by howl | Aug 10, 2026 | 1970s, campaigns, Conference, Groups, Stories, Women at work
More original newsletter articles, introduced by Joan Harries and Sheila Wentworth INTRODUCTION In 1967 abortion was made legal in the UK. This was challenged several times by anti-choice (pro-life) organisations like the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child...
by howl | Jul 29, 2026 | 1970s, campaigns, Conference, Groups, Stories, Women at work
Original newsletter articles. Compiled and introduced by Joan Harries and Sheila Wentworth The North Staffs Women’s Action Group was correctly named – there was lots of action! Memories of the Group North Staffs Women’s Action Group/NSWA/NSWAG/Stoke Women’s Action...
by howl | Jul 16, 2026 | 1970s, campaigns, First memories of getting involved, Relationships, sex, family
By Jenny Stroud, Brighton and Hove Women’s History Group I think even as a young girl, and a sporty one as well, that I knew innately there was something wrong with the balance of the world. This would have been in the late 1950s/early 1960s. I wasn’t allowed to play...
by howl | Jul 16, 2026 | 1970s, 1971, campaigns, Conference, First memories of getting involved, Publishing, Women at work
By Irena Fick I first became involved in the women’s liberation movement (WLM) in 1969. I remember my first meeting, it was in Karen Slaney’s flat in Dartmouth Park Hill, North London. There were about ten women in the group then. There was a Canadian filmmaker,...
by howl | Jun 12, 2026 | 1970s, campaigns, First memories of getting involved
Rejoining the Women’s Movement & Activism By Caroline New I left my WLM-dismissive Maoist group in 1980 and came back to the WLM, to find it fracturing around race and class. There were now working class and Black subgroups which denounced white middle-class...
by howl | Jun 12, 2026 | 1970s, campaigns, First memories of getting involved
Durham-Bristol 1969-1980 By Caroline New I first came across the women’s movement in 1970. I was a graduate student, fancying myself a Marxist, and somebody told me about a protest at the Miss World beauty competition at the Albert Hall, London. I was so ignorant...
by howl | Mar 3, 2026 | 1970s, 1980s, campaigns, Publishing
By Helen Martins Getting a Reader Pass at the British Library had been on my bucket list for a long time. When I finally got round to organising this a few years ago, the person at the registration desk asked me what I wanted to study. My reply was “the history of the...
by howl | Feb 27, 2026 | 1970s, Groups, Publishing, Women at work
By Barbara Ridley I cycled the three miles home from the hospital after my eight-hour evening shift and manoeuvred my bike into its slot in the hallway, before walking through the living room to get myself a cup of tea from the kitchen. I would have been wearing my...
by howl | Jan 28, 2026 | 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, First memories of getting involved, Publishing, Women at work
By Pat Caplan I read Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique when I was in Nepal in 1969. On return to UK in early 1970 it was clear that it spoke to me and my situation. Pregnant with my first child, highly educated but unemployed and seemingly unemployable (‘How...
by howl | Jan 19, 2026 | 1975, Culture, Publishing, Stories, Women at work
By Mary Chamberlain Photos by Angela Phillips I first met Angela Phillips, then a photographer, in 1971 when I joined Women’s Lobby (later, Women’s Report Collective) of which she had been a founder member. Our aim was to raise awareness of women’s issues and to lobby...
