Beatrice Eileen Faust (19 February 1939 – 30 October 2019) was an Australian author and women's activist. In 1966 she was president of the Victorian Abortion Law Repeal Association. She was a co-founder of the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties in 1966 and of the Women's Electoral Lobby in 1972.

Life and career

Beatrice Faust was born Beatrice Eileen Fennessey in

Glen Huntly Glen Huntly is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 11 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District,Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

, on 19 February 1939. Her mother died shortly after having given birth. This had been predicted by doctors, who knew of a uterine canal anomaly which would lead to such, however being of Roman Catholic and Irish descent the use of

contraceptives Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth control only be ...

was denied her parents and subsequently her mother became pregnant. She was brought up by her father, three aunts and an extended Irish family, her great-grandmother Boule having arrived in Australia in 1848 as a consequence of the Great Famine and father at a later date. She attended

Melbourne University The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state of Victoria. Its ...

in the 1950s, where she became acquainted with

Germaine Greer Germaine Greer (; born 29 January 1939) is an Australian writer and feminist, regarded as one of the major voices of the second-wave feminism movement in the latter half of the 20th century. Specializing in English and women's literature, she ...

and they extended their feminist inclinations through various cogitations, earning her bachelor's degree in English and subsequently her master's degree. Much later in her life, the higher degrees of PhD and LLD were conferred upon her, the former for her 1991 book ''Apprenticeship in Liberty'' and the latter for her life's work in general, as a social reformist and researcher. The first of her two marriages was to Clive Faust during her time at university. Having become known as a public figure with the Faust surname, when they later divorced she retained the name. She had one child, Stephen David, born out of wedlock in 1965 from her relationship with the Finnish academic Adam (Aimo) Murtonen. She was one of the first women to argue for civil liberties, abortion law reform and well-informed sex education for all. In 1966 she co-founded the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties to advocate for civil rights. In February 1972, Faust initiated the formation of the

Women's Electoral Lobby (Australia) The Women's Electoral Lobby (WEL) is a Feminism, feminist, non-profit, self-funded, non-party political, lobby group founded in 1972 during the height of second-wave feminism in Australia. WEL's mission is to create a society where women's partic ...

, to agitate for legislative reform along specifically feminist lines and to give Australian women a greater voice in politics. In 2001 Faust was awarded the

Centenary Medal The Centenary Medal is an award which was created by the Australian Government in 2001. It was established to commemorate the centenary of the Federation of Australia and to recognise "people who made a contribution to Australian society or g ...

. In the same year, she was inducted into the

Victorian Honour Roll of Women The Victorian Honour Roll of Women was established in 2001 to recognise the achievements of women from the Australian state of Victoria. It was launched by The Hon. Joan Kirner AC as a joint initiative of the Centenary of Federation Victoria Comm ...

. In 2004 she was appointed an

Officer of the Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an Australian honours and awards system, Australian honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Monarch ...

for such efforts and more. Among her early writings, she contributed to the Australian edition of ''

The Little Red Schoolbook ''The Little Red Schoolbook'' (; ) is a book written by two Danish people, Danish schoolteachers, Søren Hansen (author), Søren Hansen, Bo Dan Andersen (author), Bo Dan Andersen and writer Jesper Jensen (author), Jesper Jensen, first published ...

'' and, during the 1970s, for ''

The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...

'' newspaper, she wrote regularly on films and was pioneer reviewer of photography exhibitions, as well as contributing to ''

Nation Review ''Nation Review'' was an Australian Sunday newspaper, which ceased publication in 1981. It was launched in 1972 after independent publisher Gordon Barton bought out Tom Fitzgerald (economist), Tom Fitzgerald's ''Nation (Australia), Nation'' publ ...

'' and elsewhere. Later, in the late 1980s into the 1990s, she had a regular column in the '' Weekend Australian'', one result of which was a court case involving

Jeff Kennett Jeffrey Gibb Kennett (born 2 March 1948) is an Australian former politician who served as the 43rd Premier of Victoria between 1992 and 1999, Leader of the Victorian Liberal Party from 1982 to 1989 and from 1991 to 1999, and the Member for ...

, the then Victorian premier. In the latter part of her career she returned to one of her earliest vocations, as a teacher, becoming a lecturer in English at, first,

RMIT The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (abbreviated as RMIT University) is a public research university located in the city of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia., section 4(b) Established in 1887 by Francis Ormond, it is the seventh-o ...

, Melbourne, and then Monash University, Victoria, where she widened the scope her concern to include the educational syllabus of Australia on a more general level. After her retirement she lived in Churchill, a town in Gippsland, Victoria.

Judith Brett Judith Margaret Brett (born 1949, Melbourne) is an Emeritus Professor of politics at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. She retired from La Trobe in 2012, after a restructuring of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in which t ...

published her biography of Faust, ''Fearless Beatrice Faust'' in 2024.

Bibliography

Books

* ''Women, Sex and Pornography'', Penguin Books, Melbourne 1980 * ''Apprenticeship in Liberty'', Angus & Robertson, North Ryde NSW 1991 * ''Benzo Junkie: More Than a Case History'', Penguin Books, Melbourne 1993 * ''Backlash? Balderdash!'', University of New South Wales Press, Sydney NSW 1994

Essays

* "The paedophiles", a chapter in the book ''The Betrayal of Youth – Radical Perspectives on Childhood Sexuality, Intergenerational Sex, and the Social Oppression of Children and Young People''; Edited by Warren Middleton; CL Publications, London; 1986

References

External links