Angela Carter's ‘The Sadeian Woman’ and Female Desire in England 1960–1975

In The Sadeian Woman (1979) Angela Carter suggested that the visions of free female sexuality created by the Marquis de Sade in his violent pornographic novels provided insight into existing female sexualities in her own—British—society. In this article the representation of female sexuality in novels set in contemporary British society, written by women, and published between 1960 and 1975, is examined in relation to Carter's exegesis of the good, virtuous Justine and the meretricious, sexually desirous Juliette, two contrasting characters from Sade's work. The limitations of the three other alternatives present in the novels are described; containment within long-term marriage, good-hearted promiscuity; and the rejection of emotional repression. Then Carter's own solution to women's sexual inequality is placed in the context of feminism in the late 1970s, and the role of the novels in contributing to change is acknowledged.     

In Search of Equal Citizenship: the campaign for women magistrates in England and Wales, 1910–1939

In early 1920 women in England and Wales sat as Justices of the Peace (JPs) for the first time, becoming the first women to have any formal role in the country’s law courts. Less than thirty years later nearly a quarter of JPs were women, a proportion unparalleled in any other activity of civic and public life other than voting. Yet the legislation that admitted women to the magisterial bench—the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act—is usually pronounced a failure by historians. This article argues that the appointment of so many women to the magisterial bench in a relatively short period of time was a success for the women’s movement and that it was due very largely to the agency of some of the early women magistrates themselves and the efforts of the organisations to which they belonged, albeit working with the grain of reform in the criminal justice system. The article also maps the campaigners’ use of the twin concepts of ‘rights’ and ‘duties’ within their overall project for the advancement of equal citizenship.     

The forgotten ‘mateys’: women workers in Portsmouth Dockyard,England, 1939-45

Abstract

This paper is based on nearly 30 interviews with women who worked in Portsmouth Dockyard before and during the Second World War. Their testimonies show that women experienced their wartime work in different ways, with attitudes that were to impinge on employment relations, on calls for equal pay and on the provision of facilities to relieve their domestic responsibilities. Government response to these problems reveal the duality of policy decisions and the difficulties of balancing the need for labour with dominant ideals about the cultural position of women. Shifts in employment practices in wartime conditions highlight the debates around the impact of wartime work on gender divisions in the workplace and perceptions of female paid employment by both men and women at that time.     

Women facing the state: Childcare policy process in Canada and Finland, 1960–90

The examination of women's influence on government policy is an integral part of comparative research into women and the welfare state. Focusing on the process of childcare policy development in Canada and Finland, this article suggests that the degree and nature of women's influence depend on the extent to which women's organizations representing different gender ideologies have established an effective presence in official politics. Furthermore, this study suggests that the political structure and process provide a material basis for the development of alliances and solidarity within the women's movement.     

Aspects of social differentiation in rural England,c. 1580–1660

The article attempts to identify and account for changes in local social relations which accompanied economic and social‐structural change in early‐modern England. An overview of recent findings is provided to highlight both the enduring characteristics of rural society in the period and the elements of change. Next it is argued that the aspects of change can be interpreted as a process of incorporation with economic, administrative and cultural dimensions which had the ultimate effect of promoting integration nationally, but differentiation locally. Particular illustration of this general argument is given in an examination of change in the Essex village of Terling.     

The Law and Politics of Marital Rape in England, 1945–1994

This article examines the ending of the marital rape exemption in England. It describes the unresponsiveness of the political and legal establishment on the issue from the war to the mid-1970s. The arguments and campaigns that feminists and others advanced against the rule from the 1970s onwards are analysed, together with the political and legal reaction to this campaign. Next, the Parliamentary and legal debates over the rule in the 1980s are discussed: a story of inertia, even hostility, towards such campaigning. Finally, the article considers the demise of the exemption in the 1990s. The article presents a nuanced account of this change, which was both vigorously contested and highly contingent. It also suggests that legal protection from ‘the rapist who pays the rent’, and the campaign to achieve this, deserve appropriate recognition within the story of feminist activism in the late twentieth century.     

Love,labour, loss: women,refugees and the servant crisis in Britain, 1933–1939

Between 1933 and 1939, around 20,000 Jewish, ‘non-Aryan’ or politically active refugee women from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia entered Britain on domestic service permits. Their immigration, mostly organised by women in the British voluntary sector, served as a moral response to the humanitarian crisis caused by Fascism in Europe, and a practical response to the ‘servant crisis’ in Britain as working-class women increasingly rejected domestic labour. This paper considers the practical and emotional relationships around domestic service and argues that the acceptance of refugee women into the metropolitan British home was conditional on the tacit expectation they could fill the vacancy left by the working classes, becoming British through their labour.     

Partisan players: sport,working-class culture,and the labour movement in South Wales 1920–1939

This article argues against the prevalent notion that sport was insignificant to inter-war Welsh labour by showing that it was in fact a ‘vital area of interest’ for local activists associated with leftist organisations. In South Wales, numerous sporting opportunities provided by the local labour movement were taken up with notable enthusiasm by local workers. It is demonstrated that this represented a ‘vibrant attempt to forge a coherent alternative to mainstream sporting activity by fusing it with political allegiance’ and that sport became ‘an articulation of working class self-awareness … [and] a mechanism through which working class desires and visions could be expressed’.     

The development of capitalism in the Atlantic world: England,the Americas,and West Africa, 1450–1900

Abstract

The paper traces the development of capitalism in England, the Americas, and West Africa over a long time period, 1450–1900. The developments in these major regions of the Atlantic Basin during the period were strongly interconnected and ultimately gave rise to the nineteenth-century Atlantic economy which integrated the major economies of the Atlantic world. The development of capitalism in the three specified geographical areas is analyzed in the context of the interconnected developments. Central to the historical analysis is a discussion of the contending conceptions of capitalism as a socioeconomic system. The paper shows that the original conception by Karl Marx, which identified free wage earners separated from their means of production and entrepreneurs who own those means of production as the defining elements, was generally accepted by supporters and critics for several decades; attempts to redefine began in the 1960s. The paper contends that, unlike the original Marxian conception, the new conceptions fail to capture precisely and accurately the dynamic elements which distinguish capitalism unambiguously from other forms of socioeconomic organization and do not facilitate a sharply focused historical investigation of its development over time. The employment of enslaved Africans in large-scale commodity production in the Americas was critical to the development of capitalism in England and in the Americas, but the adverse effects on West Africa’s economies held back the development of markets and the market economy and, ultimately, the development of capitalism in the region.     

Compensation,retraining and respiratory diseases: British coal miners, 1918–1939

By 1918, the British coal industry, like all industries, was facing the pressures of transitioning from a wartime to a peacetime economy. The pressures brought by a slowing economy would leave many coal miners, who possessed limited transferrable skills, harbouring deep concerns about their future employment. For those still in employment, concerns were increasing for workers’ health. Sharp increases in respiratory illnesses across the nation’s coalfields were now a major cause of disablement. Accompanying this was the almost inevitable possibility of unemployment, prompting major concerns among workers and trade unions. This article will explore how the nature of industrial relations across Britain’s coalfields changed during the interwar years in response to these challenges, and reveals how the government developed schemes to train disabled coal miners for work in other industries. The relationship between trade unions and the Ministry of Labour, and the incremental passage of legislation to address issues concerning workers’ occupational health in Britain’s coal mines will be examined. The onset of the Second World War ensured the coal industry was now central to the war effort. Recruitment was intensified accordingly. The improvement to working conditions underground, negotiated by trade unions, helped ensure that the workforce and the coal industry more generally were well-prepared for the challenges of the post-First World War economy, and the difficulties the Second World War would bring.     

Preventing ‘robotised women workers’: women,sport and the workplace in Scotland 1919–1939

This article examines a new area of women's leisure; women's participation in work-related sport. The growth and development of industrial welfare in Scotland in the interwar period will be discussed. Within broader studies, Stephen Jones, Helen Jones and Melling have all indicated that there was a growth in industrial welfarism in Britain from the turn of the twentieth century. This development of welfarism, which included provision of educational classes, pensions and medical support, increasingly also encompassed a variety of sports and physical activities. By looking at case studies, developments in provision across a range of industries will be examined. This discussion will draw on a wide range of sources from a variety of women's employment, from factories to clerical positions and from the retail sector to the civil service. This article will examine the types of sporting opportunities open to women through their workplaces, including organised welfare schemes and independent employee-led activities. Moreover, it will explore working women's experiences of these activities and the ways in which they chose to participate in sport.     

Moral Dilemmas and Women’s Rights: the attitude of the Mothers’ Union and Catholic Women’s League to divorce,birth control and abortion in England, 1928–1939

In order to ensure that women benefited from their newly won rights as citizens in 1918 and 1928, the Mothers’ Union and Catholic Women’s League campaigned, along with feminist and political women’s organisations, to enhance the role and status of women in society. Difficulties emerged, however, when changes in public attitudes led to the liberalisation of the law in relation to divorce and birth control coupled with the growing demand within the women’s movement for safe and legal abortion. This article examines the arguments put forward by the two groups on how these reforms would undermine the role of women as housewives, mothers and citizens. It is argued that despite the fact that both groups appeared to be out of step with the wider women’s movement, they succeeded in highlighting a number of major social and welfare concerns facing many women at this time. As a result, they too made a significant contribution to the campaign for women’s rights during the interwar years.     

Constructing citizenship? Women, welfare and refugees in France, 1939-1940

Women were central to the provision of welfare services in France during the refugee crises of the late 1930s. By building on the services created during the First World War, women, as either volunteers or professionals, actively cared for refugees and others during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), the phoney war (September 1939-May 1940) and the German invasion of 1940. French women's involvement with refugee aid enabled them to develop a sense of autonomous civil and political activism, especially—although not exclusively—in their work with the French Red Cross. In addition, the history of welfare activities for refugees illuminates how ordinary people dealt with the extraordinary circumstances of war, invasion and the forced movement of populations.     

Reeducation through work? Mountain roads in the Spanish concentration universe (Western Pyrenees, 1939–1942)

This article deals with the forced labor system within the Spanish Concentration Universe, mainly that related to work battalions that were under the control of the Concentration Camps Inspectorate, involved in work consisting of opening roads along the Western Pyrenees after Spanish Civil War. After underlining the importance of road construction works in the contemporary history of forced labor, we analyze the different kinds of propaganda tools that the regulations of these battalions mentioned in order to enforce the reeducation of these prisoners of war. After that, we have contrasted these regulations with some other historical sources related to the everyday life in the battalions, mainly Inspection reports and oral testimonies, both of captives and of guardians, so that we can better understand to what extent these propaganda tools worked, and the attitudes of captives toward them.