In this exclusive extract from her memoir, No Words For This, Ali Mau recalls the blatantly sexist newsrooms of the 1980s, Rupert Murdoch in the lift, and the enduring urge to impress her dad.
A bollocking in the bullpen was nothing out of the ordinary: we were all accustomed to having strips torn off us by the new chief for some error or other. But it rarely happened to a senior reporter. And I could see that this time it was happening to the only senior female journalist in that male-dominated newsroom.
'What's going on?' I whispered to Nick, the cadet whose copykid shoes I'd stepped into on my first day. He'd taken me under his wing, becoming my drinking mate and invaluable guide to staying out of trouble with the bosses.
We pressed ourselves against the back wall of the newsroom.
'I think they're going to send her home?!' His thick black eyebrows were almost at his hairline.
The closed ranks of the Herald's patriarchy were slowly opening up to women, but few had yet risen to her level. She was the chief state political reporter, a figure of awe and wonder for little fish like me. But the chief was windmilling his arms, gesticulating at her clothing. I stood on tiptoe, taking in her simple black suit and sensible heels. She was holding her ground, giving as good as she got. The argument escalated.
Another cadet slid in beside us, and we both bent our heads for the whispered update. 'He's furious she's come to work wearing pants.'
'What the ... ?' I ran sweating palms down my pencil skirt. There had been nothing in my induction to indicate women were restricted to dresses and skirts at work.
We watched wordlessly as the chief delivered his coup de grace, and the furious reporter stalked out with her bag slung over her shoulder. In an hour she was back, skirted this time – and humiliated, no doubt.
I had a strong urge to talk to her about it, find out what she thought, but I didn't dare. Copykids did not bother their seniors about anything if it could be helped, certainly not about touchy subjects like this one. How would I even approach it? 'Uh, hi, saw you being utterly demeaned today, what's it going to take to get gender equity in this goddam place, huh?'
At the pub that night a group of us juniors discussed how bizarre the scene had been – this was the mid-1980s, not the 50s! She had been neatly dressed; in fact, she had been dressed the same as the other senior reporters. The sheer regressivity of the chief's edict astounded us all.
I soon learned the chief had a bee in his bonnet about female staffers and their attire in general – and one morning it was my turn. I'd been out the night before and hadn't got home to change, turning up for a 5am start with a quick stop in the ladies loo to rub away the panda smudges under my eyes.
'Mau. In here.'
I looked up to see the chief's famously luxuriant eyebrows drawn together in a scowl. At five foot three, he had a voice much larger than his stature.
I scuttled over on my four-inch stilettos, and as I came to a stop in front of him, we both clocked how comical the height discrepancy must look. A full foot shorter than me in those heels, he had to crane his neck to address me. 'Don't you ever wear those F***ING shoes in here again.' He looked up at my gaping face and waved a dismissive hand. 'That's all.'
***
I was late again, belting up Flinders Street at a flat run. Already dreading the scolding I'd get from the chief, I barely noticed the group of dark-suited men turning into the foyer of the Herald Sun building. I raced past them into the open lifi: and stabbed at the button, turning to the doors as they slid closed – right in the scowling face of Rupert Murdoch.
Oh wonderful, I thought, that's my short career over and done with!
We'd all been following Murdoch's three-way battle with Fairfax and the billionaire Robert Holmes a Court for control of the biggest newspaper empire in the country; that day he had come to claim his victor's spoils. His newly acquired staff of journalists were hardly rolling out the welcome mat: two of the company's senior editorial leaders had already resigned in disgust, and the leaders of our union were dead against the purchase.
Journalists tended to spurn any suggestion of editorial interference, and the newsroom simmered with antipathy that day.
All of us were collected in tight ranks, our arms folded. I skulked at the very back of the pack, hoping Murdoch wouldn't spot the minion who'd left him high and dry in the foyer an hour before. Lucky for me, he'd either forgotten all about it or had bigger things on his mind – I never heard a thing about it.
***
After four years at the Herald, one as a copygirl and three as a cadet, I was doing okay. My work had even recently made the front page for the first time, a huge thrill for any young newspaper reporter. But the gap in my progression nagged at me: I had done my first year cadet duties back in Warracknabeal and then an extra year as a copygirl. By rights, I thought, I should be graduating with the others of the same age and experience.
The exam to test our shorthand skills – the Herald insisted its journalists used Pitman shorthand, which was considered superior to the other system, Teline, but was harder to learn – stood as the final hurdle in the progression to graded journalist, and the bar was high: 120 words a minute or you failed. The exam was held in a building across town, in a stuffy room where the scent of fear hung heavy in the air. It was held once a year, and there were no re-dos. We knew this was make or break. I turned the paper face down on the desk and glanced around the room at my fellow cadets, seeing a few dejected faces and some satisfied smirks. I was fairly sure I'd passed.
When the results came out, I walked straight to Mahogany Row, named for the wood-panelled offices of the executive class. I strode into the plush antechamber of the big boss. 'I'd like an appointment with Mr Hinton, please.'
His secretary eyed me with suspicion. 'And you are?' Cadets did not generally come anywhere near the editor's office and certainly never to request a personal audience.
I'm a third-year cadet, and I should be a fourth year – that's what I want to talk to him about.' I was shaking with nerves, and this last bit came out in a tangled rush.
She raised a pencilled eyebrow, keeping her eyes on me as if I'd nick the silver at any second, and thumbed through a large diary. 'Alright then. He can see you on Thursday. For ten minutes.' She snapped the book shut.
When Thursday came, I put my argument to the editor. He listened politely as I reeled off my reasoning and finished with my excellent shorthand score, trying to pull off an air of confidence I certainly didn't feel. Who was I to make demands, let alone one that would catapult me over an entire year of work? So when he said yes I was astounded, stuttering my thanks and scuttling back to my desk. I decided not to tell my fellow cadets right away; they would learn of this anomaly soon enough, and some of them would hate my guts for it. C'est la vie.
One person I did want to tell immediately was Dad. I called him as soon as I got off the tram to the flat in Fitzroy I shared with three other cadets in my cohort. While his response was more laconic than effusive – wasn't it always? – I could hear the pride in his voice. I felt I'd been chasing that all my life.
Extracted with permission from No words for this, by Ali Mau (published by Harper Collins).
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