Rulebreakers who rewrote history

Remember the movie Legally Blonde? Reese Witherspoon plays a ‘ditsy blonde’ who turns out to be not so ditsy after all. When her snobby boyfriend gets into Harvard law school and dumps her, she sits the entrance exam too and totally crushes it (and him) with her legal-eagle awesomeness.  

Hopefully that wasn’t too much of a spoiler; this 1990s takedown of enduring patriarchal attitudes is essential viewing for anyone interested in feminism in popular culture.  

Ever since Cleopatra had to kill a tonne of relatives to stay Queen, women through history have broken the rules to fight for an equal footing in the world. From US activist Rosa Parks refusing orders to give up her bus seat just because she was Black, to Suffragettes blowing things up* because men blocked women from voting, the path to equality is illuminated by rule breakers.  

Here are just a few more upon whose shoulders we stand.  

Rules broken: Chaining herself to buildings, criticising boss, underpaying bus fare 

In 1969, Australian activist Zelda D’Aprano chained herself to a building to fight for equal pay for women, because, in her words: “women had for too long been polite and ladylike and were still being ignored”.  

As a factory worker, Zelda saw the ‘men’s rate’ and ‘women’s rate’ for the same job, and got fired several times for trying to change things. In 1969 she chained herself to the doors of a Melbourne arbitration court that had thrown out a case for equal pay, becoming a symbol for the cause. She also formed a group of women who would only pay 75% of Melbourne transport fares because they only got 75% of men’s pay. In 1972 the Equal Pay Act was finally passed.  

Rules broken: Challenging the constitution 

‘Aunty Gladys’ was a descendant of the Kaurna and Ngadjuri people, who built on her work as a women’s rights campaigner in South Australia to campaign for the 1967 federal referendum, on whether to remove parts of the constitution that specifically discriminated against First Nations peoples. The referendum passed with the biggest YES vote ever recorded (90.77%). Gladys also co-founded the South Australian Aboriginal Medical Service to improve health outcomes for indigenous people.  

Rules broken: Going to the pub 

In 1965, Merle and Rosalie Bogner chained themselves to the bar rail at the Regatta Hotel in Brisbane to protest the ban on women drinking in public bars. The protest was about more than beer; it was symbolic of broader exclusion from public life and economic spaces, or as Merle put it: “the idea of ending the confinement of women to the private domestic world.” In 1970, the law was changed.  

Merle also campaigned for married women to have the right to work in the public service (because a ring on your finger doesn’t affect your ability to earn 🤷🏽‍♀️). 

Rules broken: Calling out the government on its Indigenous policies, ignoring patriarchy, running for Parliament (despite it being 1943) 

Jessie (born 1889) campaigned for suffrage and equal pay, and became a diplomat, using her privilege and education to push for the inclusion of gender equality in the UN Charter. She lobbied throughout her life for economic justice for women, and publicly challenged government policies on race and gender, especially regarding Aboriginal rights, when nobody else would talk about it. Bringing these issues into the open led to gradual improvements in race and gender policies.  

Rules broken: Striking, disrupting supply chains, whistleblowing 

At the age of 12, Kalpona was forced to work in garment factories in Bangladesh, making clothes for fast-fashion chains instead of being allowed to go to school. She organised workers into unions to fight against systematic abuse, despite receiving constant death threats. After the Rana Plaza collapsed on hundreds of textile workers in 2013, she led protests, organised wildcat strikes and blocked international supply chains. She went to the US to tell buyers what was going on and got them to pressure factory owners, leading to new workers’ rights legislation. She was arrested, fired, harassed and blacklisted many times – but Kalpona continues her work to shine a light on the harassment, violence and inequality in an industry rife with dangerous conditions and abuse.   

Rules broken: Going to school 

When she was 15, the Taliban shot Malala through the head on the school bus because she and her dad had been campaigning for girls to be allowed an education. Incredibly, she survived, moved to the UK, and was able to amplify her voice campaigning and advocating for the right of an education for all children.  

Rules broken: Stopping bulldozers, becoming a judge 

At the age of 89, Bessie stood resolutely in front of bulldozers to try and stop the destruction of a stretch of Perth’s Swan River in 1964. Though it ultimately failed, this one-woman direct action became an iconic moment in Australian conservation. And it followed her 60 years of campaigning for gender equality and the environment – she was hanging out with the Suffragettes in London in the early 1900s, became an active feminist back in WA, and obliterated a rule forbidding women to be judges, becoming Perth Court’s first JP. 

Rules broken: Giving out stickers, using men’s toilets  

In 2015, five fierce Chinese women hatched a plan to hand out stickers calling out sexual harassment on China’s public transport. They were thrown into a freezing jail, sparking global protests, and although released after 37 days the ‘Feminist Five’ remain under Chinese state surveillance today. Among them was Li Maizi, a women’s rights and LGBTQI+ activist who led a campaign to occupy men’s toilets in Guanghzou - because there weren’t any for women. She also wore a wedding gown splattered with fake blood to protest domestic violence, which finally became illegal in China in 2016. By celebrating single, queer and child-free womanhood, these women continue to challenge the Chinese government’s patriarchal narrative.   

What legends.  

Of course, many hundreds more fierce, fearless women have fought throughout history to get us to where we are today, and many hundreds more continue to challenge the patriarchy now, because the fight for equality is not over. In Australia, the gender pay gap is still a thing, two-thirds of women patients experience medical misogyny and one in four women are impacted by domestic violence in their lifetime.   

The push for equality needs all of us, together. So we want to hear your voice, too. Who you would have added to this list? Hit up our Insta and nominate your own rule-breaking equalisers.

(*Not blowing things up is a good rule. Please stick to that one)