Dural centenarian Judith O’Connor’s trailblazing sexual harassment case
The year: 1937. Dural’s Judith O’Connor got an unwanted kiss from her boss and she wasn’t going to tolerate it.
The year: 1937. Dural’s Judith O’Connor got an unwanted kiss from her boss and she wasn’t going to tolerate it.
Long before the Me Too movement, an 18-year-old Judith (nee Lipman) filed a complaint against her boss, August Romer, after his kiss at a city office.
She bolted out the door of the office where she was temping as a typist and alerted a policeman to his advances.
He denied it but the pink lipstick on his upper lip contradicted him.
Press coverage — much of it which mocked the typist — followed but a magistrate fined him for 20 pounds.
It was one of the first recorded cases of sexual harassment in Australian legal history.
“In those days every man thought they had the right to kiss anyone,” Mrs O’Connor’s daughter, Victoria O’Connor, said.
“I think she thought ‘How dare he’?
“It took a lot of courage because she was only 18.
“The whole world was very very different.
“That was not done before and it wasn’t called sexual harassment; it was called
personal assault. In the light of the day it was a big thing.”
A hard working, no nonsense attitude has got Mrs O’Connor far — she turned 100 on January 29 and now lives at Bupa aged care centre at Dural.
When Ms O’Connor and her sister Rochelle were children, her mother ran a wedding flower and photography business with their late father, Terry.
She was diagnosed with dementia three years ago but worked until she was 84, selling educational books until she was 84.
Hauling the books provided exercise.
“She just said until recently ‘I should never have retired from work because
it gave her purpose and I suppose that activity really helped’,’’ Ms O’Connor said.
Ms O’Connor, who worked as a sexual harassment officer at a university, said her family found her mother inspirational and were proud of her standing up for herself.
“Now I think her grandchildren and great grandchildren think it’s
a huge deal … for her to be a pioneer was a big deal,’’ she said.
“Even though they don’t have a full understanding of those days, they’re very, very proud
of that, as are we.
“But in the light of what’s acceptable now, they’d be going to the police themselves if the boss touched and kissed them.
“They appreciate the significance of it.”
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