A history student at the University of Oxford is researching the Merseyside Women’s Liberation Movement during the 1970s/80s and other feminist groups or collectives around the area (such as the News From Nowhere bookshop), in relation to the socialist politics of Liverpool, feminist print cultures, and consciousness-raising of working class women in the area.

Rachel Collett would like to speak to any women who were involved in the movement in Merseyside or who attended the bookshop/any of the feminist groups. You can contact Rachel at rachel.collett@wadham.ox.ac.uk

A Woman’s Place has organised a public meeting in Leeds to discuss the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act. This is one of a series of meetings the group is organising across the UK to discuss the question: What is gender, and what will be the impact on women and on women’s rights and legal protection?. It takes place on Friday 28 September, 7pm-9pm. The venue will be confirmed later. Tickets cost £5.98 (inc booking fee). Book tickets here

Yesterday the BBC reported that Jocelyn Bell Burnell will donate her £2.3m Breakthrough Prize award to fund women, under-represented ethnic minority and refugee students to become physics researchers. She received this prize for her discovery of radio pulsars – being a research student at the time she was not included in the 1974 Nobel prize for the discovery her collaborators received.

FAN volunteers are currently sorting and cataloguing the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) archive that we received a few years ago from the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology. Amongst that collection are a series of wonderful Women in Science educational booklets produced by Shell and Jocelyn Bell Burnell is one of the women featured in that series –

Feminist Archive North recently received a series of ten posters produced by a researcher from Leeds Beckett University who used one of the Archive’s collections as part of her PhD study.

Helen Clarke was working towards a PG certificate in Heritage Studies, and the posters are Helen’s response to archival material on Reclaim the Night held at FAN.

In 1977, women walked in Leeds to take back their space, challenging the response to male violence which effectively imposed a curfew on women. A wave of activism followed in London and other cities, as women fought to reclaim the night.

 

Leeds Arts University is commissioning a new public sculpture championing the achivements and recognition of women in the City of Leeds. The idea for the sculpture was conceived by Rachel Reeves (MP Leeds West) and is being project managed by Leeds Arts University in collaboration with Leeds City Council. The aim is a more gender balanced representation of public sculptures in Leeds.

The commissioners say: “A series of major UK cities and towns are now making concerted attempts to tackle the historical oversight of women’s achievements by way of public sculpture. Yet, it is also clear that many examples have tended to conform to a figurative and largely nineteenth century model of public sculpture, featuring women who have long since passed away. It is proposed that Leeds, with a long tradition of being an avant-garde city, contribute to this national debate in a ground-breaking way with an innovative structure that can both celebrate multiple women’s achievements and offer a creative model that can be added to democratically with living exemplars in years to come.”

The deadline for entries is Friday 21 September. More information.