This book serves as an introduction to the extraordinary diversity of women’s activism. Paula Bartley's original research is supported by a range of writing to provide a powerful impression of the actions taken by groups of women from across the social and political spectrum, making the book invaluable to both students and interested readers. These women set out to make a difference to their locality, their country and sometimes the world. The story of women’s activism embodies stimulating accounts of progress and reversals, of commitment and uncertainty, of competing rights and challenging wrongs. The story of women’s activism is not tidy or well-ordered. It is messy and unorthodox. And full of surprises.

This book serves as an introduction to the extraordinary diversity of women's activism. Paula Bartley's original research is supported by a range of writing to provide a powerful impression of the actions taken by groups of women from across the social and political spectrum, making the book invaluable to both students and interested readers. These women set out to make a difference to their locality, their country and sometimes the world. The story of women's activism embodies stimulating accounts of progress and reversals, of commitment and uncertainty, of competing rights and challenging wrongs. The story of women's activism is not tidy or well-ordered. It is messy and unorthodox. And full of surprises. Paula Bartley is a feminist historian who has written widely on, and promoted, women's history. Her books include Ellen Wilkinson (2014), Queen Victoria (2016) and Labour Women in Power: Cabinet Ministers in the Twentieth Century (Palgrave, 2019). She is a former judge and Chair of the Women's History Network book prize. "Paula Bartley's fresh approach tells a multi-dimensional story of women's political engagement. She synthesizes women's activism from points across the political spectrum, including both far left and far right women, and the many in between, acknowledging that not all women's political engagement has been 'progressive' or feminist. Her own insight and experience add depth and authenticity to this valuable study." --Julie Gottlieb, Professor of History, University of Sheffield, UK "This book is a really enjoyable read. It also reminds us that it is not powerful men, or even women, that make history but activists that create the waves. And it is also clear, not all women are progressive." --Clare Short, Former Labour MP and Secretary of State for International Development "A compelling history of the women who marched, fasted and stormed bastions of male politics and society for suffrage, workers' rights, control over their bodies, even the right to serve in bars. Paula Bartley reminds us once again of their courage and fortitude, of campaigns big and small, and how much we owe these pioneers." --Shrabani Basu, journalist, historian, and best-selling author.

This book offers a new view of the twentieth century, placing international ideas and institutions at its heart.

'This book provides a comprehensive and well documented political history of women and the women's movement in the period under examination, drawing on evidence from a wide range of sources and analysing the complex inter-relationship between the organized women's movement, the majority of women outside the official women's movement, and the male political establishment in Britain.' A. Brown, University of Edinburgh, political Studies, Vol. XL1, No 2, 6/93. Using the widest range of evidence, from the political feminist pressure groups to popular women's magazines, this book provides a challenging and original analysis of the adaptation of the women's movement in Britain in the period between the winning of the vote and the late 1950's. It examines how women successfully worked with the grain of change in the political system; but it also considers the nature of the long-term decline of the organised movement.

Remembering Women’s Activism examines the intersections between gender politics and acts of remembrance by tracing the cultural memories of women who are known for their actions. Memories are constantly being reinterpreted and are profoundly shaped by gender. This book explores the gendered dimensions of history and memory through nation-based and transnational case studies from the Asia-Pacific region and Anglophone world. Chapters consider how different forms of women’s activism have been remembered: the efforts of suffragists in Britain, the USA and Australia to document their own histories and preserve their memory; Constance Markievicz and Qiu Jin, two early twentieth-century political activists in Ireland and China respectively; the struggles of women workers; and the movement for redress of those who have suffered militarized sexual abuse. The book concludes by reflecting on the mobilization of memories of activism in the present. Transnational in scope and with reference to both state-centred and organic acts of remembering, including memorial practices, physical sites of memory, popular culture and social media, Remembering Women’s Activism is an ideal volume for all students of gender and history, the history of feminism, and the relationship between memory and history.

The millennium has sharpened perspectives on the history of women in twentieth-century Britain. Many features of the contemporary gender order date only from the last decades of the century – the expectation of equal opportunities in education and the work-place, sexual autonomy for the individual and tolerance of a variety of family forms. The years dominated by the two World Wars saw real advances towards equal citizenship and legal rights, and a growing sense of the impact on women of 'modernity' in its various forms, including consumerism and the mass media. But values inherited from the Victorians were still reflected in the class hierarchy, the policing of sexuality and the male-breadwinner family. This anthology of original sources, accompanied by a state-of-the-art bibliography, illustrates patterns of continuity and change in women's experience and their place in national life. An introductory survey provides an accessible overview and analysis of controversial issues, such as the relationship between 'first', 'second' and 'third' wave feminism.

This novel was the major inspiration for the Women's Movement and continues to be a powerful and illuminating analysis of the position of women in Western society___

This book is the first archive-based account of the charged debates around race in the women's movement in England during the 'second wave' period. Examining both the white and the Black women's movement through a source base that includes original oral histories and extensive research using feminist periodicals, this book seeks to unpack the historical roots of long-running tensions between Black and white feminists. It gives a broad overview of the activism that both Black and white women were involved in, and examines the Black feminist critique of white feminists as racist, how white feminists reacted to this critique, and asks why the women's movement was so unable to engage with the concerns of Black women. Through doing so, the book speaks to many present day concerns within the women's movement about the politics of race, and indeed the place of identity politics within the left more broadly.

Women's Activism brings together twelve innovative contributions from feminist historians from around the world. They look at how women have always found ways to challenge or fight inequalities and hierarchies as individuals, in international women's organizations, as political leaders, and in global forums such as the United Nations. This book addresses women's internationalism and struggle for their rights in the international arena; it deals with racism and colonialism in Australia, India and Europe; women's movements and political activism in South Africa, Eastern Bengal (Bangladesh), the United Kingdom, Japan and France.

Feminism and Empire establishes the foundational impact that Britain's position as leading imperial power had on the origins of modern western feminism. Based on extensive new research, this study exposes the intimate links between debates on the 'woman question' and the constitution of 'colonial discourse' in order to highlight the centrality of empire to white middle-class women's activism in Britain. The book begins by exploring the relationship between the construction of new knowledge about colonised others and the framing of debates on the 'woman question' among advocates of women's rights and their evangelical opponents. Moving on to examine white middle-class women's activism on imperial issues in Britain, topics include the anti-slavery boycott of Caribbean sugar, the campaign against widow-burning in colonial India, and women’s role in the foreign missionary movement prior to direct employment by the major missionary societies. Finally, Clare Midgley highlights how the organised feminist movement which emerged in the late 1850s linked promotion of female emigration to Britain's white settler colonies to a new ideal of independent English womanhood. This original work throws fascinating new light on the roots of later 'imperial feminism' and contemporary debates concerning women's rights in an era of globalisation and neo-imperialism.