Rebel Women

I’m sure most of you know about the suffragettes: Emmeline Pankhurst, and her daughter Cristabel; their organisation, the Women’s Social and Political Union; chaining themselves to railings; smashing windows; the forced feeding. You probably were taught it in school. The problem is, it’s wrong.

Ok, so those things all did happen, but it is a very narrow view of what the movement was, who the women were, and why they were even doing it. Today, we are setting the record straight.

In this episode we talk to the historian David Rosenberg, to challenge our ideas about the campaign for female franchise, and why women in East London were so important to the movement.

David runs East End walking tours, both virtually and in person. New dates will be posted to his website from the end of January. See http://www.eastendwalks.com/ for further details.

David has also written a number of books about East End history. His book, Rebel Footprints has a chapter on the East London Suffragettes. You can order a copy here: https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745338552/rebel-footprints-second-edition/

If you really want to dive into this fascinating history, then why not sign up to David’s forthcoming online course with the Bishopsgate Institute https://www.bishopsgate.org.uk/whats-on/activity/activists-who-changed-the-east-end

This is the last episode of this series. Make sure you are subscribed to the podcast to make sure you get notified when our new series launches. Don’t miss out!

For further stories about East London women visit our website eastlondonwomen.org.uk Or find us on Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, Instagram or Pinterest.

Rebel Women is part of the Women Activists of East London project, which has been developed by Share UK, a non profit community group based in London.

Special thanks to the William Morris Big Local for funding today’s episode.

Main theme by Dano Songs. Incidental music by Purple Planet Music.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rebel Women is a podcast about history's troublemakers.

This episode is the first in a five-part series about the battle for equal pay; a journey that spans nearly 100 years, from the late 1880s to the 1970 Equal Pay Act.

Much of this battle has taken place in the boroughs of East London, and there is a clear reason for this. People join unions when they feel under threat – you see higher membership in dangerous trades like coal mining than you do in safe jobs like journalism. In East London, industrial accidents and even death were a daily occurrence. A union was a form of insurance, providing some protection against those everyday risks.

Organising women's labour wasn't straight forward however. To start with, there were a lot less of them. And they often didn't have the support of their male colleagues.

For show notes, reading lists and further stories about East London women, visit our website eastlondonwomen.org.uk. Or find us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram or Pinterest.

Rebel Women is part of the Women Activists of East London project, which has been developed by Share UK, a non-profit community group based in London.

Special thanks to the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust for their support of today's episode.

Music by DanoSongs.

Produced and edited by Steve Woodward at PodcastingEditor.com.

Further reading and links

The Industrial Revolution by Matthew White (British Library, 14 Oct 2009)

"Rouse, Ye Women": The Cradley Heath Chain Makers' Strike, 1910 (Online Exhibition, Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick Library)

Clementina Black, Fantasy CV (TUC 150 Website)

Clementina Black (Spartacus Educational)

Mary Macarthur (Working Class Movement Library)

Mary Macarthur and the Sweated Industries (Historic England)

J is for Jam Maker (Amanda Wilkinson's Victorian Occupations, 10 March 2016)

An Historical Introduction to the Campaign for Equal Pay by Mary Davis (Winning Equal Pay: the value of women's work)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ruth Gregory’s grandmother was a suffragette, and her parents early members of CND. In 1976 she would make her own mark on the world, as she joined the Rock Against Racism collective. Using music, the group would change the cultural landscape of Britain.

In this fourth series of Rebel Women, we have partnered with the Museum of Youth Culture to bring you stories of rebellious of youth through the ages. Each episode will tell previously unheard stories of women who changed society.

For further tales about East London women visit our website eastlondonwomen.org.uk Or find us on Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, Instagram or Pinterest.

If you would like to submit a story about growing up in Britain to the Museum of Youth Culture, visit their website at https://museumofyouthculture.com/submit/

RAR-RAP (Rock Against Racism – Research ‘n’ Archive Project) was initiated in 2018 by Lucy Whitman, Kate Webb, Ruth Gregory and Andy Dark to catalogue the unique archives and develop an analysis which acknowledges the vibrant multi-tone nation, Rock Against Racism was embedded in at the time, as a vital component in making change.

RAR-RAP utilises collaborative exhibition making as a research tool to reflect on a collective memory and a collective narrative, appropriate to what RAR was: an example of participatory, organic organisation. This form of horizontal governance has contemporary resonance in movements of today. Using a time-line (drawn up by Wayne Minter) as a map through our archives, RAR-RAP has explored what we did and how we did it – how we communicated in a pre-digital age – what life was like around us and who the other campaigns that we collaborated with were.

Rebel Women is part of the Women Activists of East London project, which has been developed by Share UK, a non profit community group based in London. This podcast series is part of our 10th anniversary celebrations, showcasing the range of heritage and arts projects we’ve run over the past decade.

Special thanks to the National Lottery Community Fund for funding today’s episode.

Main theme by Dano Songs. Incidental music by Purple Planet Music and Balkan Night Train by Dieter van der Westen.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the final episode in this current series, and we’re trying something a little different.

You may have heard some of your favourite podcasts doing live shows. This episode is our attempt at that although we did it a bit back to front. We ran the event – Where next for the women’s movement? - then decided to turn it into a podcast, so more people can hear it.

We invited along two speakers – Julie Begum from Women Unite Against Racism; and Jane Conor from Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners.

You can hear Jane’s story in episode 3 of this series: https://eastlondonwomen.org.uk/podcast/

You can discover Julie’s story on our website: https://eastlondonwomen.org.uk/

This episode features the full debate from the event, including discussions on challenging male dominated platforms, building confidence in women, burn out, ally-ship and much more. You can also hear from Period Power activists and the Women’s Chainmakers Festival organisers, amongst others.

For more information about Julie’s forthcoming Bengali cultural heritage project, visit https://www.fourcornersfilm.co.uk/whats-on/bengali-photography-archive

For further tales about East London women visit our website eastlondonwomen.org.uk Or find us on Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, Instagram or Pinterest.

Rebel Women is part of the Women Activists of East London project, which has been developed by Share UK, a non profit community group based in London. This podcast series is part of our 10th anniversary celebrations, showcasing the range of heritage and arts projects we’ve run over the past decade.

Special thanks to the National Lottery Community Fund for funding today’s episode.

Main theme by Dano Songs. Incidental music by Purple Planet Music.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rebel Women is a podcast about history's troublemakers.

This episode is the final instalment of our five-part series about the battle for equal pay; a journey that spans nearly 100 years, from the late 1880s to the 1970 Equal Pay Act.

The 1960s was a decade unlike any other. Young people across the world were rising up - with opposition to the Vietnam War, the 1968–69 civil unrest in France, the US civil rights movement and Women's Liberation.

But while Soho and Mayfair may have been swinging with style and revolution, out in the East London suburbs it was quite a different picture. In working class corners of the capital, post-war traditionalism ran alongside social and cultural change. While middle class women may have enjoyed new opportunities and freedoms, in places like Dagenham the options remained slim and wages low.

The fight for equal pay may have been forgotten altogether if it hadn't been for a group of working class women at the Ford factory in Dagenham. Change was coming, but would it be enough?

For show notes, reading lists and further stories about East London women, visit our website eastlondonwomen.org.uk. Or find us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram or Pinterest.

Rebel Women is part of the Women Activists of East London project, which has been developed by Share UK, a non-profit community group based in London.

Special thanks to the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust for their support of today's episode.

Main theme by DanoSongs. Incidental music by Purple Planet Music.

Produced and edited by Steve Woodward at PodcastingEditor.com.

Further reading and links

Dagenham sewing machinists recall strike that changed women's lives (Simon Goodley, The Guardian, 6 June 2013)

Protests in Paris, May 1968 – photographs then and now (Alicia Canter and Guy Lane, The Guardian, 2 May 2018)

My part in the anti-war demo that changed protest for ever (Donald Macintyre, The Guardian, 11 March 2018)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.