“Shall we break this Law” stared me in the face from the cover of the “Review”. “Law” indeed! That was no law, but a tyranny forced upon voteless women buy a “morality” fanatic, Anthony Comstock, in 1887, and so far…
Category: Blog
The Women’s History Network blog
Disabled Women in Remploy – by Andy Holroyde
Remploy was created by the British Government towards the end of the Second World War to provide sheltered employment – a term used to describe workplaces dedicated to employing disabled people in an environment ‘sheltered’ from the competitive pressures of…
‘Blind Lady Guardian’: the radical life of Edith Maurice Vance, by Madeline Goodall
Edith Maurice Vance (née Emma Morris Vince) was a freethinker and radical whose life was animated by her involvement with innumerable progressive movements. Secretary of the National Secular Society for over three decades, Vance was also on the Executive Committee…
‘Witty above her sex’: Restoring Shakespeare’s Women to the Record
This weekend, over 400 years ago, Anne Hathaway married William Shakespeare. This year, at last, Anne and her daughters Susanna and Judith were given their proper place in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. In the late nineteenth century, Virginia Woolf’s…
Disability, Dance, and an Oppressive Mobilisation of Looking, by Georgia Gardner
I have been careful to also engage with disabled scholars whose experiences of disablism differ from my own, recognising the diversity within the disabled community. The patriarchal conditions of classical ballet illustrate the convergence of the male and clinical gazes,…
Reimagining Women’s Sexual Agency in Eighteenth-Century Presbyterian Ireland, by Frances Norman
On 1 December 1710 Sarah Campbell and the married John Wilson appeared before the Presbyterian Kirk Session of Carnmoney, county Antrim, acknowledging their guilt of adultery and desiring baptism for their child. After rebuking the pair for the offence caused,…
Independent Miss Craigie
A new feature documentary, Independent Miss Craigie, whichtells the story of one of the UK’s first women film directors) will have its cinema premiere at the Arts Cinema, Plymouth on Friday 19 November at 6.30. Jill Craigie, (1911 – 99)…
Friends of the Women’s Library: Change of Programme
The Friends of the Women’s Library regret that the talk on Clara Rackham on 17 November has had to be postponed. Mary Joannou is unwell, but it is not serious. The talk will be rescheduled in 2022. Mary would like…
Radical Jewish Women: Nina Salaman (1877-1925)
Jewish Museum London is proud to be collaborating with the Women’s History Network on a Radical Women series, focusing on the lives of Jewish women who have made a significant impact, not only within the Jewish Community in Britain, but…






