's Register

5 sound files. Marisa O’Halloran talks about her family background; her father being a post-war refugee from Fiume, Italy; Bonegilla migrant camp; her parents marriage; her father’s WWII experiences and stories, ethnic cleansing; family relationships; Italian customs during childhood, grappa making, roasting chestnuts; her mother’s rural life and country upbringing in Mansfield, Vic.; her grandparent’s farm in Mansfield; her earliest memories of living in Altona, Vic.; childhood activities; father’s small business; parenthood; Italian food, family meals together; her education; home activities; growing up in the 1980s; gender roles; farming, work; intergenerational relationships; sport; multiculturalism; adolescence; recreation; her ambition to study environmental science at university; the transition from high school to university; alcohol, pub culture; HECS scheme; part-time work; meeting future husband and marriage; agricultural science; global markets; the decline of family farming; relationships; travel; skiing in Mansfield; the European and Italian presence on the Victorian ski fields; city/country divide; sustainability; wild dog trapping; compares Italian and Australian culture; how both she and her husband got a job in the Mallee region working on research projects for the Dept. of Primary Industries. O’Halloran discusses the challenges of being female, in a male-dominated farming industry; moving for work to Shepparton, Vic.; pregnancy and parenting; the purchase of a property near Tatura, home ownership; establishment of the farm; her different mode of parenting; motherhood; husband’s work as a full-time as a soil scientist and farming; food production; the challenges of farming; rural communities; Murray Darling Basin Report; Australian politics; solar panels; identity; sexism; the changing roles for women over time; balancing work and motherhood, return to work plans; key events in her lifetime; September 11, terrorism; Generation Y; the tough times her parents endured, drought, war.