The Australian Women's Register

Aileen Beaver left high school aged 14 and has been a union activist all her working life.

Towards the end of the 60s Aileen Beaver decided to seek work in the metal industry in a successful effort to build support for a campaign to reintroduce equal pay in that industry. Women metal workers had been given equal pay during the second World War ‘to protect men’s jobs’, but this was removed when the war ended. She is credited as a writer and performer in the 1975 documentary ‘Don’t Be Too Polite Girls’ which addressed these issues.

At the first Women’s Liberation Working Women’s Conference in Melbourne, Aileen tabled questionnaires completed by women in her Malleys workshop. The data revealed that women workers were often as concerned about being treated with respect as workers as they were about pay.

Another measure of her success was her role as secretary of the Shop Committee in the male-dominated workforce at Malleys. She was also active in the Building Workers’ Women’s Committee, and the Working Women’s Group of Women’s Liberation. Equal pay, peace, abortion rights, childcare and International Women’s Day were prominent in the activities of the groups in which she worked. While at Malleys, in cooperation with Turkish women in the community, Aileen also successfully campaigned to establish a childcare centre in Auburn for their children.

She retired to the Blue Mountains where she remained a diligent activist and advocate for the regeneration of natural bushland.