By Maisie Vamos
Edited by Becky Ross and Mark Potter
Around forty years after the recognised ‘first wave ‘of feminists were doing their part for
history, the ‘second wave’ was launched into the political and social scene of late-1960s
Britain. The main actors of the second wave were the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM), who sought beyond the legal action of the first wave and took actions to permanently redefine women’s role and position in the social structure. These pursuits were enabled by greater educational opportunities, access to easily circulated feminist works and contact with other activist groups. To this degree, the second wave in Britain was not a direct revival of the first; this essay explores how efforts were made to upheave all institutions that sought to oppress women, a move beyond the first wave’s government-targeted efforts. Both waves had the common objective of attaining full gender equality, yet, in practice, the second wave took a far different approach, based on more modern practices that gave British Feminism a ‘radical edge’.[1]
Before Britain was flung into the exciting era of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the UK heavily promoted the traditional family structure, with the majority of women sitting quietly in the domestic home sphere. Enfranchisement had yet to enact gender quality that, paired with the post-war economic slump, reinforced the feminine role as homemaker. Young girls raised in the late 1950s and early 1960s were not free from patriarchal restraints. Throughout their formative years they were to be socialised into a pre-ordained role of motherhood; their
mothers were the senior female role model and taught subjects such as Home Economics
allowed little deviation from the status quo. [2] A women’s prospects were still limited by an
‘abstracted natural function’, to quote feminist historian Shelia Rowbotham, that had been
rendered redundant by the launch of the contraceptive pill.[3] Between 1961 and 1967, the NHS’s provision of the contraceptive pill had extended from the initial granting only to married women to become available to any women regardless of marital status.[4] The pill’s introduction had separated reproduction from sexual enjoyment, relinquishing the childbearing pressure and in turn, gave women power over their body politics. [5] This would be followed by the four demands declared at the 1970 National Women’s Liberation Conference held at Ruskin College, Oxford that demanded; equal pay, equal education and job opportunities, free contraception on demand and free 24-hour nurseries. [6] All four demands, if met, would act as a catalyst for women’s liberation and aid the collapse of the patriarchal family structure. Thus, the newly improving healthcare and sexual freedoms encouraged women who were disgruntled by the prospects of a future confined to the home to pursue female liberation.
It would not be the 1950s tired housewife who would front Britain’s second wave feminists;
instead, as exemplified in Bruley’s oral histories, it was the daughters of those grown tired,
those who could not face the banal future their mothers blatantly resented. [7] In Bruley’s
compilation of former WLM members, one interviewee describes how as a child, she had
always hated being sent to the kitchen as her male family members sat back.[8] Another recalls the everyday confrontation of the miserable faced mothers, baby in arm and toddler in hand, and a subsequent fear of a similar, entrapping future.[9] There was no room for personal and economic progression once trapped in the domestic sphere. It was a subordinate role that had survived the century despite the considerable efforts of earlier feminists. Working women also faced a lack of mobility; well-qualified women of the labour markets found their professional prospects ultimately controlled by men and faced the snobbish attitudes of a British society that had not yet realised a women’s priority of work over family.[10]
Younger girls, therefore, saw a future so unfruitful that they rejected it and took this attitude
into the 60s, a decade that gave provision to make progress and kick-start the British second-
wave. Young women of the 60s were met with the prospect of education. In 1963, Lord Robbins, expanded the number of British universities that declared that undergraduate places should be granted to ‘all who were qualified for them by ability and attainment’, regardless of race, gender or class. [11] This wealth of opportunity was important to women; by entering into government-endorsed education, it was a chance to reclaim their futures, demonstrate the equal standing between the educated male and female and finally, begin the liberation from their inferior social standing. Enlightenment through education links to Harold L. Smith’s idea of the 1960s women’s growing consciousness of their oppression – a revelation he attributes greatly to the second waves’ emergence.[12] The women’s entry into the academic sphere would mark the beginning of the WLM’s policy of dismantling institutions that promoted a patriarchal structure. It would also prove the realisation that the vote for women was a limited success; activism cannot stay only in the legal sphere. Harold L. Smith’s outlines this as a key distinction between the first and second wave of British feminism; the second wave put a marked focus on changing the male-led institutions that fuelled their oppression rather than the sole pursuit of equal standing with men.[13] Newfound knowledge enabled through higher education would then be utilised in the organisation and direction of the WLM. Universities across the country offered a space to connect, socialise and interweave with a diverse range of like-minded individuals, together spurning out new and exciting ideas that challenged the many existing conventions that had limited the UK for so long.
It would then come as no surprise that many protest and liberation movements were born out of the student population, causing ripples across the greater population. The WLM owe its origins to universities; many of the pioneers of the movement were graduates or students
between the ages of twenty and thirty. [14] It was on these premises that women would interact and be inspired by the on-going Vietnam Solidarity Campaign and other British-based movements such as the Black Liberation movement. [15] Socialist and Marxist works helped to sustain the countless activist groups of the 60s, with their philosophies largely used to dissect the modern society they saw as oppressive. For example, Friedrich Engel’s denouncing of the modern family structure as being the ‘disguised slavery of women’ gave great cause for women to demand change. [16] All together, these movements would come to define the revolutionary sixties; they were united in ‘one protean social movement’ that all took human freedom as their central value, a structure described by David Bouchier. [17] Inter-movement interactions would shape the WLM; it exposed women to global issues concerning racial inequality and the wider struggles of ‘International Women’.[18] This reflects a key change between the first and second wave, the initial wave mostly included a concerned white, middle-class women, whereas the second was a fight to implement change for all women regardless of background. The success of protest witnessed in other contemporary movements set up the possibility for change for British women; individual resentment for a life of inevitable domesticity could be acted upon, leaving in its place the future of the liberated women.
Crucial to the rapid growth of the WLM was their use of pamphlets, literature, and theory that were received by a more literate, educated female audience. A key player was Shrew, the
newsletter affiliated with the London Women’s Liberation workshop that was attained and
edited by smaller groups of the collective.[19] Contemporary ideas, theory and activity were not to be contained to one area; the WLM’s key objective was to unite all women in the cause of their emancipation. The London Women’s workshop served as the key coordinator of the
movement that had soon appeared in a greater spread of cities such as Birmingham, Liverpool and Leeds.[20] Literature remained a central activity to the movement, an importance identified by Beatrix Campbell, who recalls that ‘they ate the literature that was pouring out of movement’.[21] Academia would also be subverted as women studied feminist theory, art and cultural history.[22] This was a direct challenge to a patriarchal led institution and a bold entry into the male-dominated field of academia, literature, education and activism.
Lucy Delap argues that the feminist bookshops themselves, the spaces created as a solely
female domain, were just as influential to the rapid growth of the British second wave as the
literature their shelves boasted.[23] Similar in its outlet to the university space, radical bookshops were simultaneously a site of circulation and activism. The distinctly feminist-only premises were designed in direct challenge of media and production that feminists dubbed the ‘male-stream’ media.[24] Once again, the WLM had identified another institution as a direct contributor to the wider sexist social structure; for decades, the media had objectified and stereotyped women and facilitated the underrepresentation of women across the arts. [25] This anti-patriarchal approach to the media also extended to the WLM’s deliberate creation of the Onlywomen press in 1974, which allowed uninterrupted printing works for transmission and establishing a uniquely female platform and space.[26] Women’s based spaces and means of production gave a continuous platform for feminist thinkers and offered fresh waves of feminist writings to eager women across the UK. These books and writings, all produced in large volume at a cheaper rate, were available to women across a wide range of age, class and race. In its advocacy of bookshops and its content, the WLM created a durable initiative that sustained British feminism and fully cement their actions into history. Bookshops prove the magnitude and commitment of the WLM in invigorating women everywhere and, by effect, firmly establishing feminism in Britain.
The WLM’s mission was to implement gender equality across Britain, a mission that involved
infiltrating the patriarchal domains of economy, academia and the wider social structure, all of which would elevate the burden of pre-ordained motherhood. Against the backdrop of global protest and with the fuel of growing dissatisfaction, the women of the WLM seized the
opportunity of greater sexual freedoms and entry into education to establish and bolster their
cause. In this sense, the actions of the WLM were an expansion of the first wave on a large
scale, rather than a revival. It was no longer sustainable to simply demand that women be
viewed as equal to men; the WLM rejected the first wave’s primary focus of feminist legislation in favour of a greater institutional upheaval. Both waves were united in the common cause of gender equality, yet the methods adopted by the second wave were vastly different, and in their approach, far more successful.
Notes
[1] Harold L. Smith, The Women’s Movement Politics and Citizenship, 1960s-2000, in Ina Zweiniger- Bargielowska, (ed)., Women in Twentieth Century Britain (Routledge 2001), p. 279.
[2] Smith, The Women’s Movement Politics and Citizenship, 1960s-2000, p. 68.
[3] Sheila Rowbotham, Women’s Consciousness, Man’s World, (Penguin Group 1974), p. 6.
[4] Hera Cook, The Long Sexual Revolution: English Women, Sex and Contraception, 1800-1975, (Oxford University Press 2004), p. 296.
[5] Cook, The Long Sexual Revolution, p. 297.
[6] Natalie Thomlinson, 'The Colour of Feminism: White Feminists and Race in the Women’s
Liberation Movement', History, 97/3 (Wiley 2012), p. 455.
[7] Sue Bruley, ‘It Didn’t Just Come out of Nowhere Did It?’: The Origins of the Women’s Liberation movement in 1960s Britain', Oral History, 45/1 (2017), p. 69.
[8] Bruley, ‘It Didn’t Just Come out of Nowhere, Did It?’, p. 69.
[9] Bruley, ‘It Didn’t Just Come out of Nowhere, Did It?’, p. 69.
[10] Nicholas Owens, 'Men and the 1970s British Women’s Liberation Movement', The Historical Journal Vol. 56, No. 3, (Cambridge University Press 2013), pp. 801-826.
[11] David Jobbins, ‘UK Higher Education Since Robbins – A Timeline’, United Kingdom, University World News, <https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20131028123008296> [accessed 31 December 2020].
[12] Smith, The Women’s Movement Politics and Citizenship, 1960s-2000, p. 278.
[13] Smith, The Women’s Movement Politics and Citizenship, 1960s-2000, p. 278.
[14] David Bouchier, The Feminist Challenge: The Movement for Women’s Liberation in Britain and the United States, (Macmillan Press London 1983), p. 56.
[15] Bruley, ‘It Didn’t Just Come out of Nowhere Did It?’, p. 67.
[16] Bouchier, The Feminist Challenge, p. 29.
[17] Bouchier, The Feminist Challenge, pp. 56 & 48.
[18] Thomlinson, The Colour of Feminism, p. 457.
[19] Bouchier, The Feminist Challenge, p. 58.
[20] Bouchier, The Feminist Challenge, p. 59.
[21] Lucy Delap, 'Feminist Bookshops, Reading Cultures and the Women’s Liberation Movement in Great Britain, c. 1974-2000', History Workshop Journal, 81/1 (2016), p. 1.
[22] Griselda Pollock, Vision and Difference: Feminism, Femininity and the Histories of Art, (Routledge 1988), p. 10.
[23] Delap, Feminist Bookshops, p. 7.
[24] Delap, Feminist Bookshops, p. 3.
[25] Delap, Feminist Bookshops, p. 3.
[26] Delap, Feminist Bookshops, p. 3.
Bibliography
Binard, Florence. (2016) “The British Women’s Liberation Movement in the 1970s:
Redefining the Personal and Political”, Open Edition Journals,
<https://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/1688#quotation> [Accessed 31 December 2020]
Bouchier, David. The Feminist Challenge: The Movement for Women’s Liberation in Britain
and the United States. Macmillan Press London 1983
Bruley, Sue. ‘It Didn’t Just Come out of Nowhere Did It?’: The Origins of the Women’s
Liberation movement in 1960s Britain'. Oral History, 45/1, 2017
Cook, Hera. The Long Sexual Revolution: English Women, Sex and Contraception, 1800-
1975, Oxford University Press 2004
Delap, Lucy. 'Feminist Bookshops, Reading Cultures and the Women’s Liberation Movement
in Great Britain', c. 1974-2000, History Workshop Journal, 81/1, 2016
Jobbins, David. ‘UK Higher Education Since Robbins – A Timeline’, University World
[Accessed 31 December 2020]
Owens, Nicholas. 'Men and the 1970s British Women’s Liberation Movement'. The Historical
Journal Vol. 56, No. 3, Cambridge University Press 2013
Pollock, Griselda. Vision and Difference: Feminism, Femininity and the Histories of Art.
Routledge 1988
Rowbotham, Sheila. Women’s Consciousness, Man’s World. Penguin Group 1974
Setch, Eve. 'The Face of Metropolitan Feminism: The London Women’s Liberation
Workshop, 1969-1979'. Twentieth Century British History. 13/2, 2002
Smith, Harold L. The Women’s Movement Politics and Citizenship, 1960s-2000, in Ina
Zweiniger-Bargielowska, ed., Women in Twentieth Century Britain, Routledge, 2001
Thomlinson, Natalie. 'The Colour of Feminism: White Feminists and Race in the Women’s
Liberation Movement'. History, 97/3, Wiley 2012
Comments