Women’s Liberation 50 Years On: Demanding Legal and Financial Independence - 2
This is the second of a series of three posts written to mark the 50th anniversary of the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) Conference in Edinburgh, and to connect the history of feminist activism with campaigning now. This is part of a larger project in which GENDER.ED and the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), at the University of Edinburgh, are partnering with Women’s History Scotland (WHS) and James Gillespie’s High School, where the conference was held 28-30 June 1974. In this post Amy Life reconstructs the history of the 1974 conference from archival sources.
In 1974 the UK Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) held its national conference in Edinburgh, with a key outcome the adoption of two ‘new’ demands for:
- legal and financial independence for all women;
- the right to a self-defined sexuality, including an end to discrimination against lesbians.
These 5th and 6th demands were added to four existing ones (set out at the first national conference at Ruskin College, Oxford in 1970) for:
- equal pay;
- equal educational and job opportunities;
- free contraception and abortion on demand;
- free 24-hour nurseries for children.
This blog post looks at the historical footprint of the Edinburgh Conference that can be found in the archives around Scotland and the UK more broadly. While there is a wealth of information available, so much of it has yet to be explored. Drawing on archival sources from around the UK, I managed to piece together a sense of what happened at the sixth national Women’s Liberation Conference, what it was like to attend, what was discussed and the importance of the 5th demand.
In June 1974, hundreds of women came to Edinburgh to attend the sixth national Women’s Liberation Conference at James Gillespie’s High School. This conference forms part of a long history of feminist activism in Edinburgh, activism that is still thriving today. Looking through the archives at The University of Edinburgh, The National Library of Scotland and the University of Bristol, the story I have been able to piece together is one of sisterhood, activism, celebration and the occasional argument – not a far cry from the feminist activism I have experienced as a student in Edinburgh. Learning about this conference can teach us about how to be a good activist and how to work together for a common cause. And, in an age of online activism, it is a reminder of the power that comes from sitting next to someone and sharing experiences in person.
My research began at the University of Edinburgh special collections. Admittedly, I found rather little about the conference itself, which was disappointing. However, we can also learn things from gaps in the archives and it was interesting to see that prior to 1974, articles relating to feminist issues were few and far between in the Student Newspaper. But after the conference in June, there was a surge of women running for positions in the student union, stating their intention to attend to feminist issues should they be elected. Whilst this is entirely conjecture on my part, I’d like to think that some of these students attended the conference and felt inspired to bring feminism into their student activism.
What I was looking for initially were reports that would give me a broad sense of the conference. The National Library of Scotland contains a range of feminist newsletters and magazines from 1974 and it was in these that I found what I was looking for. In particular, the feminist magazine Spare Rib contained a lengthy report on the conference in its 27th issue. According to this report, at least 900 women attended the conference and they “talked, danced while the Northern Women’s Liberation Rock Band played for the first time, ate, talked some more adopted two more demands for the movement.” Lesley Gilbert, who penned the first part of the report, describes the friendly atmosphere at the conference and talks about some of the workshops she attended. Gilbert writes that the workshop in which the proposed demand for ‘legal and financial independence for woman’ was discussed was very well attended, with plenty of enthusiasm for the demand. The second part of the report, written by Faith McDevitt questions whether the style of conferences is too close to the political conferences organised mainly by men. She writes “The classic structure that identifies itself with “politics” could very well be dead for women, to be replaced with something that is in keeping with our instinctive feminism.” In the third part of the report, the Northern Women’s Liberation Rock Band write about their experience of the conference writing that “the power and energy created at women’s conferences is almost too much.”
An article in the bi-monthly feminist newspaper Women’s Report also gave me a feel for what it was like to be at the conference – tables displaying feminist publications, groups of women talking together on the lawns and a fairly laissez-faire approach to the structure of the conference. This article, like others, seems to suggest that whilst the conference had an air of being a great social occasion, many women felt that not much was achieved in terms of planning action. With so many issues in need of attention, it seems the conference struggled to do all of them justice; certainly, the article in Women’s Report suggests that issues faced by mothers as well as the Nurses’ and Imperial Typewriter strikes didn’t receive adequate attention. From reading this article, I got the sense of frustration on the part of many women regarding the amount that needed to be done and the difficulty in organising the action necessary to create change: “The difficulty of focussing on actions and strategy is symptomatic of the general inability to talk about what we’re actually going to do.” This sort of self-awareness shines through in much of what was written by women in the movement!
Having seen mention of various papers relating to the conference that I couldn’t locate in Edinburgh’s archives, my research led me down to The University of Bristol where feminist activist Ellen Malos’ archives are stored in the Feminist Archive South collection. In her archives I found what I was looking for: papers relating to the organisation of the conference as well as more details about the workshops held and what was discussed at the conference. Even if it didn’t feel like it for women at the time, to me it seemed they managed to cover a whole range of different issues! Workshops were held on topics including ‘Women against Fascism’, the Asian Women’s Strike at Imperial Typewriters, ‘Unsupported Mothers’, ‘Women in Media’, ‘Women and Medicine’ and many others. Most of these workshops took place on Saturday and women reported back from the workshops at the plenary session on the Sunday. Ellen Malos also wrote some helpful notes on the plenary session, telling us that alongside the two new demands, several other resolutions were passed, and some were rejected. The other resolutions included messages of support for the women involved in the Nurses and Imperial Typewriters strikes, a resolution regarding the powers and duties of Women’s groups who organise national conferences and a motion from the Women and Fascism Group.
Looking through the archives also helped me to understand the importance of the 5th demand to the movement. A paper within the Ellen Malos archive set out the reasons behind the 5th demand as well as some initial thoughts about campaigns that could be organised around it. According to this paper, the aim of the demand was to attack the state for:
- Upholding the family in its present form
- For forcing women into a position of dependence on their husbands
- For leaving single women without means of support
The paper also suggests that the demand would bring together a variety of campaign areas including: "Pensions and National Insurance contributions, Supplementary Benefit (e.g Cohabitation), Taxation, Separation and Maintenance Orders, Student Grants, Immigration, Mortgages and Hire Purchase Agreements, and Tenancies.” The paper goes on to detail the importance of each area as well as possible ways to organise campaigning.
Back in Edinburgh, I found an article in Red Rag, Volume 7, written by Mary McIntosh and entitled ‘The 5th Demand’. The article was written prior to the Edinburgh conference with the intention of bringing the demand to the movement’s attention before proposing it at the conference. It sums up the issue of women’s legal and financial dependence nicely: “there is no law that says that women are dependent on men, but a series of statutory provisions, administrative procedures and business practices that variously assume women’s financial dependence on their husbands, or on the men they live with”. McIntosh later adds that the 5th demand “is one that not only expresses the indignity and servitude implied in women’s dependence on men, it also highlights the role of the State in creating and recreating this dependence.”
Researching the conference involved a lot of ‘following-the-breadcrumbs’ and there were a few dead ends. However, what I did find was a story of women questioning the status quo and the role women ought to (or should be able to) play in society. Whilst questioning the state and patriarchy, the movement also found time to question themselves, their methods and ask the question ‘is this the right way to do this?’ The Edinburgh conference brought together hundreds of women to think about the issues that faced them as well as how they should structure a movement and how to campaign for change. The introduction of the 5th demand seems to have been significant for the movement in bringing together a range of every-day legal oppressions that women faced, particularly relating to their personal finances, and it asked for women to have the means to live freely.
Author Bio
Amy Life is a fourth-year French and Philosophy student and an Undergraduate Communications Intern for GENDER.ED. She has previously been the president of Edinburgh University’s Feminist Society and is one of the founders of #MeToo Edinburgh University.