Aiming For The Skies

Fay Marles has lived a life of firsts. As Victoria’s first Commissioner for Equal Opportunity, she played an instrumental role in the landmark case that resulted in Ansett employing its first female pilot. Over the next decade, she battled discrimination on many fronts, overseeing the commission’s rapid development and expansion. She went on to found Australia’s first private equal opportunity consultancy, and made history again when she became the first woman Chancellor of the University of Melbourne in February 2001.

But in these fascinating memoirs, Marles offers much more than an account of her many personal and professional achievements. She candidly explores the influences that helped to shape her outlook and interests, from her family background and schooling to her experiences as an undergraduate at the University of Melbourne in the 1940s, where she was one of Manning Clark’s first students. Her recollections of working as a young social worker in Brisbane in the 1950s, and later as a lecturer in social work at the University of Melbourne in the 1970s, offer a fascinating snapshot of the development of social work as a profession in Australia. She also describes the challenges of balancing her family life and career, and of pursuing postgraduate study as a mature-age student. Along the way, she charts her growing interest in women’s issues and Indigenous affairs.

Throughout her remarkable life, Fay Marles has aimed for the skies. Through her commitment to justice and her firm belief in the value of education, she has helped and inspired many others to do the same.