From the 1990s, dance bars in Mumbai and other parts of the state of Maharashtra mushroomed into prominence. In these bars, girls dressed in glitzy though traditional clothes, danced to Bollywood songs and entertained almost exclusively male audience members.…
Category: Blog
The Women’s History Network blog
MARY QUAILE – Activist, Agitator, Trade Unionist
Mary Quaile Early in the 1900s, Mary Quaile arrived with her family in Manchester. They had come from Dublin, and Mary became a stalwart in the labour movement in Manchester. She led a café waitresses’ strike, going on to work…
Standing On Their Shoulders!
When appointed to the United States Supreme Court by President WJ (Bill) Clinton in the 1990s, Ruth Bader Ginsberg said: I would not be in this room today, if it were not for the women and men who…
Left on Pearl – 1970s Women’s Liberation Remembered
1970s Women’s Liberation Movement activism not only brought together women of diverse backgrounds. It ensured women’s voices were heard in political struggles of the time which women saw as intimately connected with women’s drive for a new world where egalitarian ideals would be met and women’s independence, bodily integrity and empowerment would be central. The 888 action was determined that women’s space should be free for women to consciousness raise and engage with the antiwar movement, civil rights, black power, lesbian and gay rights movements on women’s terms. Consistent with past wmen’s movement struggles, affordable housing was one of the issues taken up – reminiscent of Jane Addams and the Chicago movement of times past, where women trade unionists and suffragists like Alice Henry and Miles Franklin took up the banner.
Women of True Grit – Scottish Women’s Hospitals
It was during a visit to Belgrade, Serbia that I was first made aware of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals and the work they did during the First World War. What saddened me was that the women involved are known about…
Margaret Rawlings at the National Portrait Gallery
Rawlings (1906 – 1996) … made her stage debut on 21 March 1927 in George Bernard Shaw’s ‘The Doctor’s Dilemma’ at the Grand Theatre, Croydon. During the 1930s, her reputation as a leading tragedy actress gained ground as she starred as Bianca Capello in Clifford Bax’s play ‘The Venetian’ and Oscar Wilde’s ‘Salome’, and she continued to receive praise from critics for her vivid and emotional performances. Rawlings was particularly successful playing the spectacular dual role of Mary Charrington and her husband’s murdered Mistress, Lucy, in Gordon Sherry’s thriller ‘Black Limelight’, which had a long run at the St James Theatre in 1937 … Rawlings gained further recognition following her roles as Eliza Doolittle in Shaw’s ‘Pygmalian’; ‘A House in the Square’ by Diana Morgan, in which she starred with Lillian Braithwaite; and Vittoria Corombona in John Webster’s tale of corruption and deceit ‘The White Devil’.
Mrs EM King – Campaigning for Women’s Rights Pt 2
MRS E M KING: SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HER PUBLICATIONS BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS Truth. Love. Joy. or The Garden of Eden and its Fruits, Melbourne, 1864, (i-xi, 1-416) published in Melbourne by the author, printed by Clarson, Shallard & Co. …
Mrs EM King – Campaigning for Women’s Rights Pt 1
Mrs King withdrew from public life between 1875 and 1881 … She resumed her polemical role in public addresses and publications, the most notable of which was her pamphlet, Rational dress; or, The Dress of Women and Savages … In November 1882 she announced that the Rational Dress Society would stage a Rational Dress Exhibition in the following year. As a probable consequence of her too radical views on dress reform, she was displaced as secretary of the Rational Dress Society in early 1883. She immediately announced the formation of a competing organisation, the Rational Dress Association, which would stage the Rational Dress Exhibition which had been abandoned by the Society. The exhibition, held in Princes Hall Piccadilly, opened with an address by Mrs King and ran from 18th May to 12th June, 1882.[8] Though there were large attendances and some reviews were favourable, the extensive newspaper and journal coverage was predominantly hostile.
Excluded from the Record – Women, Refugees and Relief 1914-1929
The records do not necessarily provide the full stories … Miss Alma Tadema, daughter of the artist, on 30th September 1915 brought to Mrs Webbe, Mme Marie Wybo, aged 29. She had thrown vitriol and threatened suicide. A younger girl in unspecified trouble, possibly theft or being out all night, was Maria Caroline Verwilt, aged 15. In this instance, as in many others, Mrs Webbe was appointed her Guardian by the Old Street Juvenile Court. However, women who were categorized as morally deficient were likely to find themselves in positions where power relationships became particularly complex. One of these was Gertrude Kuypers. In May 1917, Somerset House, responsible for refugee registration, asked the W.R.C.’s Intelligence Department to find Gertrude’s Baby. It was found in Nazareth Convent at Hammersmith, placed there by Father Christie, the Catholic priest who worked with the W.R.C., because the Mother, i.e. Gertrude, was ‘leading an immoral life’.