Did you know Mother's day has activist roots?

Ann Jarvis was a peace activist who cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War, and created Mother's Day Work Clubs to address public health issues.

She and another peace activist and suffragette Julia Ward Howe campaigned for the creation of a "Mother's Day For Peace" where mothers would ask that their husbands and sons were no longer killed in wars.

Your mum deserves roses - but she deserves "bread" too.

"Bread and Roses" is a union slogan describing the working class struggle for both fair wages and dignified conditions, and the art, culture and leisure time that makes life worthwhile.

Australian mothers still face significant workplace issues like difficulty accessing flexible work arrangements and pregnancy discrimination. Women are still not paid superannuation contributions during maternity leave. And outside paid work, women still perform the majority of unpaid domestic labour (meaning less time for themselves).

Commercial representations of mothers day often draw on lazy stereotypes referencing women's domestic roles. Traditional gifts like candles, tea and soaps directly reference how exhausted we know mums are, whilst failing to challenge the inequality women still experience in domestic, social, and industrial spheres.

Along with breakfast in bed or a bunch of flowers - why don't we challenge ourselves to show more solidarity with women's struggles for equality - and indeed, share mum's labour - all year?

*A-hem*

We happen to have some cool activist women's gifts available in our shop