Feminist Archive North

Two sets of oral history interviews held by FAN have been digitised and are available to hear via our online catalogue. There are 20 interviews from a 1995 project on women in the Women’s Liberation Movement in Leeds and Bradford,  and 12 interviews done by by Lee Comer and Lou Lavender in 2007 with 1970s and 1980s feminist activists in West Yorkshire.

To listen to the recordings, click on the following links, and then click on the blue ‘digital media’ button you will see at the top of each page.

• Women in the Women’s Liberation Movement in Leeds and Bradford (1995)
• 1970s and 1980s Feminist Activists in West Yorkshire (2007)

You may also be interested in a series of oral histories recently carried out by the Remembering Resistance project with women political activists in the North.

Leeds is the venue for the next public meeting of Woman’s Place UK, a feminist organisation that campaigns for women’s sex-based rights. The speakers at the meeting will be:

• Fiona Broadfoot: a survivor of the sex trade and an activist against it.
• Dr Louise Moody: Philosopher and LGB Campaigner.
• Thomasin Pick: Detransitioned Lesbian.
• Karen Ingala Smith: CEO of nia, an organisation providing services to end violence against women and children.

The meeting will take place on Friday 22 November at 7pm. For security reasons the details of the venue will not be announced until shortly before the meeting. Tickets cost £5.98 (including booking fee) and booking is essential. More information and booking.

Saturday 19 October, 2.30pm, Friends Meeting House, 6 Mount Street Manchester. Free.

What was Rock Against Sexism? When did it start? How long did it last? Who was involved? What was it up against? What did it achieve?

Writer and cultural commentator Lucy Whitman, a co-founder of Rock Against Sexism, will give an illustrated history of the movement, setting it in the context of the feverish cultural and political climate of the late 1970s.

Long, long ago, in 1977, Lucy Whitman called herself Lucy Toothpaste and created a feminist, anti-racist, anti-fascist fanzine, JOLT. She joined Rock Against Racism (RAR) and wrote extensively for the RAR magazine, Temporary Hoarding, and then helped to found Rock Against Sexism (RAS), writing for and co-editing the RAS magazine, Drastic Measures. Lucy went on to write regularly for pioneering feminist magazine Spare Rib.

Advanced booking is strongly suggested for this event, please email maryquaileclub@gmail.com

Some women are finding it difficult filling out the surrogacy questionnaire, as it has 118 questions and none of them give the option to say if you are against paid or commercial surrogacy. The organisation Nordic Model Now has produced a 10-minute guide to filling it in, which may help.
nordicmodelnow.org/2019/08/30/how-to-respond-to-the-uk-surrogacy-consultation-in-10-easy-minutes/