Consciousness Raising Group with Essex University lake and tower blocks (Amber Djemal, Lynne Friedli and others)
Amber Djemal
Before arriving at Essex University, aged 18 in 1978, I had become aware of Feminism due to an action I had been involved in at school in Finchley, North London. It was 1976 and I was soon to be taking my O’ Levels. The school had a very serious and tightly controlled uniform policy. Girls had to wear a blue and white striped blouse, navy blazer and a just below the knee length grey A-line skirt with knee-high white socks or what was called “skin-coloured” tights. These were pretty much butterscotch colour and didn’t match anybody’s skin tone, let alone those of us who were Black, Asian or Girls of Colour.
Many of the girls wanted to wear trousers but this was forbidden so about 5 or 6 of us hatched a plan to turn up in grey flannel trousers lent to us by some of the boys. The school leadership was furious and suspended us meaning that I took my O’ Levels in a room on my own in a local community centre as did my sister activists. The local press took up the story and it all blew up much larger than we imagined, with similar actions taking place across other North London schools. As a result, we were interviewed by Women’s Voice, a feminist wing of the Socialist Workers Party who then wrote up the story in their magazine and proceeded to sell the magazine weekly outside the school. I bought it regularly and devoured it.
I was born into a migrant family who had come to London in the 1940s from Cyprus, a British colony until gaining independence in 1960, the year of my birth. My parents had migrated immediately after the Second World War having been invited by “the Motherland” to help rebuild it. I grew up with one book in the house, my mum’s book of dream interpretations in Turkish, which she consulted each morning to decode her dreams. There was also a full set of Encyclopaedia Britannica but these were housed in my brother’s bedroom as my parents had bought them from a door-to-door salesman to encourage my brother to study.
Although he never made it to University, I arrived at the University of Essex as the first and only member of my extended family to go into Higher Education. I found Freshers Week fascinating and exciting with the plethora of stalls inviting the new students to join all sorts of political groups (and some sports stuff but I wasn’t interested in that!).
I soon met women involved in feminist politics and joined the numerous discussions and actions taking place. As socialist or radical feminist students at the University of Essex in the late 1970s/early 1980s, through political education and personal relationships, we came to understand the need for solidarity with others experiencing oppression. We believed that activism was the way to bring positive change and joined others in their fight for freedom and rights.
We were what is now called intersectional in our approach although this word was not used at the time. For us, this meant that we recognised as women facing misogyny and sexism that patriarchy was not the only enemy. We also recognised that we, as a group of feminists, were not homogenous. A conglomerate of different identities and experiences dwelt within each of us. We were White women, Black and Asian women and other Women of Colour, culturally Jewish women, Irish women, migrants, children of migrants, straight, lesbian, bisexual, middle class and working class. One size did not fit all. As a result, we became involved in numerous wide-reaching campaigns.
Some of us joined anti-racist movements such as Rock Against Racism, the Anti-Apartheid movement and the Anti-Nazi League, attending meetings and marches. I was on the anti-racism demonstration in April 1979 (still in my first year at Essex) called by the Anti-Nazi League to oppose the rise of the far-right National Front in Southall, West London where a sizeable South Asian community lived. Another anti-fascist on the march, Blair Peach, was found with severe head injuries at the side of the road and subsequently died in hospital. I then joined the campaign for justice for Blair Peach as nobody admitted responsibility although many in the Anti-Nazi League suspected he had been killed by the Special Patrol Group, a specialist unit within the Met Police.
Some feminists at Essex also identified with the fight for independence in Northern Ireland and attended local Troops Out meetings. Colchester, the closest town to the University, was/is a garrison town and was, at that stage, the last stop for soldiers heading for a stint in Northern Ireland. Some of the soldiers visited the campus to discuss ‘The Troubles’ and their role in the ‘war’ and some of us visited Belfast to meet with nationalists who wanted to end British colonial rule. We witnessed what was a war zone with British army checkpoints to navigate and blown-up buildings all around.
Post the UK election of 1979, the ultra-Conservative Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister and her government moved to decimate the steel and coal industries, partly because of the influence of their strong unions. We supported the steel workers who were on strike and picketing the docks in Essex and Suffolk, trying to block the steel imported by Thatcher to break their strike. Not only did we picket alongside them as flying pickets (since outlawed) but we housed them in our student accommodation so that they could eat proper food and rest but be near the docks. I had at least 2 steelworkers stay in my room on campus whilst I slept in the next-door room with my best friend Helen.
We also raised funds for and visited coal mining areas when Thatcher’s government started to close down pits. The discussions and exchange of ideas between men and women from the steel-working and mining communities and us, the socialist and radical feminists of Essex University were completely enlightening both ways. We talked about misogyny and domestic and sexual violence against women and equal pay and childcare and abortion as much as we talked about Thatcher and her cuts.
Alongside this, some of the feminists at Essex were members of political parties such as the Socialist Workers Students Organisation (SWSO) and its women’s section Women’s Voice or the Black section Flame. Others were in the Labour or Communist Students Parties. There were often loud discussions that we initiated about how socialism or communism would end misogyny “after the Revolution.” There were also fall outs around whether having women’s or Black sections of a Party diluted the fight.
Morning Star 19th January 1982. Women against Violence against Women – lobbying MPs at the House of Commons
I attended student meetings about the legacy of Slavery, Colonialism and Imperialism, about the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the Israel/Palestine question and whether ‘Zionism is Racism’ as much as I supported the organisations working to end Violence Against Women and Girls, the National Abortion Campaign (NAC), the fight for Equal Pay and Rights for women in the workplace.
We were also involved in direct feminist action such as disrupting a local leg of the Miss World competition which took place on campus and which we felt demeaned women. We stormed the competition by launching ourselves through an open window and unfurling banners with feminist slogans.
We demanded a safe space for women on campus and, after some campaigning, the Women’s Room was born. This was a women-only space which, after some more cajoling of the higher powers at the University, was available to women 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It was a political space as well as a social one and women got to know each other and themselves. We started consciousness-raising groups and discussed everything and anything to do with women’s lives and rights.
Alongside this, I and other feminists became involved in the rent strike taking place at the University demanding fairer rents for students alongside other grievances that we had. When the University did not respond to our demands, we occupied the administration corridor which meant the finance office and other university administrators could not continue with their work. The Occupation lasted for 10 days and was finally broken up by the police as the University had applied for and got a possession order from the courts.
However, it was not all serious political activity, we also had a lot of fun. I remember learning and playing a lot of Pool. I loved it so much that it almost became an addiction. In my second year, when I lived off campus, I sometimes walked home (about half an hour away) and then would immediately turn around and go back on campus just to have a couple more games!
We also used a room next to the Women’s Room for women-only dance nights which were on every other Friday night. I have a very fond memory of me in my monkey boots and bright red lipstick, dancing the night away in a circle of women singing at the top of our voices to Aretha Franklin’s I Will Survive and Sister Sledge’s We Are Family. The atmosphere was electric and full of love for each other.
As feminists, of course we centred the fight against misogyny and sexism but we also knew that we needed to oppose all other forms of oppression. As the saying goes, we are not free until everyone is free. Through discussion and activism in other movements, our feminism was influenced and I believe that we greatly influenced and changed these other movements fighting for freedom.
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