I grew up with the magazine Women’s Realm. It sat by my mum when she was knitting and sewing. I'm not sure when she found time to read it as my memory of her is that her hands were always busy.
The magazine has now marked a hundred years of publication. In the 1950s Women’s Realm had a print run of two million. Far fewer are printed today yet it remained a favourite of my mother until her death a few years ago.
I remember reading the short stories that to my mind were quite daring romances. This was until the teenage magazine Jackie arrived and I was enthralled.
Time moved on and my interests shifted with the experience of work, exploitation and injustice in the world around me.
No more women’s magazines for me, until the publication of Spare Rib. The women’s liberation movement had taken root and from it many branches of feminism.
Spare Rib embraced taboo subjects such as reproductive rights, violence against women and never failed to cover the elusive quest for equal pay, childcare and rights for part time workers.
Alongside Virago (which published women writers), Spare Rib provided an education for young women like myself as it put gender politics alongside working class issues and defined what needed to be changed.
Despite all our hopes in the 1970s and successes since then it remains a fact that in our day to day lives women still face sexism, exploitation and oppression.
You only have to look at the actions of the coalition government to see that women are bearing the brunt of cuts and unemployment, now at a level not seen since 1988.
As unions ballot on the campaign for pension justice and against ideological attacks on public sector workers' pensions, it is largely women who will be at the front of the first TUC Day of Action on 30 November.
Women are the majority of public sector workers and their voices will be heard loud and clear. It will be a wonderful expression of solidarity, strength and determination.
All power to them.
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