The National Union of Students Women's Campaign is celebrating 20 years since the establishment of the full-time elected Women's Officer post. One way it has marked the occasion is to ask all former NUS Women's Officers a couple of questions. As a former holder of that esteemed office (1990/2), here are my replies ...
1) The achievement I'm most proud of from my Women's Officer days
During my time as Women's Officer, we got loads more women actively involved in campaigning - for example against the Poll Tax and for better childcare provision. I also think I helped put socialist feminism back onto the agenda.
2) My message to the women's officers of 2007
It would be too easy to go from a women's officer post in a student union to becoming a professional feminist or pursuing a career as a bureaucrat in an NGO or trade union. I'd urge you not to follow this path, but instead to commit yourself to building the only movement that can genuinely bring about liberation for all women - a revived, grass-roots-led women's movement, involving huge numbers of women in workplaces and working-class communities, fighting sexism as part of the labour movement's struggle for socialism.