ABSTRACT
In 1986, on International Women’s Day in Toronto, a contingent of garment workers from the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) marched under a new banner designed especially for the day. They were celebrating what appeared to be a new beginning. They had successfully won an industry-wide strike. They had thrown off the yoke of a maledominated union leadership, with more rank and file women active on the stewards’ council. Their participation marked an important shift in contemporary feminist politics toward a more inclusive movement that recognized the importance of combining issues of class, gender and ethnicity.
