Political women

Abstract

This chapter maps out women’s politics in the ‘Socialist Republic’, paying attention to class and generation. It tracks the involvement of women in the labour movement and their representation on Sheffield City Council, before describing how they developed and engaged with campaigns for gender equality. It discusses how working-class women interacted with the women’s liberation movement (WLM) through their engagement with left-wing organising, and uses oral history interviews to explore some of their attitudes towards women’s liberation activists and their ideas. Using the newsletter of the labour movement’s Working Women’s Charter Committee (WWCC) and interviews with prominent members the chapter depicts the vibrancy of campaigns for gender equality within the labour movement. In the early 1980s the socialist feminist contingent of Sheffield’s WLM shifted their focus from bemoaning the lack of engagement with working-class women in the WLM to working within the labour movement on gender equality through the WWCC. Whilst the older generation of working-class women who founded the WWCC generally welcomed the enthusiasm of younger socialist feminists and incorporated their ideas, the chapter also details the points of tension which emerged between women of different generations and class backgrounds as they worked together.