In the three decades before the First World War, the relationship between socialism and feminism was both curious and convoluted. Despite strong theoretical links between these ideologies, class and sex seem to have inspired conflicting loyalties and opposing demands. In Britain, the uniquely middle-class, reform-minded Fabian Society might have been expected to bridge the gap between these movements. Yet, between 1884 and 1914, the Fabian Society’s record on the "woman question" was highly inconsistent and, at times, overtly regressive. Originally published in 1987, this title looks at three of the most influential members, Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw and Hubert Bland and the women they were married to, who were also active in the Society.

Throughout his career Bernard Shaw served as a "vigorous exponent of women's freedom to be themselves, to liberate themselves from their traditional roles and traditional subservience. This book reflects upon Shaw as an early champion of goals still fresh on the banners of today's feminist movement: equal opportunity to secure employment; equal pay for equal work; contracts for marriage; marriage free from degrading economic and possessive-sexual factors; dignified divorce; financial independence within or without marriage; ownership of property exclusive of one's husband; bearing of children outside of marriage and refusal to bear children; equal opportunity to participate in athletics; and legal equality of every variety. Following a general introduction by the editor, the book offers sections on Literary and Mythic Influences and Political and Economic Influences. Part III reveals Shaw grappling with the question of Sex Roles or True Vocation, and Part IV describes Shaw's Liberated Women. Next comes a consideration of the Influence of Shaw's Feminism: Three Generations--including interviews with the playwrights Clare Boothe Luce and Megan Terry. A concluding section presents five broadsides, not previously reprinted, under the rubric of Shaw on Feminist Issues. There is an extensive bibliography of works by and about Shaw, The Fabian Feminist.

First published in 1988. This volume situates the work of the Fabian Women's Group in the context of both Fabian socialism and the thought and practise of the early twentieth-century Women's Movement. These tracts have been instrumental in developing present day discourse on the sexual, economic and social aspects of women's lives.

This volume covers all aspects of Shaw's drama, focusing both on the political and theatrical context, while the illustrations showcase productions from the Shaw Festival in Canada.

Margaret Wilson has always lived a political life. From her days as a child growing up in the Waikato in a Catholic family attuned to fairness, an unlikely law student in the 1960s in a class with a few other women, and an emerging socialist feminist who read radical texts and attended women's conventions, her key concerns became cemented early: the rights of women and equality for all under the law. This is the story of one of New Zealand's most eminent political actors. A policy-focused campaigner, reluctant to join a political tribe and uncomfortable with the combative attitudes and personal jockeying that politics seemed to entail, Wilson nevertheless rose to become the president of the Labour Party during the turbulent mid-1980s. Going on to become a central, far-sighted, occasionally controversial minister in the Clark government, Wilson held significant roles as Attorney-General and Speaker of the House. Activism, Feminism, Politics and Parliament is a powerful analysis of political life in New Zealand over four decades. From pay equity to a home-grown Supreme Court, employment relations legislation to paid parental leave, the policies Wilson championed were based always in the long-held principles of a true conviction politician.

Examines the relationship between socialism and feminism through a detailed study of Britain's first Marxist party, the Social Democratic Federation.

"From the intimate perspective of three friends and neighbors in mid-nineteenth century Auburn, New York-the "agitators" of the title-acclaimed author Dorothy Wickenden tells the fascinating and crucially American stories of abolition, the Underground Railroad, the early women's rights movement, and the Civil War. Harriet Tubman-no-nonsense, funny, uncannily prescient, and strategically brilliant-was one of the most important conductors on the underground railroad and hid the enslaved men, women and children she rescued in the basement kitchens of Martha Wright, Quaker mother of seven, and Frances Seward, wife of Governor, then Senator, then Secretary of State William H. Seward. Harriet worked for the Union Army in South Carolina as a nurse and spy, and took part in a river raid in which 750 enslaved people were freed from rice plantations. Martha, a "dangerous woman" in the eyes of her neighbors and a harsh critic of Lincoln's policy on slavery, organized women's rights and abolitionist conventions with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Frances gave freedom seekers money and referrals and aided in their education. The most conventional of the three friends, she hid her radicalism in public; behind the scenes, she argued strenuously with her husband about the urgency of immediate abolition. Many of the most prominent figures in the history books-Lincoln, Seward, Daniel Webster, Frederick Douglass, Charles Sumner, John Brown, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd Garrison-are seen through the discerning eyes of the protagonists. So are the most explosive political debates: about women's roles and rights during the abolition crusade, emancipation, and the arming of Black troops; and about the true meaning of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Beginning two decades before the Civil War, when Harriet Tubman was still enslaved and Martha and Frances were young women bound by law and tradition, The Agitators ends two decades after the war, in a radically changed United States. Wickenden brings this extraordinary period of our history to life through the richly detailed letters her characters wrote several times a week. Like Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals and David McCullough's John Adams, Wickenden's The Agitators is revelatory, riveting, and profoundly relevant to our own time"--

Spanning two decades of research and writing, this volume presents the influential and insightful work of Sally Alexander, one of Britain's most reputed feminist historians. Whether analyzing women's factory work, the emergence of the Victorian women's movement, or women's voices during the Spanish civil war, or charting the lives of women in the inter-war years, Alexander's accounts are original and thoughtful. Moving from a discussion of class and sexual difference to a reading of subjectivity informed by psychoanalysis, Alexander exposes the relationship between memory, history, and the unconscious. Her focus ranges from a descriptive rendering of the 1970's Nightcleaners campaign to a more exploratory account of becoming a woman in 1920's and 30's London. Becoming A Woman offers up a fascinating exploration of important historical moments and of the process of writing feminist history.

Shaw, now in its twenty-fourth year, publishes general articles on Shaw and his milieu, reviews, notes, and the authoritative Continuing Checklist of Shaviana, the bibliography of Shaw studies.

This book takes us through the life and works of George Bernard Shaw as a feminist. It critically explores his major plays to showcase how his works discuss ideas, practices, discourses, and ideologies that are considered to be antecedents to the modern feminist movements. While the involvement of male feminists in feminist movements prior to the twentieth century were sporadic, isolated, and relatively unconnected, Shaw used the dramatic form of realistic theatre to communicate socialist and feminist ideas to his contemporary audience. The volume sheds light on how Shaw in his plays and prefaces exposes the iniquities suffered by women. His women characters do not conform to the Victorian notions of femininity; voice self-awareness, self-evaluation, and realisation of personal worth; and break free from the typical mythical representation in literature, to pave the way for the future generations of female character. Shaw’s women break the stereotypes of Victorian society to voice and follow their dreams and desires without the fear of societal sanction. Through selections from texts such as Back to Methuselah, Pygmalion, Candida, Arms and the Man, Saint Joan, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Man and Superman, The Black Girl in search of God, and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles, this book highlights how Shaw gave the world ideologies that have since been adapted by the second- and third-wave feminists. Foregrounding Shaw’s critical role in strengthening feminist characters in modern literature, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of literature and literary criticism, theatre studies, feminism, freudian studies and gender studies.