| There’s Always Been a Women’s Movement in This Century | Dale Spender | Pandora | 1983 |
Five indomitable women talk to Dale Spender: Dora Russell, Hazel Hunkins Hallinan, Mary Stott, Constance Rover, and Rebecca West.
Mary Stott was incredulous when Dale Spender asked her, “Why was there no women’s movement between the suffragettes and the new movement of the 1970s and the 1980s?” The title of this book is her reply.
At a time when the disapproval of ‘unladylike’ attitudes was such that, as Rebecca West puts it, “to take a strong line on anything was to be regarded as carrying dynamite in one’s head to the public danger,” these women were putting forward ideas which make women today look timid and tame.
Their intransigent dissent spans the century, and continues unabated into their older years. This lively book recovers the story of the feminism that persisted in the years after the battle of the vote. Each of the women tells a different story and provides a different link in the chain.
Why didn’t the young movement go and sit at their feet? Their ideas – on men, on war, on machines, on love, on politics – are worth hearing. “You mean I’ve lived long enough to come full circle, to be back in fashion again?” says Dora Russell to Dale Spender.
The irrepressible spirit of these five women, their lively wit and enduring optimism, provides the women of today with inspiration for the future.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Hazel Hunkins Hallinan
Chapter 2: Rebecca West
Chapter 3: Dora Russell
Chapter 4: Mary Stott
Chapter 5: Constance Rover
