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From 1979 to 1986, IWDC produced four issues a year of the International Women’s Day Committee Newsletter.
Accompanying the organization’s name change to Toronto Socialist Feminist Action, in 1987 the newsletter became a broadsheet newspaper, Rebel Girls’ Rag. Rebel Girls’ Rag also published four times a year, until 1992 when TFSA dissolved.
Both publications maintained a regular subscriber list, and members sold issues at the many political events that were happening in Toronto during a time when activist organizations proliferated in the city. Members of IWDC/TSFA contributed to writing the content, Toronto Women’s Press allowed us free use of their facilities for the typesetting and layout, and the newspaper was of course printed in a union shop. Rebel Girls’ Rag was published in the pre-digital age. None of us were actually trained in typesetting, as the wonky hand-crafted final product suggests.
While the IWDC Newsletter and Rebel Girls Rag were produced in a particular period of political organizing and struggle, their content continues to be relevant. While contemporary political activism takes place under different banners and formations, an anti-racist socialist feminist politic still has something to contribute.
TSFA members who regularly contributed to Rebel Girls’ Rag included Mary Gellatly, Shelly Gordon, Carolyn Egan, Sheryl Boswell, Cynthia Wright, Julia Barnett, Nancy Farmer, Gillian Morton, Miriam Jones, Mariana Valverde, Jennifer Stephen, Jocelyn Piercy, Sharmini Peres, Laurie Bell, and Susan Kazurak.
Debi Brock was a member of IWDC/TSFA from 1985 until 1992.