The Women's Liberation Movement and the Politics of Class in Britain

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This is the first study of the British Women's Liberation Movement's relationship with class politics. It explores the meaning of class to women's liberationists' identities and activism, both nationally and regionally, using a previously neglected feminist cluster in North East England as a case study. Stevenson demonstrates that British feminism was shaped fundamentally by its relationship to, synthesis with, and rejection of class politics. Through these processes, feminists recognised how post-war changes in the economy and gender roles were reshaping class and the Women's Liberation Movement attempted to remake class politics in response. However, socio-economic and cultural class differences between the women involved - linked to occupation, education and background - remained intractable obstacles causing tensions within groups, fragmentations into specific class-based groups and the ultimate failure of the movement to coalesce into a coherent coalition with labour politics, despite great levels of solidarity around particular struggles. Examining regional feminism against the national backdrop, The Women's Liberation Movement and the Politics of Class in Britain provides an engaging exploration of the fruitful but challenging relationship between British feminism and class politics in a capitalist society.

Reviews

Hearing [working-class activists] in their own words, express their experiences is fascinating, and making a record of this collective memory is part of what give Stevensons book its value ... A helpful chronicle of the arguments, ideologies and activisms of this time. * Cercles Book Review *
[The Women's Liberation Movement and the Politics of Class in Britain] shows how essential it is to grasp the relationship of class and oppression. * Counterfire *
This highly readable book constitutes a major piece of original historical research that sheds much light on the under-researched topic of the Womens Liberation Movement and class, and will prove invaluable to both scholars and students of feminism alike. * Natalie Thomlinson, Lecturer of Modern British Cultural History, University of Reading, UK *
This is an important book and distinctive contribution to the study of feminist politics, political history and the history of the 1970s in Britain. This is a vibrant and evocative study of the strains of identity and intersectionality within left-progressive politics. More than that its interrogation of the definitions and political applications of the categories of class and gender will be of vital use and interest to scholars across the social sciences. * Lawrence Black, Professor of Modern History, University of York, UK *
As so often, the full complexities of a seemingly familiar history emerge from a careful and imaginative dissection of its micro-political dynamics. In this bravely argumentative account of the politics of Women's Liberation in 1970s Britain, George Stevenson delivers exactly such a contribution. * Geoff Eley, Karl Pohrt Distinguished University Professor of Contemporary History, University of Michigan, USA *

Author Bio

George Stevenson is the Social and Cultural Studies Module Convenor at INTO Newcastle University, UK. He completed a PhD in history at Durham University and was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Southampton, UK. He has published articles in the Labour History Review, Women's History Review and History Workshop Online.