Challenging the Agenda: the Victorian Secondary Teachers' Association and the Open Sub-Committee On Women, 1974

Ruth Fowler, an early convenor of the Open Sub-Committee on Women (OSCW), expressed the following view in the preface to a booklet written by Claire Kelly in 1986 entitled Women in the VSTA: The formation of the OSCW represented a watershed period in the union. It provided a supportive forum within the male cultural ambience characteristic of all trade unions, where women could discuss the issues which affected them as unionists and teachers and decide on possible policy. Whilst women were lone voices their concerns could be and were largely ignored. The OSCW, an officially recognised body within the VSTA, meant that could not happen so easily. But as with all change which attempts to alter the status quo, its functioning was far from easy. Women learned very quickly what it meant to intrude upon the established corridors of power.