[Women workers have emerged to the fore in…]

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Women workers have emerged to the fore in the public sector strikes.

Although they do not hold many positions in the union hierarchy, and although many sections of women workers have traditionally elected male stewards, the strike has allowed many of the backward attitudes to be swept to one side as women workers show they have the strength to fight for leadership.

This presents a direct challenge to one of the oldest tricks in the capitalist press book-dividing women from men and using the family as a weapon against working class militancy.

This is not a strike in which the press can use wives at home to attack husbands on strike. But that does not mean they cannot play the sexist card.

The Daily Mirror appeared to turn its back on the strikes last week-but in fact had the strikes in mind-when it devoted a. special issue to "the marvellous women of Britain"

Its headline, complete with two hearts, was The Unsung Heroines'. The text was by Patience Strong mixed with Keith Joseph.

'What is a woman? She is the mainstay of her.family and the backbone of the nation ... When her husband goes to work she has nothing to do all day ... except cook, shop, queue, cjean, dust, mend, tend, knit, sew, wash iron and fetch and carry. And more and more she also goes out to work.

"She is not as good as a man, but better. Not as strong, but stronger...

"Man creates crises and woman copes with them.

"She can be a nag and a nuisance, especially when she has been let down. But she represents light in the dark, When things are roughd comfort In the centre pages the Mirror carries on in the same sickening vein under a headline which explicitly excludes the supposed object of its veneration from among its readers: "Mr Britain: This is your wife".

It has such perceptive deep analyses as this:

"She works long ' hours mostly without pay. Yet she doesn't strike or picket. Her only disputes are with the butcher-over the price of stewing steak."