The Australian Women's Register

As a young journalist Joan Williams learned about the organisational strategies operating within the European peace and women’s movements and began a lifetime involvement with Perth’s left-wing intelligentsia. Committed to initiating social change through public education Williams joined the Communist Party in 1939 drawn in by their concerns for social justice, women’s equality and opposition to war and fascism. Joan Williams’ activism spanned over fifty years. She was a foundation member of the Modern Women’s Club, the Western Australian Council for Equal Pay and Opportunity and the International Women’s Day Committee. In the 1950s Williams’ focus shifted to the concern for nuclear disarmament and, joining forces with the members of the Union of Australian Women, she established a locally based Waterside Workers Federation Women’s Committee to support strike action occurring at the time. In the early 1970s Williams became a foundation member of Women’s Liberation and the Women’s Electoral Lobby.