In this episode we speak to the Founder of the HerStory Movement of South Australia and Former Adelaide Mayoress, Genevieve Theseira-Haese. She explores the powerful untold stories of women uncovered by the HerStory Movement, as women not only became invisible back then - but nameless. Learning about the life experiences of women in history explains to us why society is the way it is now, and how we can shape a better future for everyone. We ask Genevieve about the complexities of ageing in our society, and if it differs in the past. She also casts light on the complexities of financial independence as a woman and businesswoman in modern times.
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[00:00:17] Carley Bishop: captured on the lands of the peoples of the E Eastern cool nation. We pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging.
[00:00:28] In this episode, we speak to the founder of the, her story movement of south Australia and former Adelaide MES, Genevieve Biera hazy. She explores the powerful untold stories of women uncovered by the her story movement.
[00:00:42] Genevieve Theseira-Haese: My name's Genevieve and I'm married to Martin hazey who is the former Lord mayor. So I'm gene.
[00:00:48] To Sarah hazy. I arrived in Adelaide in 2010, and I have been here and loving every bit of it. And especially the history for 12 years, I was born in Singapore. My father was a little did I know at the time, but he was basically in intelligence. And so I had a very interesting childhood and my mom ran an art school.
[00:01:10] So very counter PO parents in that sense, brought up in Singapore and then. At the age of 16, I decided to challenge my father's thinking and say, dad, I'm going away to Oregon. I'm sure he didn't even know where it was, but he was in the car with his friend and he just said, why? And I said, I'm going to do child psychology there.
[00:01:33] Actually I was following a cute guy, but I, that was my story then. And he then came back to me, was very quiet. He just said, how much was it going to cost? Walked it back to me to go find out. So I was like, oh, this is getting serious. And then within two weeks later, he then came back and said, okay, here's a card, a man from the embassy in America.
[00:01:51] And he's gonna talk to you about your course. So behind the scenes, my dad was doing a lot of research and calling. I ended up going there. And then also the Singapore Indian me was like, although it was a cute guy, it was good, good university with a lot of fun. I then was told from this chat with the guy in the embassy.
[00:02:10] That I had to do physics and I didn't really want to do that. So he was asking about my background and I was doing quite well with art, but I said, I didn't wanna run an art school. He said, have you heard of advertising? And that was my career plan from there, got into advertising, moved to Los Angeles, got into Parsons from PAs, moved to St.
[00:02:30] Martin's and finished there and did an honors and got into advertising in England when they were only looking. Male Northern boys who were supposed to be tough. And I was an Asian girl, so they didn't realize that Asian girls are quite tough too. So I got into advertising there and I was in England for about 10 years and really enjoying it, doing a lot of pan European work, quite chopped with the way my life is turning out.
[00:02:59] And then my dad gets cancer. Decided to go back to Singapore and knowing that dad will always make things happen, but unfortunately he died and I then was between my dad and his connections ended up with an advertising agency that was owned by Tamasi. I had no idea, but that was the government. So then I ended up heading this company ego got in the way, cuz I didn't think I was gonna stay that long.
[00:03:25] I converted it called it Republic, cuz I was cheeky enough to name it after the country. And then from there I actually started looking at my life differently because that had gone and I started growing up I guess. And so at the age of 28, 29, I started owning an advertising. And then I got involved with the entrepreneurs organization, traveled quite a bit again with that and meeting other people, which is why I ended up with getting to know a guy from Adelaide and, uh, that took 10 years and I, uh, carried on my life.
[00:04:00] And then we ended up getting married in 2010. initially to Melbourne because my family were, I've got 50 cousins there who cook very well. And the stomach leads me in most of my thinking, but I just figured I didn't really know Australia and I was gonna make him move. Cuz I felt move around the world to get there.
[00:04:23] but the condition was, we're not gonna be boyfriend, girlfriend. We get married. So we got married within six months of reconnecting and ended up in Adelaide. Nobody had heard of it. My cousins were about to kill him, but I came into a town that ticked all the boxes that I was looking for, which was lifelong learning.
[00:04:41] It had a really active cultural energy and the. and I started learning so much about the history of Adelaide. I was never a feminist in that sense, I was not so into women stories, but I did collect art where women were involved in the painting only because I always pictured it as my, myself in that situation.
[00:05:07] And when I got here three years into it, Martin became Lord mayor. So I was a lady Maris. Who I was from Singapore and ironically lived off of Adelaide road in England, but never even knew about the city and town. And I challenge anyone to know more about Adelaide than I do now. So I've been championing another woman, which is the brand of Adelaide, the queen Adelaide, and we are going to launch her statue, which will be the first statue in the Botanic gardens crowdsourced.
[00:05:38] So that will be exciting. And that will be with the queen Adela rose garden. and that will be in October, hopefully this year. And subsequently when I came into town hall one and I came in with a very open heart of thinking, it's a team coming together to try and do things for Adelaide and the city and everything else.
[00:05:57] But we soon realized that politics was a very different game from that. I guess with my being in a girls school before taught me how to fight the battles. And so I realized we're all, they're all in this for everyone's own purpose. So I'll just get on with what I like and what I plan to do, which will support Martin in the community.
[00:06:18] So I took three pillars that supported his vision. One was a city that was sustainable. So for me, I interpreted that as a wellbeing city, a city for people to feel good. And I thought, who would I help in that? And because I was confident in an advertising background and a voice, I'd say, I think things that are not attractive or hard, and that would be suicide.
[00:06:42] And the other was age. So looking after supporting the caregivers of. In the venture because who thinks about them. So I looked at those two and then the next pillar was my obvious one, which is a multicultural background. So a multicultural connection Martins will bring in trade in from external. Mine would be, what do you do with the students that you bring in and what do you do with the people who will.
[00:07:07] I hear. So that's where I use my stomach. And that was about food. We have 155 countries here. The whole world has 1 95. So 155 countries. There's a lot of eating. So we have a thing called staycations and we still continue that today where people get to learn the history of the food in the country. Then the third thing.
[00:07:31] What I felt was missing. And I wanted to learn more about what the women had done in town hall. And it started there realized there were no names. There was no history. And I was quite shocked by that. So I started asking, and as I asked, it opened more doors about things that were missing. And so that started the whole thing on her.
[00:07:53] so in the first two and a half years, we've really spent looking for the women cuz they were just Mrs. John Smith who mourned John Smith. They had no names. So finding the names of the woman was really challenging. Cuz most of the time, even if you interview the family, they end up talking about the men and we go, yep.
[00:08:11] We know about him, but can you talk about your mom or your grandma? And there was fantastic stories that were coming up. Some were amazing on what the women were achieving with nothing. And some were very funny as well. So we've cataloged all of them and we've stored them under her story movement in the history trust.
[00:08:36] Carley Bishop: We asked Genevieve to tell us one story that stuck with her.
[00:08:39] Genevieve Theseira-Haese: There was this one where at 18, she was an adventurous and she was proposed to Enmar her dad's friend. Hacket in wa versus in Australia. And so she became lady hacked at 18. So an 18 year old marrying someone who's in their late forties. It's unusual.
[00:08:59] And this was in the 1880s, but because she was very S and her father was a gemologist and her mother saved people on her horse back from a ship. She obviously had a colorful life. And so lady Hackett decided, and she needed to impress people or needed to try and grow up. So she, she was the first to collect stories of how to host, and that became the good housekeeping guide of Australia.
[00:09:26] The first. So was teaching women how to host and how you know, how to present themselves, because she was actually learning from that, that raised about 20,000 pounds back then, which funded the work of the red cross today. It's also called miss lady Hacketts guide. So 20 years on he dies. She's got five kids, but she's now known as the hostess of Australia.
[00:09:50] And she gets proposed to not long later by an alderman in Adelaide. So lady Hackett meets Frank Malden while she's doing a fundraiser somewhere. Cause and he proposes, she says, I like my title of lady. So unless you've come back with something more impressive. So we charged him to become Lord mayor, and then she became lady Meris Malden.
[00:10:13] When she came here, she was already a woman of wealth because she had already inherited lot. Money. And so she said, um, I need to open a mind or do something. So she, because her father was a gemologist. So I claimed that she's the first mining Aris. So she looked at something called Tline and that was a metal that nobody knew what it was for, but she had faith in it and it, in the end it was what the British army needed for their.
[00:10:40] So she was also the first woman to take a commercial flight paid for it herself because the boat was too slow to go and sign her deal. So she was the first woman to do that, crossing by plane and hopped around a few places. But she did that. She loved doing all these sort of adventurous things. She was very much into dramatics, loved dressing up as the peasants around town so that she could hear what people were thinking about, what they were doing in town hall.
[00:11:08] She had lots of contributions in making Adelaide vibrant, and there was a story of her hiring a plane. Fly across the city, giving out Christmas greeting cards. So if she was very dramatic from more than nice, cuz she's still quite young and she immediately gets proposed to buy a barrister. Now he's saying, I can give you a title of lady, but I will write a book called the lady of rare metal.
[00:11:36] And so once, twice, three times a lady was the story we wrote about her. So she was quite a charact. It's like when you don't think about it, nothing happens. We were on that track. So I had the pioneers association involved and they were helping to dig out the women's stories because most of the time people would go towards the men's stories because they were at the time, the ones who could own a business, they were at the time, the ones who paid for the bills and did all of the things and the women were silent.
[00:12:06] So because of what we are doing, we're digging up more and more of how actually. Were actually supporting their husbands or their family while it was deemed that the man was actually running the place. And I was just amazing, the, all the stories that pop out, even from the first mayor as Mrs. Fisher, when you come to a foreign place, which is Bush, you're gonna need to sow, you need thread, you need to mend things.
[00:12:32] So they started baring with each other. And then they had number first markets. So they started that and each time along the way, mayors were elected in for what people needed. So then the interesting part was what did those mayors marry to support the way they, during the military you'd have women who would run red cross and do all of that.
[00:12:53] And during each time that the mayors were coming in, they were. Matched quite well with their partners or wives. So we have lots of stories that take me hours to go through, but good fun. And that's been stored there. So I didn't wanna stop because I said, well, that's fun. So it took us almost three years to get that.
[00:13:14] But subsequently from that we found the lady Mary's change was the Opal story that was given away because it was bad luck and then return because supposedly was bad luck, but it wasn't. And then. in the following year in 20 20 18, 20 19 was 125 years of the women's vote. So Adelaide comes a close second to New Zealand, but actually we are the first because we are the first vote and going into parliament.
[00:13:45] But as we were doing that research, we realized that, wait a second, because south Australia was the first government in Australia. it was the first electric. What was happening was if it is as per local government, if you own a land, and if you own a business, you can vote that started including women. And so one of the researchers found about 500 women who stood up to vote in 1861 and they asked to vote because they said they owned the businesses.
[00:14:17] They were inheriting land because 30 years on from arriving in 1836. They were actually, there might not have been men around or men had gone off to more. So the daughters were starting to run in, they were starting to run stations and everything. So those women had a me meager vote. I can't remember. I think it was something like voting for the park keep or something, but they all turned up and voted and then they ask for more and slowly it built.
[00:14:45] and with that, you will also get stories of people like mural, Matt, you know, who are all involved in the courage of getting a vote. So there was that and they were putting a voice out. So we were having business women. We had glad Sam tune who came out and had her little store. So you've got so many underlying stories of women holding the backbone of south Australia.
[00:15:08] And it's fascinating. So we did 125, which led to another door opening, which is the 1861 vote, which no one had heard of. And it, it still has to investigat it. And with that, we started introducing like at history month walks. So what the walk of the woman who had these basically shops or who did something different?
[00:15:28] So. that one after that started introducing multicultural women. So these were a bit newer because they were from the ones who were encouraged to move here from England and be the perfect Australian look to the ones coming from Vietnam and all the wars and the different stories. So the multicultural council of south Australia has gotten involved and they now have an biannual award for the women's stories and their heroes who have come across and.
[00:15:58] A new chapter. So that's opened that door and that carries on. So it's slightly more modern cuz it's slightly different. Cause these women are alive and they're actually talking to each other. What we found really interesting about migrants is you've got two hearts, one from the home and one from your new home and they want to share that.
[00:16:15] And that's a lovely story as well. That's come out and they saw. With each other, they're going, that's exactly how I feel. And everyone was sharing that story. So that was lovely. So we both, we've got food opening up, we've got two hearts. We've got women doing that. Then this year I decided let's talk about the crafty women, cuz I kept listening to stories about how women who had no voice or didn't have a chance to.
[00:16:42] found a way to create a message. So for example, there was a story in France where the grannys and the aunties were always knitting from the windows, but they were actually knitting code and they were talking about tanks coming into their towns or whatever, and then sending it off to the military for scarfs, so them to use.
[00:17:00] But actually they knew was numbers in code, and I thought it was fascinating. So if you think about it, people like the Maha. Even Anna Leonard Owen were all women who were doing things in an era where women were not supposed to be seen or heard, but they were communicating and they were actually helping all kinds of efforts at that time.
[00:17:20] And so we wanted to ask, what was south Australian women doing? What were they doing? And so that's the current, I call it part one that we're gonna do this year, that we're doing this year on Saturday, where we're gonna explore conversations about women. Actually try to reach out and do something so they could get their message across.
[00:17:42] So I'm quite excited to see what will pop up. We've got a few stories and then hopefully more stories will come from in the next chapter
[00:17:53] we asked Genevieve if age came up during her research. Yes and no, it's a funny thing because we are talking a generation from 18 30, 6, 18 40 to today. Back then the women died so young. So it's a really funny thing about age because they weren't around post 60. It was rare that they went on and then there was the wars and the ones who fought to be in the war as well.
[00:18:19] So you just see them as just women. We are just resilience who just wanted to do things yet. They might have been 20, or they might have been 40. We don't really look at that, but going forward as we now look at the wars and post. , there's not the barrier from our research. It's more about what was recorded.
[00:18:40] So the biggest issue for us was the nameless. They didn't have a name. So finding a treasurer, whether you, so then you find that family name, then you can start going back to who they were, has been the main thing, not really the age, maybe age is more an issue of present time and the limitations from. , but I like these stories because they're actually informing everyone that look at them.
[00:19:07] They didn't have a name. They didn't even have land. They did a lot of times they came with nothing and they still managed to do things. And when I speak to men about it, I say, I'm not talking about just the women. I'm talking about your mothers and your sisters and your children, because look at what strength they had.
[00:19:24] And I'm excited about that more importantly. And I think it's so inspiring to know what they could do regardless.
[00:19:33] Carley Bishop: We asked Genevieve about her experiences and knowledge of contemporary women's issues and what she thinks could help solve the issue of invisibility today.
[00:19:41] Genevieve Theseira-Haese: I strongly believe that entrepreneurship should be taught to everyone because if you know how to earn, you will be able to look after yourself in lots of different ways.
[00:19:51] And what I feel is not fully explored in Australia, let alone south Australia is the fact that. As long as you can think. And as long as you're capable and you can do research, you can, it doesn't matter if you're disabled or old or whatever, you can come up with something. We know the famous one of Kentucky fried chicken and how at 75, he created that, but there would be so many others if inspired.
[00:20:16] So we need to share a lot more knowledge on entrepreneurship because entrepreneurship has no barrier. And that's what I love, because it allows you to create something and you don't have to be so scared to create something that, that brings you in five bucks. It doesn't matter. It's just getting you going and getting you excited about.
[00:20:37] That challenge of life and making yourself capable and sustainable. So I think this is my personal journey, and I think I've been very fortunate, which is maybe there are other people less fortunate, but I find that opportunities come not just by, by luck. They come because you open a door. And so I would like women to feel that they can open a door and maybe can be a lot more supported because they give up a lot when they have.
[00:21:06] I didn't have kids, so I could do all this traveling and do all my fun research or whatever a cat annoys me sometimes when I'm trying to work. But that's, as far as it goes, basically, I think even if you watch something like master chef, okay. You feel like you can cook where you learn things. If we imagine aary showed a lot more free to.
[00:21:26] Things on entrepreneurship and how to create a business or men, something, it doesn't just have to be a gender specific. You can do it because you've got two hands and you can have a brain to work it out. But we don't hear enough of the stories of the women doing things maybe because it's not captured, but it might be doing things we don't know.
[00:21:47] Maybe that will be another chapter that I do or her. Women who achieve things maybe after 50 and try and find that out.
[00:21:56] Carley Bishop: Not all women have the privilege to become entrepreneurs. Some may be trying just to survive.
[00:22:01] Genevieve Theseira-Haese: How can we empower those women? I think it's about financial education because how else you can help the women already later.
[00:22:09] Now who it's a bit late because they're already in a bad situation, but doesn't mean you can't educate the next generation much. You have to do that because if a girl becomes a woman and does not know how to fund herself and only depends on somebody else, then that's tough.
[00:22:32] Carley Bishop: We ask Genevieve how her cultural background has affected her visibility.
[00:22:36] Genevieve Theseira-Haese: As a woman, when I was young, my grandmother said to me, you cannot do things your brother can do. She was very Victorian in that way. And then we had all the aunties. Oh, why are you going to go and get educated? You should just stay at home, look after your mom and then get married.
[00:22:51] And I was already in the seventies and still there was that right. It's changed a lot more. There's good and bad in the field values because respecting the old elders and looking after all of that, I think it's good to know. You don't wanna lose that in a society, but. it's different. I see here. And then yet it's funny because I don't know, I wasn't educated here, so I don't really know the pressures fully, other than the, a lot of people wanna get married and that's their priority
[00:23:26] Carley Bishop: during her time as Marris Genevieve noticed women's issues were often buried in bureau.
[00:23:31] Genevieve Theseira-Haese: I was very concerned when I heard that here's a society with so many women's first and yet it will be the society where the poorest person is a woman. That's shocking. So there are like Catherine House and different groups where they actually, women in domestic violence situations can go to. But when you look at there's only 20.
[00:23:53] It's not a lot, but then again, when you look at the whole summer of things, the reality of the scene, homelessness is about 150 people. Most people will say, just buy them a house or do something, but it get, then it goes into other issues. It's more than that. It's mental health, it's drugs, it's whole bunch of other issues.
[00:24:10] It's always lots of different layers. I agree with the current government, which is talking about education, I have to keep going back on that because to me. If you can educate your generation, like in Singapore, education's like compulsory, you have to educate everybody. And here's the thing about queen Adelaide.
[00:24:32] She, in her own right back then wanted kids in 1830 to be both male and female going to 60 school in kindergarten. So in 8 36 or something, there was always that conversation. So here in Adelaide, we have the first female duck. So women were getting the exposure to education, but maybe it has to come in different ways to encourage people, to be able to learn.
[00:25:00] And they're just what they're doing now. I think they're increasing more TAFE education, different levels of education. And I think that's a very good route.
[00:25:10] Carley Bishop: We ask Genevieve what she thinks happens in a woman's life for her to lose her power
[00:25:14] Genevieve Theseira-Haese: it's romance. I think when you. Believe so much in the fairy tale of love, and then you lose your power.
[00:25:25] That's my opinion, because if that happens, why, what will take a woman who has this natural instinct to wanna nurture because of children and what to lose it, because that power is gone with love, I think, and that's really my opinion. So it's a tough one because if a woman. Is brought up to realize that she has to be subservient so that she can, and of course you can be, but no, you must know your own worth too.
[00:25:56] If you're brought to be so subservient that at the end day, the man walks away, he leaves you for another woman because these are the cases why the women is destitute. She's now an older woman. She's given everything to the family. She's stopped working, right? She's brought up the children, the husband leaves her and marries somebody.
[00:26:14] The husband beats her up and throws her out of the house. Her children beat her up and throw her out. The children take her money. These are all the cases of destitution. She has nowhere to go because there's nothing for her. It happened even in history. We have so many cases, one case where I was just reading yesterday, where they were migrants, they came here, he got a, he we're talking 80 and something.
[00:26:37] He had a job in the cemetery, but he was ill. The husband was. She worked. She did the night shift. She helped and did everything. But when he died, that son was only seven years old. She was a destitute, but that was the case. Then it's not now women. Can be educated. They can actually find a way somehow
[00:27:01] Carley Bishop: the invisible woman project funded by our social enterprise's impact program, promotes awareness and actions for women and gender diverse people to age with dignity, security, and safety.
[00:27:13] Find out more on justgoldwomen.net or on our socials @justgoldwomen
[00:27:30] this was
[00:27:31] Kyriakos Gold: a just gold podcast. Find out more about our social enterprise, just gold.net.