Oral History and Feminist Method

The chapter unpacks the book’s method as a history of living activists, set in the context of feminism’s affiliation with oral history and life-course analysis. It discusses the S&A oral history archive on which the book is based, outlining how S&A approached interviewee selection and representation, and acknowledging how such questions continue to divide the movement. Offering an overview of feminist oral history practice, addressing the ethics involved and the interpretative challenges of working with memory, subjectivity and emotion, it shows how the ‘baby boomers’, ‘second generation migrants’ and ‘lesbian-feminists’ who powered the WLM were shaped by the post-war worlds in which they grew up, and talked back to these categories, particularly as they gained control over fertility. The chapter concludes with the story of Sue Lopez, women’s footballer and champion for women’s rights in the sport, demonstrating oral history’s ethical challenges whilst celebrating an inspiring athlete and campaigner. 149 words

Campaigning and Coming of Age in the 1970s

The chapter deploys feminist oral histories to explore the WLM’s key demands and campaigns in the 1970s, including the Miss World beauty pageant protest and the Nightcleaners’ campaign. After unpicking romanticised ideas about feminist consciousness-raising, it suggests that established narratives that gloomily recount the collapse of the post-war consensus overlook an exciting time for a WLM energised by campaigns around women’s domestic labour and reproductive rights, epitomised by the National Abortion Campaign. But the NAC’s successes also involved difficult emotions and ambivalence about feminist strategy and identity, analysed especially through the memories of black campaigners Jan McKenley and Gail Lewis, and Kirsten Hearn from Sisters Against Disablement. The chapter concludes with the story of Karen McMinn, coordinator of Women’s Aid Northern Ireland, using her S&A oral history to recall campaigns against domestic violence in the context of civil strife, and the personal challenges involved in keeping the feminist flame alive. 150 words

Happiness: Late Feminist Lives and Beyond in the 2000s

The chapter enters the later lives of activists, considering the biographical consequences of activism. It anticipates the question ‘did the movement succeed?’ by wondering whether the goal of ‘women’s liberation’ means ‘happiness’ or ‘to be fully alive’, especially given the new century’s neo-liberal triumphalism. It celebrates women’s solidarity and creativity, qualities that help redeem the demands of political conscience, and the raptures of song which unexpectedly interrupt many oral histories. Sometimes silly and romantic, feminist singing affirms purpose in the face of power or mortality, and the pleasures of protest community, especially at Greenham Common, one of the most celebrated actions. The chapter concludes with reflections on feminist faith-political, spiritual but not necessarily religious-commenting on death (Una Kroll, Audrey Jones, Sheila Kitzinger) before recounting the story of Muslim feminist educator Nadira Mirza, whose S&A oral history demonstrates the importance of feminist faith when many movement demands remain unfulfilled. 150 words

Forming Feminists: Growing Up in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s

The chapter delves into the S&A oral history archive to unearth memories of growing up that help answer the question: what makes a feminist? It locates 1970s/80s feminist socialisation in the context of contrasting ideologies of family, childhood, sexuality, social reconstruction, consumerism, post-colonial change and global tensions in the post-WW2 era, especially the ‘lengthening’ of childhood itself. It considers the formative and highly-contested influences of family and mother-daughter relations, of educational opportunity, and of the highs and lows of adolescence and emergent sexualities, making use of S&A interviews including Sandie Wyles, Jenni Murray, Mukami McCrum and Mary McIntosh. The chapter emphasises the significance for feminist formation of growing up in families with strong political affiliations and engagements, and illustrates this by concluding with a detailed presentation based on the S&A oral history of Susie Orbach, the well-known campaigner for women’s psychotherapeutic and physical rights and wellbeing. 146 words

Telling Feminist Histories

The chapter traces the WLM’s compelling, contested and elusive political genealogies, recalling their socialist, radical, black, liberal, national or revisionist versions and fierce debates over strategy, tactics, structure, leadership and resources. It deploys feminist oral histories to re-tell movement ‘origin stories’ (women-led activism within the Hull fishing community and at Ford’s, Dagenham) but principally to parallel the first WLM conference at Ruskin College, Oxford (1970) with the inaugural meeting of the Organisation for Women of African and Asian Descent in Brixton, London (1979). The chapter recounts the ‘feminist composure’ required in remembering, and considers oral history’s significance as a medium of memories, subjectivities and feelings. It looks at how these approaches to movement history highlight the challenges of managing relationships and differences, and the thorny question of feminist identity. It ends with Beatrix Campbell’s oral history recollections of co-authoring Sweet Freedom, the first full-length history of the UK WLM. 149 words

Guilty Pleasures? Feminism and Everyday Life in the 1980s

The chapter interweaves individual life course analysis with the development of feminism, exploring the homes, food, clothes and leisure enjoyed by midlife activists. Exploring municipal feminism and Women Against Pit Closures mobilisation during the miners’ strike through the stories of Valerie Wise and Betty Cook, the chapter skirts simple narratives of movement success or decline to explore the domestic lives of feminists. These could fuel activism and enable alternative life courses and families, but also show the need for rest, pleasure and privacy. Shopping too is revealed as an area of shame as well as where feminists pioneered ethical forms of consumption, particularly in sexual goods or clubs, whilst acknowledging the divisive context of Thatcher’s Britain. The chapter closes with a portrait of Barbara Jones, radical lesbian feminist, woman builder and ecological designer, whose vivid S&A interview captures feminism’s transformative effects alongside its troubled relationship to capitalism, money and the state. 150 words

Introduction: The Sound of Feminist Memory

Taking America Back for God conclusively reveals that understanding the current cultural and political climate in the United States requires reckoning with Christian nationalism. Christian ideals and symbols have long played an important role in public life in the United States, but Christian nationalism demands far more than a recognition of religious heritage. At heart, Christian nationalism fights to preserve a particular kind of social order, an order in which everyone—Christians and non-Christians, native-born and immigrants, whites and minorities, men and women—recognizes their “proper” place in society. The first comprehensive empirical analysis of Christian nationalism in the United States, Taking America Back for God illustrates the scope and tremendous influence of Christian nationalism on debates surrounding the most contentious social issues dominating American public discourse. Drawing on multiple sources of national survey data collected over the past several decades and in-depth interviews, Whitehead and Perry document how Christian nationalism radically shapes what Americans think about who they are as a people, what their future should look like, and how they should get there. Regardless of Americans’ political or religious characteristics, whether they are Ambassadors, Accommodators, Resisters, or Rejecters of Christian nationalism provides powerful insight into what they think about immigration, Muslims, gun control, police shootings, atheists, gender roles, and many other political issues—even who they want in the White House. Taking America Back for God convincingly shows how Christian nationalists’ desire for political power, rigid social boundaries, and hierarchical order creates significant consequences for all Americans.

Conclusion

The conclusion explores how oral histories might contribute to future activism. It suggests that the S&A interviewees’ accounts affirm the value of intergenerational exchange and organisational experience and tolerance, illuminating the movement’s intellectual, cultural and domestic achievements and its strategic limitations and political challenges, contesting reductive narratives of feminism’s progress or decline. It acknowledges that just as 1970s/80s feminists could be ambivalent or indifferent to the oral histories of suffrage campaigners, so their own oral histories must make their case for a new generation’s attention. However, it anticipates the new opportunities offered by evolving technologies to access the emotive voice and sound lost in oral history transcription, and how these can find interactive, creative and inspirational forms in walks, broadcasts, and soundworks, including Mary Kelly’s Multi-Story House. It ends by calling for feminist silence and deep listening as conditions for activism in the crowded and competing noisescape of today. 149 words

Friend or Foe? Men and Feminism Through the 1990s

The chapter considers gender and gender relationships, the WLM’s foundational touchstones. It highlights the politics of difference by drawing on memories of pro-feminist men, where hesitancy testifies to challenges of trust and reconciliation. It considers men’s violence and sexual abuse, sticking points for the deconstruction of gender but areas where traumatic memory is increasingly implicated. Looking at prominent and related WLM demands that became an arena for confrontative gender politics—the right to freedom from violence, and the right to define one’s own sexuality—the chapter looks at evolving ideas about gender from queer, transsexual (the 2015 Brighton Trans*Formed oral history presents new questions of negotiation) and black activists. It concludes with an edited interweaving of the oral histories of Catherine and Stuart Hall, luminaries of the WLM, New Left and black rights movements, which presents a captivating portrait of a relationship underpinned by political and personal struggles and growth. 150 words