Be a good girl, Valerie
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley July 2, 2025
Author Marcia van Zeller
Distributor: Amazon AU
ISBN: 978-0-6454972-6-7
Publisher: Ventura Press
Release Date: 2 July 2025
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In 2018 the Harvey Weinstein court cases set off a train of events that have indirectly or directly to resulted in the creation of Be a good girl, Valerie from Marcia van Zeller, a woman who has spent her professional life in the hard-edged world of Journalism before moving to a freelance career in professional writing.
With a light touch and a lovely tempering of humour she uses the basis of her life story to create Valerie a woman heading for retirement, retrenched from the world of Journalism and now working for an upmarket firm in Perth creating and correcting copy for various requirements.
She is focused on her work, keeps to herself and while not set in her ways is comfortable with her lifestyle. When Grace, a young woman she has noticed commuting on the same train service appears to be stalked by an unknown man, she intervenes.
When an unfair dismissal occurs at Dawes, Bland and Armstrong over a sexual harassment complaint she decides to not only support the talented young woman Anna, she recruits a group of supporters, led by Grace who is in her last year of Law, to try to make sure justice is done.
Woven over the time frame of 1974 to 2020 van Zeller highlights the issues that women have faced and, in many instances, still do face in their professional lives, the power men can hold over women and their powerlessness to be able to do anything about the violations that are often committed under the guise of working relationships.
Valerie takes issue forty years after being abused, realising that it is never too late to act against the entitlement men seem to believe they have around women with whom they work.
Her long time Friend Jeanette, also retrenched from her position as a Dean of Research at a prestigious University in Canada decides in her retirement to carry our research into why men in the field of Media and Entertainment believe they are entitled to use women as they see fit and the economic cost associated with the calling out of sexual abuse within the industry.
Chilling and accurate Be a good girl, Valerie will resonate with women, particularly young women who have been subjected to a wide range of suggestive and abusive behaviours within the workplace and have felt powerless to act. It is also quirky, funny at times and perfectly captures the world that once was while paying tribute to the women who have been brave enough, angry enough and old enough to stand tall, act and begin to create change in a positive manner.