I was born into the bosom of the Australian women's liberation movement, suckled on the milk of feminism and nurtured by an array of urbanite women in 1980s Sydney.
So I can only imagine their collective horror when a few years ago, in my 30s, I shacked up with a farmer schoolteacher (a male one), had two children in quick succession and sank into a quagmire of domestic drudgery in regional NSW.
There, I joined my local branch of the Country Women's Association (CWA), arguably the nation's most powerful and conservative women's group.
I hesitated to mention my new membership to my staunchly feminist mother.
But it turns out that the CWA may have more in common with women's lib than I'd imagined.
And perhaps more than either camp realises too.
Feminist success through direct action
My mother, Martha Ansara, arrived in Australia from the USA in 1969. In her suitcase were pamphlets with titles like "Only the Chains Have Changed".
She formed a group in Glebe, Sydney for consciousness raising, where women inspected their lives and shared discoveries about the nature of patriarchy.
By 1970, they were holding packed public meetings and debating issues and policies at women's liberation conferences.
Mum remembers the first conference as "chaotic, often polemical and severe". She laughs when she remembers the "Melbourne black leather jacket guard" who denounced make-up and knitting, and whom Mum thought might line up the moderates for underarm hair inspections.
The "Women's Movement", as Mum calls it, set up the first refuges for women experiencing domestic violence, as well as rape crisis and women's health centres. They agitated for childcare and maternity leave, and the right to contraception and abortion.
Envoys were sent to lobby newly formed units in the Whitlam government, seeking equal pay and jobs in male-dominated spheres.
This movement was strongly connected to the anti-war movement and Mum met the man who would be my dad when he was raising funds for his anti-nuclear protest boat.
In true free-love form, Dad happened to be married to someone else. And as he skippered the Pacific Peacemaker with his wife and family across the globe, my mother's belly expanded until I was born in 1982.
Mum has always marched to the beat of her own militant drum. Her three children, each born 10 years apart, all have different dads. In our kitchen, political and community meetings took precedence over family meals. And my strongest childhood memories are of attending protests and handing out leaflets on street corners.
And although I never received a formal education in gender studies or feminist theory, every step of my journey into womanhood was steeped in the community of women's liberation.
The sisterhood of the CWA
The town of Moruya, on NSW's far south coast in Yuin Country, is scenically beautiful. But as a stay-at-home mother in a small town, I found it an isolating place to move to.
So I did the only thing I knew to do: I joined a women's group.
And the only women's group in town is the Country Women's Association.
I found my local branch via their craft shop. Within, there was a trove of domestic treasures my mother never had the time or skill to make: crocheted hot water bottle covers, soft yellow baby booties, marmalades and chutneys.
Behind the shop, there's the tearoom, where volunteers serve egg and lettuce sandwiches, lemon slices and polite conversation on Saturday mornings.
When I signed up, I was the youngest member by 20 years. I sat in the tearoom, listening to the older members' yarning as I attempted my own crafting projects, and I learnt about the history of the CWA.
In 1922, decades before "Sisterhood is Powerful" became a slogan of feminism, the "sisterhood" of the CWA came into being.
The isolation faced by rural women early last century, the backbreaking work endured on farms, the need to travel enormous distances for supplies and socialisation, the fear of death in childbirth and minimal access to medical services prompted the first Bushwomen's Conference.
The conference was a great success and the CWA began, first in NSW with the other states following in quick succession.
In the first ten years of the CWA, membership grew to over 14,000. By the 1950s, the association was peaking, with over 30,000 members.
Its members worked tirelessly to fundraise for baby health care centres, the building and staffing of maternity wards, hospitals, schools, rest homes, libraries and seaside respite cottages.
Its grassroots structure means that branch members' issues can become CWA policies that the executive of the association advocates for at the highest levels of government.
And because of the history and lineage of the organisation — namely polite, upright women of conservative, regional stock — the CWA always gets a seat at the political table.
Many issues that the CWA has lobbied for over the past 100 years are now things we take for granted. These include white lines on the outer edges of our roads, the 0.05 blood alcohol limit, curbing on footpaths for prams, seatbelts on buses and compulsory helmets on motorcycles.
There's more: the labelling of genetically modified food, the banning of petroleum exploration licences on agricultural land, the legalisation of medical marijuana and the establishment of specially trained police forces in places with high levels of domestic violence.
Yet lobbying for women's issues does not a feminist group make.
In the 1930s, the CWA had no argument with the term "feminist", but in that era the word meant something rather different. At the time, it was said that the deepest purpose of feminism was to guard our nation's democracy and provide security for its children.
This sentiment was aligned with the CWA's role in the fostering of "womanhood" and the centrality of "the home" and the homemaker. And this aspect of the organisation remains strong.
However, for many in the CWA today, the term "feminist" suggests a radical rejection of the "feminine" that is still foundational to the principles and activities of the association.
Shared values
In the 1970s as society began to change, the membership of the CWA began to wane. There are various hypotheses for this, but the impact of the women's liberation movement is undeniable.
Yet, as the CWA celebrates its centenary this year, it still has an important role to play, particularly for women in regional communities.
I intend to continue to be a member.
While the women of the Moruya branch craft things that I could only dream of making, it is my organising and community building skills, handed down to me by my feminist mother, that I'll use to best serve the association.
Indeed the lessons from Mum and the women's liberation movement are many: the importance of service to one's chosen community, that grassroots democracy is the foundation of good process, that our successes come from standing on the shoulders of giantesses and that respect for our elders is integral to respect for oneself.
These are the values both feminism and the CWA share above all else; that service to women as a whole is something we can all aspire to.
And as the CWA anthem, written in the 1940s, proclaims:
Proudly we stand, in love to serve,
Filling the needs of others where they lie,
Bound by the vision of our creed
To share as one a glorious destiny.
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