Joan Bielski became a foundation member of Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL) in 1972 and continued her active involvement in WEL throughout her life. WEL became the major organisation through which she channelled her political energies.

Joan was the embodiment of the active citizen. She was, of course, much more because she read widely, travelled and absorbed culture and politics in all its dimensions. She packed her life with the care, attention and the activism needed to build a good society.  

The causes for which she fought with her immense intellectual energy, passion and good humour were local and they were national. Social injustice, sexual inequality, oppressive attitudes, unfair discriminatory treatment, uncaring institutions and indifferent services were often her targets. Legislative reforms and social change were her goals.

Born in Narrabri, NSW in1923, her intellect and leadership qualities were evident to the nuns who taught her. Though she left school without completing her Leaving Certificate (HSC today), she benefited from the Ex-Serviceman’s Rehabilitation Scheme and eventually began teaching in 1951 in Canberra. That story is told in Meredith Burgmann’s Dirty Secrets: Our ASIO Files (UNSW Press, 2014).

Prompted by a defining experience of rejection into law studies, she spent the fifties and sixties focused on the sociology of women’s education and workforce participation. The barriers to entry for women to law and other professions would become key sites for her activism.

Her research work provided the fodder for collaborative and collective action by WEL. The organisation was at that time one of the most influential reformist feminist voices. Joan’s focus in WEL was education, employment and anti-discrimination law. This involved her in writing numerous submissions to government, organising conferences and forums, media liaison, public debates and protests. Her history of activism in education was intertwined with WEL and the NSW Women in Education group. She composed the enduring slogan:  Educate to Liberate. 

Her work was informed by over 20 years of high school teaching from 1957-1974. She left her mark on many students. Years later as young men and women at reunions, they talked of her humane and progressive teaching approach as well as her sharp wit and deft methods for dealing with bullies and malingerers. 

Her continuing activism after retirement earned her the Ednas Grand Stirrer Award in 1999. Her idiosyncratic and unique approach, liberally dosed with wit and searing commentary, was honoured. 

Joan’s abiding qualities were her compassion and commonsense. She was a pragmatist in her tactics and an idealist in her vision for her society. She accepted the position of opponents and detractors as one they held through ignorance not malice. They needed knowledge to become enlightened.

She was a mentor and role model for many women giving them courage and self-confidence, encouraging them to seek re-training. She saw these as keys to achieving economic independence. 

Her prodigious wit and good humour, her infectious and rousing laughter, her generosity with friends, her alertness to injustice, her energetic pursuit of political indolence and indifference to inequality or unfairness, will be enduring memories for all who knew and loved her. Her legacy is the social and educational changes to which she devoted her life. 

Joan Bielski is a WEL legend. (See this entry in the Australian Women’s Register)

Jozefa Sobski AM