A Conference organised by the Women’s History Network, Midlands region. Saturday 21 November: University of Worcester, City Campus, Castle Street, Worcester, WR1 3AS Edith Cavell was executed by a firing squad in Brussels on 12 October 1915 and as part of…
In 1979 when the radio announced the First Strike, American Cruise Nuclear missiles were to be based at Greenham Common USAF Airbase, Sheila Standard ‘was gripped with fear and a sense of inevitable disaster, and felt powerless to do anything. The worst bit was her mum lived near Greenham, and would “get it first!” However … [quickly], all over the country, people started to organise into anti-missile groups, and she joined Withington Against the Missiles, a local group in Manchester, and accidentally got involved in an NVDA (Non-Violent Direct Action) protest becoming one of the “Bunker 4”.Then something truly epic happened … Greenham … thousands of women discovering the power of working together, singing, being silly, the wit and repartee, fear and bravery, that goes with bringing fences crashing down, to the mockery of militarism …
2015 is the year to ensure that women’s records are recognised as not only a significant but a central part of US history. The Trust calls for entries, nominations and positive suggestions to recognise women in US history – from all backgrounds, all states and territories, all centuries, all fields of endeavour. The call is on for women to come to the fore, for those who care about US history and herstory, for those who recognise women as equal participants in the building of the country to act! Don’t let another year go by without ensuring the recognition of women through places, spaces, communities, buildings and sites.
Everyday life had to go on, despite the challenges, privations and sorrows of this new kind of ‘total’ war. Yet it is clear that whichever combatant nation one looks at, there was a diversity of experience on the home front dependent on place – hence local home fronts – but also on class, on age, and particularly on gender. And that these experiences varied over time.
Poppies at the Tower – Remembering World War I Photography: Robin R. Joyce Revisiting Home Fronts: Gender, War and Conflict Women’s History Network Annual Conference, 2014 Introduction ‘Revisiting Home Fronts: Gender, War & Conflict’ was the title and theme of…
War created instant history from 1916 and ever since the history of women and the First World War has been a synonym for thinking about a distinctive female contribution, about the politics of gender and the cultural and social history of war. Looking again at the history is a way of thinking about sources and method, thinking again about how far historians ‘disturb the ground on which they stand’ or how far they build new memorials to the past.
Elections are often won and lost on women’s swing votes … What better time to start a serious debate on the things that matter to women – and to working women in particular? Of course, this debate is already taking place across the country in organisations from Mumsnet to the 30 Per Cent Group, and from the Fawcett Society to many employers. Just this week, Asda finds itself forced to into the debate via a legal challenge from thousands of its women employees embarking on a new battle for equal pay and recognition. And in Newham, the women activists of Focus E15 may have ended their occupation of empty flats but their battle for basic housing continues.A new Working Women’s Charter could transform these debates – not because a new list of new demands will change anything on its own but because it could harness the energy and promise of growing ‘third wave feminism’ …
She dedicated almost a decade to the meticulous research and writing that culminated in her final book Thicker than Water: Siblings and their Relations, 1780-1920, published by Oxford late in 2012 just before her 80th birthday. This pioneering study is yet to receive its full recognition. Leonore demonstrates the significance of sibling relationships and their key role in the extensive family networks that provided the capital, personnel, skills and contracts crucial to the rapidly expanding commercial and professional enterprises of the era, and how these changed as families became smaller from the end of the 19th century. Through studies of particular families (including the Freuds, Gladstones, Wedgwoods and Darwins), she explored sibling intimacy and incest, and some famous brother-sister relationships.
Women often can be the first to be marginalised as agriculture is increasingly mechanised. Women tend to have less access to resources, finance or training than men, so land farmed by women is often less productive. If women worldwide had the same access to productive resources as men, this could increase yields on women’s farms by 20–30% and raise total agricultural output by 2.5–4%. Gains in agricultural production alone could lift 100 to 150 million people out of hunger …