The Women Who Made Me - Tracey Spicer

The journalist and Sydney Peace Prize recipient reveals the powerhouse women who have shaped her activist streak

- Alley Pascoe

MARCIA SPICER

It’s been 20 years since my mum Marcia passed away after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She was 52, the same age as I am now. Mum was a trailblazer. She wouldn’t have called herself a feminist, but she was the first female courier driver in Queensland. She also worked as a model, childcare teacher, and real estate agent. She was a career woman and worked the same number of hours as my dad. They split the household duties 50/50, which was unusual for that era.

Mum also had a wicked sense of humor and did not suffer fools gladly. She always had a comeback and taught my sister and me to stand up for ourselves – in a humorous way. There’s a lot to be said for putting people in their place with a sassy comeback. My lasting memory of my mum is her looking impossibly glamorous at a party in the ’70s, dancing with a glass of wine in her hand. I don’t remember her terrible, premature death; I just remember her being absolutely vivacious – the life of the party.