Spotlight on Portsmouth's inspiring woman thanks to community activism project

Many Portsmouth women actively campaigned for women’s rights, and inset co-lead Laurel Forster

A spotlight has been shining on Portsmouth’s inspiring women thanks to a project which looked at activism in the city.

Pulled together by the University of Portsmouth, the main aim of this project – which also received lottery funding – was to document the activism of women in the Portsmouth area by interviewing women from a range of backgrounds and with different interests in community issues.

The project, initiated and co-lead by Dr Sue Bruley, Reader in Modern History, of the School of Social, Historical and Literary Studies, worked with the local library, the U3A, volunteers, schools and community groups to unearth and record the impact of feminism and women’s activism.

It began with a Women’s Liberation Memory Day, and was followed by a conference in 2014 called ‘Situating Women’s Liberation: Historicising a Movement’. Out of the conference came a journal special issue and a book, edited by Dr Laurel Forster and Sue Bruley called Historicising the Women’s Liberation Movement in the Western World.

Portsmouth’s own branch of the Women’s Liberation Movement was remembered by many, with its consciousness-raising meetings.

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Project co-lead, the university’s Dr Laurel Forster, Reader (Associate Professor) in Cultural History, shared this article with The News examining the project and the inspiring stories it uncovered.

She wrote:

"Many Portsmouth women who have, since the Women’s Liberation Movement of the late 1960s, actively campaigned for women’s rights and set up practical initiatives in the Portsmouth area to improve the lives of women and their families, came forward.

The women of Portsmouth actively campaigned for peace

"As a Naval Town, with an important Dockyard, the recorded history of Portsmouth has had a particular masculine focus, so it was especially important to record this history. Portsmouth’s own branch of the Women’s

Liberation Movement was remembered by many, with its consciousness-raising meetings.

“The women of Portsmouth actively campaigned for peace and many stories were told of Greenham Common Peace camps and anti-nuclear demonstrations.

“Many of our interviewees focussed upon the grass-roots campaigning that supported the development of one of the earliest rape-crisis telephone lines and women’s refuge centre. Others spoke of their work in minority groups within the city, fighting racism and supporting women from all backgrounds.

“Women working as teachers, city counsellors, faith leaders, or to improve housing conditions for families, have all been interviewed. There are accounts of women’s pioneering work in the Royal Navy and

elsewhere in local factories, offices and the university, campaigning for equal rights at work.

"All these stories are captured in the project booklet and stored in the archive in the city Library’s History centre. Contact [email protected] for further information.”

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