In 1938 Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, one of the leaders of the Women’s Social & Political Union (WSPU), published her autobiography, My Part in a Changing World. In it she noted, “My thanks are due also to my secretaries, Miss Esther Knowles…
Category: Politics
Writing a woman’s trauma: by Kate Clifford Larson
Writing a woman’s trauma. Balancing Fannie Lou Hamer’s silence with newly recovered testimony. By Kate Clifford Larson Please note this post contains discussion of sexual assault and police brutality. On Sunday morning, June 9, 1963, African American Civil Rights activist…
Reading against the grain: sex workers lives in a government archive by Vicky Iglikowski-Broad
Reading against the grain: sex workers lives in a government archive Vicky Iglikowski-Broad Historically, sex workers lives have been medicalised, criminalised and moralised, and this is reflected in many of the collections held by archives and research libraries.[1] This post will…
Gendering International Affairs: Winifred Coombe Tennant and the League of Nations Assembly, 1922, by Robert Laker
In the summer of 1922, Winifred Coombe Tennant (1874-1956) was selected as a delegate to the Third Assembly of the League of Nations, making her the first woman to ever represent Britain at this international organisation. In this pioneering role,…
#WE WERE THERE TOO! By Dr. Carolyn Jefferson-Jenkins
In our latest fascinating blog, Dr Carolyn Jefferson-Jenkins examines the role of, and reception to, women of colour in the history of The League of Women Voters of the United States. On February 14, 2020, The League of Women Voters…
Queering recognition: Exploring ‘corrective rape’ and black lesbian sexuality in a local and transnational context, By Dr. Nadine Lake
The post-apartheid political and social landscape has provided researchers, scholars and readers with an opportunity to reconceptualise the LGBTQ+ category in public culture. My PhD titled ‘Corrective rape and black lesbian sexualities in contemporary South African cultural texts’ (2017) explored…
Unreported History: the National Convention for the Defence of the Civic Rights of Women, October 1903, By Dr. Maureen Wright.
Unreported History: the National Convention for the Defence of the Civic Rights of Women, October 1903 ©Dr. Maureen Wright, University of Chichester, founder and lead of Women’s Political Rights, www.womenspoliticalrights.uk It might be fair to say that for many women’s…
‘There is a good deal of uncertainty as to how the women will vote’: The 1918 General Election in Birmingham
100 years ago, on 14 December 1918, women in Britain went to the polls to vote in a General Election for the first time. Just ten months after the Representation of the People Act had awarded the franchise to some…
War Widows and the controversy over Remembrance Sunday services at the Cenotaph (1972-1982), by Dr Janis Lomas
Remembrance Sunday has a particular significance this year as it marks the centenary of the First World War armistice, yet few remember the First and Second World War widows who following the foundation of the War Widows’ Association (WWA) in…