Women's History In Britain Research Articles

The ‘dark prince’ and dream women: walt disney and mid-twentieth century american feminism

Walt Disney as an individual, as a film-maker, and as a studio head, increasingly has become the subject of respectable academic enquiry. Despite a number of balanced, scholarly publications which ...

Forgotten histories: three stories of black girls from Barnardo's Victorian archive

The history of black women in Britain, particularly before the arrival of the Empire Windrush, is underresearched, and the histories we do have are largely ignored. In this article, biographies of young black women in Victorian London are revealed through the photographic and written archive of Barnardo's. These documents allow a history of black women to be examined in the context of their own time. They add complexion to our current understanding of the Black Atlantic, and the relationships and histories that impact upon our identities today, as well as being a tool with which to interrogate British history.

‘Motherly Hate’: Gendering Anti–Semitism in the British Union of Fascists

Throughout the interwar period, Britain’s fascist movement was marked by anti–Semitism. That anti–Semitism was such a striking feature of the movement is well known, and studies of British fascism have consequently paid attention to the implications and effects of racial prejudice on Britain’s Jewish community, and on British society more generally. However, the history of women in Britain’s fascist movement has been less well known, and the narrative of racial politics and racial tensions in interwar Britain must now be modified by a consideration of gender relations and women’s activism on the extreme right. The first part of this article is thus concerned with the questions of how British fascist women gave vent to their racial hatreds, the particular tone of their rhetorical invectives against the Jewish community, and the distinctiveness of their expressions of anti–Semitism. From their support for Jew–baiting activities on the streets, to their high level of participation in an anti–war movement dedicated to keeping Britain out of the ‘Jews’ war’, to their choices to educate their young children in the principles of Jew–hating, British fascist women did, in fact, show themselves to be ‘Jew wise’. Their active expression of anti–Semitism certainly challenged the optimistic liberal supposition that the female sex was the more tolerant. The second part of this article is concerned with the theoretical implications of putting women back into the history of British anti–Semitism, and explores how the powerful gender paradigms of feminine tolerance, maternalism, and feminised pacifism were subverted to justify a seemingly incongruous sentiment of ‘motherly hate’.

A Century of Women: The History of Women in Britain and the United States in the Twentieth Century.

A Century of Women: The History of Women in Britain and the United States in the Twentieth Century.

What is Black British Feminism?

Young looks at the place of black feminists in today's academy in Britain, and poses some questions for contemporary self-identified black and white feminists based in that country. There is a new confidence among some black, professional Britons but infiltration into the academy remains problematic for many. Black British feminists and writers are largely absent in so-called postcolonial literary canons developed in the Anglo-American institutions, and by and large black British feminists are only offered fragile support by white feminists. Although African-American feminism offers intellectual sustenance and networks, the situation in the United States is very different, particularly as, there, black feminism has had much more impact and recognition. Discussions of the intersections of race, class and gender are rare in Britain outside black feminism, and there has been much less attention than in the States to black women's writing. Perhaps some kind of 'provisional essentialism' is still needed, for it is difficult for black feminist academics ever to feel the question of race is optional. It can be argued that 'blackness' is used to describe women of very different origins, and can obscure differential histories, but 'blackness' is always a political concept, not a register of national belonging. Black women have transformed British culture, but white feminists have largely failed to understand their problems. Attention to the social history of black women in Britain, and particularly to the creative work of black women writers, filmmakers and other cultural workers, is the place at which a new analysis should begin.

Book Reviews

Through the Window, Out the Door: Women's Narratives of Departure, from Austin and Cather, to Tyler, Morrison, and Didion. Janis P. Stout. A Century of Women: The History of Women in Britain and the United States. Sheila Rowbotham. Ghost Dancing the Law: The Wounded Knee Trials. John William Sayer. A West Texas Soapbox. Jim Sanderson. A Guide to American Crime Films of the Thirties. Larry Langman and Daniel Finn. A Guide to American Silent Crime Films. Larry Langman and Daniel Finn. All Things Herriot: James Herriot and His Peaceable Kingdom. Sanford Sternlicht. Arab Comic Strips: Politics of an Emerging Class Culture. Allen Douglas and Fedwa Matli‐Douglas. Bing Crosby: A Bio‐Bibliography. J. Roger Osterholm. Drawing the Dream of the Wolves: Homosexuality, Interpretation, and Freud's “Wolf Man.” Whitney Davis. Culture and Comfort: Parlor Making and Middle‐Class Identity, 1850–1930. Katherine C. Grier. Inventing New England: Regional Tourism in the Nineteenth Century. Dona Brown. American Popular Culture at Home and Abroad. Ed. Lewis H. Carlson and Kevin B. Vichcales. Encyclopedia of Pop Culture: An A to Z of Who's Who and What's What, from Aerobics and Bubble Gum to Valley of the Dolls and Moon Unit Zappa. Jane and Michael Stern.

Women's History in Britain

Women's History in Britain