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Yesterday myself and 3 friends watched feminist and women& #39;s history legend Carol Dyhouse give a lecture about her new book (which looks so good!) but it raised some important points. The hosts of the talk, the Women& #39;s History Network, are a charity formed to promote women& #39;s
history and engage everyone in women& #39;s history. The host introduced them as promoting women& #39;s history and gender history (cue me and friends rolling eyes as we all know what that means for women& #39;s groups/charities now), but then Carol started and couldn& #39;t be more of a contrast.
She talked about sex-based rights. She used the word sex (which you& #39;d be surprised how many age 30+ historians don& #39;t anymore). She talked about waves of feminism long forgotten in luxury-belief history world, and she talked about male female dynamics as a clear binary. And it
made her talk SO much better. No skirting around offending anyone or fudging history because of some contemporary nonsense. Her work was clear and you understand women& #39;s history all the more for it. She talked about the Mass Observation archives which had a directive in the 80s
and 90s to interview a wide selection of British people about their thoughts on topics that will help historians of the future. Carol read the ones on & #39;feminism& #39; and & #39;close relationships& #39; and was surprised to see most people were supportive of the changes feminists had been able
to make in the 1970s but in the other topic the same people were calling feminist campaigners ugly, unloved, man haters, and it was mostly women saying this. They took the advantages of feminist campaigning but hated the campaigners. Carol likened it to the same abuse
the suffragettes suffered, a lot of that from women too. The same thing is happening right now with the vitriol from women to those fighting for women& #39;s sex-based rights, from a small portion of academics like Fern Riddell, Ellie Mackin Roberts, Naomi Wolf, and celebrities like
Jameela Jamil. There needs to be research done on why each generation has women happy to take the benefits of feminist campaigning but vicious towards these campaigners. It& #39;s astonishing. Carol is an older generation of academic, she says she remembers the 70s well and all
that brought. There& #39;s no confusion in her work that sex is a material reality, and her work is all the better for it. The @WomensHistNet have a conference on the history of women& #39;s sport coming up, and I bet no one will dare mention that women& #39;s sport no longer exists because we
have to pretend men can be women. Carol& #39;s book uses Disney& #39;s Cinderella and Frozen to bookend the 1950s and 2000& #39;s and all the changes in women& #39;s history during that period, including marriage and sex. I& #39;m ordering it today.
