Australian feminist Mel Thornton dies

In 1948, at the age of 18, Mel entered Sydney University to study English literature. Most of her classmates at the time were veterans, and many of her lectures were attended by thousands of people.

In 1951, Mayer met Neil Thornton, who shared her beliefs and sense of social responsibility and became her lifelong soul mate. They married in 1953.

By now, it was clear to Mair that she was a victim of cruel anti-women laws. She was working as a graduate student in the office of ABC managing director Sir Charles Moses, but she had to hide her marriage until she was in her third month of pregnancy, when it became undisputed.

In 1956, a woman’s right to work was terminated upon marriage, and Meier was not the first woman to deliberately conceal this fact in order to keep her job.

It didn’t help that mum and first-born son Harold spent some solitary time in a housing estate in the Blue Mountains while Neil commuted hours to Sydney to support their new family.

A postgraduate research position at the Australian National University prompted her to move to Canberra, where her daughter Sigrid was born. The university’s apartment accommodation gave Mel a more integrated social life, with new friends Bob and Hazel Hawke staying in their duplex apartment.

When Neil was appointed a lecturer at the University of Queensland, the family piled into an old Humber van and headed for their new home, a trip made all the more memorable by mechanical problems en route and both children contracting chickenpox.

Mel found a job as a researcher for the famous historian Geoffrey Bolton, but she was never content to be a spectator.

During his early years in Queensland, Mel joined the Aboriginal Progressive League and met poet and activist Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal), who became a lifelong friend.

In Brisbane, Mel did postgraduate research in philosophy. One of Neil’s students was future Labor leader and Governor-General Bill Hayden, whom Mel persuaded to introduce a bill to repeal the marriage ban clause, which she considered to be evil.

The subsequent Regatta Bar incident, which played out so brilliantly and dramatically, was a great move, but behind it was Hayden’s private member’s bill, which Mayer had worked so hard to bring about.

She now headed for London and in 1966 decided to study philosophy of language at University College London.

Mair loves sex and she loves reading. She is an excellent guide to the works of Virginia Woolf A room of your own Doris Lessing Golden Notebook What makes her so impressive in this regard is her understanding that Lessing did not see her work as feminist propaganda.

Merle Thornton has a rich intellectual background. She is both a champion of the legal profession and a thoughtful student of the philosophy of language, the two are not entirely separate. She is a sensible and radical feminist at heart.

She fought for proper sex education for girls, for abortion rights, and for women’s studies to be considered integral to the life of the mind and the university’s philosophy. She also fought like a lioness against the Vietnam War and was arrested several times.

Mel was awarded the Order of Australia and a Doctor of Letters, but she was a natural troublemaker. She wouldn’t shut up for anyone.

She is a talented fiction writer whose plays Playing mother and father It was staged at Carlton Court in 1990 and she also wrote several episodes for this famous Australian TV show prisoner.

She and her beloved Neil, who suffers from a form of post-traumatic stress disorder that may have been related to his deployment to Hiroshima, were enthusiastic about the progress of each new idea until the very end.

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