(Deadline 29 July, 2022)

 Next year, Women’s History Today (the Women’s History Network journal) is planning a special issue, concentrating on the nexus between women’s history and the Equality Act 2010. Taking the Act and its nine protected characteristics (age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation) as a baseline, we invite proposals for articles that might focus on, but are not restricted to:

• Discussions addressing how earlier laws, enacted to protect diversities, relate to the Equality Act 2010. For example, were previous equality and diversity statutes strengthened or weakened by the Equality Act 2010? Is the Act fit for purpose and how has it evolved from earlier legislation?
• Whether the recent pandemic intensified or further exposed inequality and how present interconnections between contagion and discrimination can be informed by looking to the past.
• The extent to which pandemic restrictions worked to encourage us to challenge our thoughts on inequality and how similar considerations were contested historically.
• Discussions that explore the interplay between recent movements (such as #MeToo or #BlackLivesMatter), historically distant movements and “horizontal inequalities” (those that apply especially to whole groups, not simply individuals whose characteristics are protected within the Equality Act).
• Caste discrimination (past and present) and the Equality Act.
• Discrimination by association – considerations involving the many and various journeys involved in securing protected characteristics and whether the Equality Act goes far enough to protect women and girls connected to individuals or groups safeguarded by the legislation.
• Interdisciplinary proposals that bring together any aspect of women’s history with the Equality Act 2010, socio-economic inequality and/or geographical inequality.
• Considerations that include how the UK Equality Act and previous domestic equality legislation measures up in comparison to similar statutes in other countries across the globe.
• Definitions of words and terms used within the Equality Act 2010 have been challenged. Accordingly, we welcome proposals focussing on the language of the document in respect of historical philological developments and/or its reflection on all of society.

Proposals should include the proposer’s name, academic affiliation, email, social media tags, the paper title and a short abstract (150 words).

Please note that this is a call for proposals only: draft articles of between 3000 and 6000 words are only required once the ‘call’ stage is complete and proposals have been accepted.

Please submit your proposal to Norena Shopland at draigenfys@gmail.com by 29 July, 2022.