Interview with Heather Roberts

Heather Roberts was born in Hobart, Australia in 1946. Describes parents, early life, quaker education, living on a mission station, and academic achievement. Talks about attitudes to men, sex and marriage. Describes teaching under the grammar/comprehensive schooling system in England. Talks about returning to New Zealand, completing a Masters degree in English Literature, teacher's college and being awarded a scholarship to complete her doctorate. Describes pregnancy and motherhood, and her decision to work as the Women's Employment Officer at Department of Labour in Wellington rather than taking an academic position. Talks about involvement in feminist associations such as the Women's Studies Association and the Family Planning Association and being Secretary to the National Advisory Council on the Employment of Women (NACEW). Mentions ten months travel with her parents near London. Discusses being awarded the McCarthy Fellowship, researching New Zealand women writers and writing the book 'Where did she come from?'. Describes fourteen year career as public servant and policy positions in Department of Social Welfare and then Youth Affairs.

Describes work as Barnardo's national advisor on supervised access, while teaching English as a second language. Talks about editing Jean Devanny's 'The butcher's shop', writing for a general audience and co-editing an anthology of women's writing 'A woman's life'. Mentions interest in literary criticism. Discusses quakerism's espousing of equality of the sexes. Discusses her mother as a role model. Describes early involvement in fertility control issues while working as a volunteer at Family Planning. Mentions influential feminist writers, living in communal housing, her family and feminism, compromising as a feminist and valuing friendships. Talks about 30 year relationship with husband and raising a son. Recalls the gains feminism has made for women, and fertility control in particular. Talks about feminism's inability to prevent violence towards women, yet comments on the achievement of the Domestic Purposes Benefit (DPB) making it possible for women to leave abusive relationships. Talks about the current Women's Studies Association. Mentions current project in Vietnam with Voluntary Services Abroad (VSA) with Vietnamese teachers of English.

Interviewer(s) - Jill Abigail

Accompanying material - CV, Biographical information, two photos

Quantity: 2 C90 cassette(s). 1 printed abstract(s). 1 Electronic document(s) - abstract. 1 interview(s). 2.20 Hours and minutes Duration.

Physical Description: Textual files - Microsoft word

Finding Aids: Abstract Available - abstracting complete OHA-2657, OHDL-001006.

Photo (coloured) - head and shoulder mid-shot, 1999. Photo (B & W) - head and shoulder mid shot, 1966

Original recordings not available for playback. Surrogate copies will be provided.

Alternative form available: Listening copies OHLC-004325 - OHLC-004326

Both printed and digital versions of the abstract are available