Women's Liberation at the Grass Roots: a view from some English towns,c.1968–1990

ABSTRACT

Historical scholarship on the women's liberation movement (WLM) across the UK is as yet underdeveloped. This article argues against the commonly held assumption that London socialist-feminist accounts speak for England as a whole. This article examines the history of the WLM in England as refracted through a range of different English urban localities, specifically Bristol, Brighton, Norwich, Bolton and Leeds/Bradford. It attempts to show the importance of local studies to appreciate the diversity of the English women's liberation movement. The movement had very many unifying characteristics, but how they played out across the country differed according to local contexts.     

Mental Health Services for ‘Difficult’ women: Reflections on Some Recent Developments

The provision of mental health services to women has come sharply into focus for providers of secure psychiatric services in the UK. Women's services are being developed in response to the known risks of mixed-sex provision, and a growing appreciation of the ways that women in secure services can be further disadvantaged by their minority status. Our intention here is to present evidence and reflections to help inform this development. The evidence is drawn from our recent work in this field, which includes carrying out a review of local mental health services for ‘difficult’ women, and developing and piloting a national training programme for staff working with women in secure services. The reflections we offer are informed by the conviction that taking social inequalities into account is central to making sense of women's mental health difficulties, and improving service responses to women's needs. While there are signs that many mental health workers in secure services are beginning to share these convictions, the challenge now is to provide the necessary authorization, training and support that will enable them to translate these understandings into empowerment practice with women.     

How the Sublime Comes to Matter in Eighteenth Century Legal Discourse – an Irigarayan Critique of Hobbes, Locke and Burke

This article examines the way in which the sublime comes to matter within various eighteenth century legal discourses, particularly in the work of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Edmund Burke. The essay seeks also to relate the theoretical works of these philosophers and lawyers to practical legislative developments of the period, in particular, the passage of the Black Act in1726 and the Marriage Act in 1753. The sublime comes to matter to the law in this period in the sense that philosophical conceptualizations of the sublime in terms of power and transcendence become increasingly significant to representations of the nature and function of English law. Such theoretical accounts of the law as are found in the work of Hobbes, Locke, and Burke, moreover, translate into juridical practices designed to affirm the status of the law as a transcendentally sublime source of political authority in the eighteenth century. This article subjects that understanding of the law to a feminist critique that draws upon the work of the French philosopher, Luce Irigaray. It will be shown that the sublime within Western thought is generally associated with a sense of dread as to the possibility of the annihilation of consciousness. This ontological dread entails, in Jean Francois Lyotard’s terms, a recognition of the possibility of “nothing further happening” to the subject. Within Western discourse, this dread is projected onto, or made material in the form of, some ‘other’ that is, in Irigaray’s estimation, most usually feminine. Thus, the sublime comes to matter in this second, ontological sense and it is within this context that the transcendental sublime emerges as a response to a sense of dread that is projected on to some material, feminine, or feminised, ‘other’. In eighteenth century legal discourse, this ‘other’ take the form of the ‘state of nature’, or the revolutionary mob, or the revolutionary female who signifies more than anything a return to animality and chaos –an ontological and political fall from grace. The Black Act and the Marriage Act, with their shared emphasis upon the preservation of political stability and patriarchal property rights, may in this context be regarded as manifestations in the legal domain of the metaphysical principles of the transcendental sublime – with its emphasis upon an escape from, and a control of, the dreadful, feminine ‘other’. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Trends in City Conditions During the 1970s: A Survey of Demographic and Socioeconomic Changes

Changes in the demographic and socioeconomic conditions of 627cities between 1970 and 1980 are examined using simple comparisonof means and correlational analytic techniques. Cities are groupedaccording to their type (Central city; suburb), regional location,and rate of population growth (decline). Major changes occurredin employment patterns, income levels, economic bases, racialcomposition, and social pathologies (crime rates)—allmeasures of urban stress. These conditions tended to clusterin certain types of cities: large, declining central citiesof the Northeast and Midwest. But population decline and regionallocation were not found to be independent determinants of urbandistress. National and regional economic trends, especiallychanges in the vitality of the metropolitan area in which acity is located. were the primary determinants.     

Liability for sexual harassment in criminal justice agencies

This article focuses on sexual harassment in criminal justice agencies from a legal perspective. The article briefly describes sexual harassment cases that address agency liability decided by the United States Supreme Court, discussing the standards of liability articulated in Burlington Industries Inc. v. Ellerth (1998), Faragher v. City of Boca Raton (1998), and Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson (1986). A more precise understanding of when agencies are liable for the actions of their subordinates is developed through an examination of lower federal court decisions. Trends in the law are identified, as case law is categorized according to harassment by supervisors and co-workers. The article concludes by exploring the policy implications flowing from court decisions and by calling for further research on this troubling aspect of the criminal justice workplace.     

What a Difference a Decade Makes: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Coming to Power</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Second Coming</Emphasis>

A critical look at two books, Coming to Power – Writings and Graphics on Lesbian S/M, published in 1981, and its ‘long awaited sequel’, The Second Coming – A Leatherdyke Reader, published in 1996, yields many differences and similarities. Both books have been judged negatively or positively on the basis of their sadomasochistic content and in line with knee-jerk positions around the lesbian ‘sex wars’ of the 1980s. The feminist politics represented in each book and the connections to more general lesbian feminist concerns and developments of either the late 1970s (Coming to Power) or the late 1980s and early 1990s (The Second Coming) are often overlooked or dismissed. Comparing the kind of sex acts and personas fetishized in each book as well as the claims made for lesbian sm by its adherents often reveals more than the writers may have intended. A more nuanced reading of both books also reveals connections between lesbian feminism, particularly lesbian radical feminism and the sm dykes. Rather than being the ‘illegitimate children’ of lesbian feminism, as Coming to Power maintained in 1981, it is clear now that sm dykes and lesbian feminists are strange sisters who needed each other to define their particular politicized identities.