American actress Tallulah Bankhead experienced a resurgence in popular culture after the release of Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood (2020) and Lee Daniels’ The U.S. vs. Billie Holiday (2021). Both Paget Brewster’s portrayal of Tallulah in Hollywood and Natasha Lyonne’s portrayal in…
Category: Blog and News
News items of interest to WHN Members
New Book – Anti-Fascism, Gender, and International Communism: The Comité Mondial Des Femmes Contre la Guerre Et Le Fascisme, 1934-1941
Anti-Fascism, Gender, and International Communism provides a comprehensive history of the Comite mondial des femmes contre la guerre et le fascisme (CMF), an international women’s organisation concerned with confronting the impact of fascism on women and children across the globe. Women played an…
Hero or helper-maiden? Medea in the Argonautica – Maddison Kelly
Medea is one of the most well-known characters in Greek literature and perhaps the most changeable. Made famous in antiquity by Euripides, Apollonius of Rhodes, Seneca, Ovid, and others; betrayed by the man she loved and made infamous for her…
Women’s History Today – Call for Papers for Autumn 2023
The 2022 Platinum Jubilee for Queen Elizabeth, as well as her state funeral, highlighted the importance of commemoration in the life of a nation. For Britain, these two instances of commemoration were focused on female representations of nationhood. Women’s History…
Call for Papers: Women, Money and Markets (1600-1950) – Sheffield Hallam University 12-14 June 2023
This annually-held conference addresses the role of women in consumerism, shopping, global trade, domestic trade, markets (literary and otherwise), currency, and varying practices of exchange. The conference is interdisciplinary in nature, bridging literature, material culture, gender studies, theatre and economic…
‘For I shall never be easey till I know the truth of my dear son’: The Forgotten Experiences of London Foundling Hospital Mothers – Ellie Gregory
Dedicated to Mary Philomena Collins, and every mother in history who has experienced the pain of being separated from their child. The London Foundling Hospital was founded in 1739 by philanthropist Thomas Coram for the ‘maintenance and education of exposed…
The ‘ambiguity’ of equal pay for equal work : Ethel Watts, ICAEW and the 1944 Royal Commission on Equal Pay – Jane Berney
Following the passing of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) admitted its first female member. To mark the centenary of the Act, I researched and wrote a booklet published by…
Fat is STILL a Feminist Issue – Re-reading a classic of the second wave by Saffron Kricha
At university, I became interested in women’s embodied experiences – considering how women’s bodies are not only passive entities, but a site of empowerment and activism. Hence, when I was introduced to Fat Is A Feminist Issue, an inquisitive nerve…
Hannah Brutton and the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 – by Charlotte Fairlie
While the limitations and inequalities of the 1857 Divorce and Marital Causes Act have led to debate over its significance, the case of Brutton v. Brutton illustrates how it empowered ordinary women to escape unhappy and dangerous situations.[i] Certainly, factors…






