Women: three views

Episode number 5 of Series “Rainbow serpent”.
Interviews with three Aboriginal women who have chosen to be activists in the struggle for their peoples’ rights. Mum Shirl has been an activist since the late sixties, including initiating the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in the early seventies. Since then she has become disillusioned with political processes in Australia and now chooses to work directly with Aboriginal people in prisons. Marcia Langton works for the Central Lands Council in Alice Springs and she talks passionately on behalf of Aboriginal peoples’ struggles for land rights and dignity. Maryanne Bin-Sallik works within government departments using established political means to argue for the rights of Aborigines. Though choosing very different ways to express their activism, we see that all three women are united in their commitment to work towards an autonomous and central role for Aborigines in Australian politics and culture.