Feminist Archive North

Sheila Rowbotham is joined by Sue O’Sullivan at the online launch of Sheila’s memoir, Daring to Hope. Sheila looks back at her life as a participant in the women’s liberation movement, left politics and the creative radical culture of a decade in which freedom and equality seemed possible. She reveals the tremendous efforts that were made to transform attitudes and feelings, as well as daily life. After addressing the first British Women’s Liberation Conference at Ruskin College, Oxford in 1970, she went on to encourage night cleaners to unionise, to campaign for nurseries and abortion rights. She played an influential role in discussions of socialist feminist ideas and her books and journalism attracted an international readership.

Sue O’Sullivan has been involved in a number of feminist publishing projects over the years including the WLM’s early Shrew, then on to Red Rag, Spare Rib, Feminist Review, and ICW News (International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS). Most recently she participated in creating the Hackney HOWLERS (History of Women’s Liberation) Writing Women into History booklet. She was also a dedicated member of the Sheba Feminist Publisher Collective in the 80s and has edited, co-edited, and written a number of books and pamphlets.

Wednesday 17 November, 7-8.30pm. Tickets from Eventbrite

One of the most recent collections acquired by the University of Leeds Special Collections is the Women’s Aid Federation England (WAFE) Archive. FAN played a part in bringing the collection to the university and we are advising the archive team during the project.

This is an incredibly exciting collection, documenting the charity’s approaches to tackling domestic abuse from its radical beginnings in the 1970s right through to modern day. The project team has produced an informative and fascinating blog on what they have done so far. You can read it at
womens-aid-federation-england-archive-documenting-50-years-of-activism

Embrace The Base took place on the 12th December 1982, when 30,000 women held hands around the 8 mile perimetre fence of RAF Greenham Common, to protest the global nuclear order, the British state and the patriarchy. Academic Catherine Eschle and Artist Alice Tatton Brown will co-host this online feminist lunchtime gathering to consider collectively how we might mark the anniversary of this extraordinary act of communal resistance at The Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp .

Artists, academics, activists, archivists and feminists are invited to join this initial conversation. Ideas, curiousity, critical engagement are all welcome.

Tuesday 28 September, 12.30-2pm. Book via Eventbrite

We will not be reopening in October, as we previously hoped, but we now hope to be back in January 2022. In the meantime, you can still view our archive materials in the Special Collections reading room – details at https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/1504/using_collections/78/plan_a_visit