Women's Views on News |
| Women’s Peace Crusade remembered Posted: 04 Aug 2016 01:40 PM PDT
The first Women's Peace Crusade march took place in Glasgow on 23 July 1916 . The demonstrators marched from George Square to Glasgow Green, drawing crowds of thousands. Helen Crawfurd – a working-class feminist and socialist who had played a significant role in the famous Glasgow Rent Strike of 1915 – had been galvanised into organising the protest by a letter in the 'Labour Leader' complaining that 'the Socialist women of Britain' had not mounted one public demonstration against World War I’s ‘wholesale slaughter of our menfolk'. The Women's Peace Crusade went on to become the ‘first truly popular campaign in Britain, linking feminism and anti-militarism', and it grew into a mass international women's peace movement. By the end of 1918 it had 123 branches in the UK, from Aberdale to Ystradgynlais. Denounced at the time by the right-wing ‘Morning Post’ as 'one of the most active and pernicious propaganda organisations in the country', the Crusade's aim, as historian Jill Liddington remarked, 'was not genteel lobbying but persuading thousands of women out of their houses and on to the streets for popular open-air rallies to confront the militarist government'. Three thousand marched through Bradford; 300 marched in Birmingham – though their banner was torn up; and in Leicester a crowd of 3,000 assembled in the marketplace to listen to an all-women platform of speakers. The Crusaders faced government repression, mob violence and a massive government propaganda campaign. In Manchester, a planned Women's Peace Crusade demonstration was banned and women hustled away from Stevenson Square amid threats of violence, while in Nelson 1,200 Crusaders were met by a 15,000-strong patriotic mob baying for blood and hurling earth and clinkers. In the days before radio, one effective way to get a message out and have it discussed was to produce short plays that could be performed around the country – and so suffrage drama was born: Elizabeth Robins‘s 'Votes for Women' and Cicely Hamilton and Christopher St. John’s 'How the Vote Was Won' are two predominant examples of the genre. Cicely Hamilton was born Cicely Mary Hammill in London. After a short spell in teaching she acted in a touring company. Then she wrote drama with numerous roles for women, and enjoyed a period of success in the commercial theatre under the name Cicely Hamilton. In 1908 she and Bessie Hatton founded the Women Writers’ Suffrage League. This grew to around 400 members, including Ivy Compton-Burnett, Sarah Grand, Violet Hunt, Marie Belloc Lowndes, Alice Meynell, Olive Schreiner, Evelyn Sharp, May Sinclair and Margaret L. Woods. They produced campaigning literature and recruited many prominent male supporters. Hamilton supplied the lyrics of “The March of the Women“, the song which Ethel Smyth composed the tune for in 1910 for the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). It was first performed on 21 January 1911, by the Suffrage Choir, at a ceremony held on Pall Mall, London, to celebrate a release of activists from prison. It was then sung more widely as the anthem of the women’s suffrage movement throughout the United Kingdom and elsewhere was sung not only at rallies but also in prison during hunger strikes. One famous rendering of it took place in 1912, at Holloway Prison, after many women activists were imprisoned as a result of a window-smashing campaign – one of them was Smyth, who broke the window of Lewis Harcourt, the Secretary of State for the Colonies. The conductor Thomas Beecham visited her in prison and reported that he found the activists in the courtyard “…marching round it and singing lustily their war-chant while the composer, beaming approbation from an overlooking upper window, beat time in almost Bacchic frenzy with a toothbrush.” And when she was imprisoned in April 1913 Emmeline Pankhurst undertook a hunger strike which she did not expect to survive; she later told Smyth that at night she would feebly sing “The March of the Women” and another of Smyth’s compositions, “Laggard Dawn“. Hamilton also wrote 'A Pageant of Great Women', a highly successful women’s suffrage play based on the ideas of her friend, the theatre director Edith Craig. It has been scanned by Google and is available for free download here. During World War I Hamilton first worked in the organisation of nursing care, then she joined the army as an auxiliary and later she formed a repertory company to entertain the troops. After the war, she wrote as a freelance journalist, particularly on birth control, and was a playwright for the Birmingham Repertory Company. Since early in 2016 a group of Glasgow Women’s Library staff, learners and volunteers have been exploring some of the key protagonists of the Women’s Peace Crusade and their remarkable achievements. At the recent launch of the resulting Forward! exhibition there was a screening of Glasgow Women’s Library and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland's film, ‘March‘. 'March' documents the large-scale, public art event 'March of Women' which took to the streets of Bridgeton on 7 March 2015, the eve of International Women's Day. Through a series of interviews with a wide variety of women who took part in the performance and march, the film considers the gap in documenting women's history, and points to the resounding importance of having a female generation to both honour and draw inspiration from. It follows the process of the play's development in a community of Scottish women – from boat builders to students, librarians to politicians – as they worked together towards the big event on 7 March. The film gives an insight into some of political and social experiences of women in Scotland today, and is testament to the tremendous power of a collective voice, and the surprising resonance that a play written over a century ago has with our contemporary society. The exhibition runs until 31 August: you can visit that and find out more about some of the key figures of the Women's Peace Crusade and some of their incredible achievements.  |
| Best practise guide for tackling FGM Posted: 04 Aug 2016 01:38 PM PDT
The first ever FGM figures in England were released recently showing that there have been nearly 6,000 new cases in the last year and that a further 65,000 girls under the age of 13 are at risk of the procedure. Local funding is key to government ambitions to end FGM in the UK and the future health of thousands of British girls and young women, a landmark report by the Tackling FGM Initiative (TFGMI) has said. Ending FGM in the UK requires multi-agency working and includes involving FGM-affected communities. TFGMI, a £2.8 million initiative, has hailed the success of community-led approaches to prevent FGM and support local organisations. However those working on it are now concerned about the lack of local investment, which is a major threat to the health of women and girls in affected communities and to the government's efforts to end FGM in the UK. The launch of this evaluation report marked the end of a 6-year programme during which nearly 20 local authorities around the UK charted and developed community-led interventions to tackle FGM. And the document highlights best practice that has been developed by Community Based Organisations (CBOs). It complements the UK government’s most recent multi-agency statutory guidance on FGM published earlier this year and to read and followed by all persons and bodies in England and Wales who are under statutory duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and vulnerable adults. The TFGMI report is aimed at community-based organisations working on or planning to work on FGM; at local authorities, to support the development of good quality partnerships and joint working with affected communities and the Community Based Organisations (CBOs) who work with them; professionals charged with a legal duty to respond to FGM, such as health professionals, maternity services or teachers; and commissioners and local safeguarding leads, to understand how to work with communities and recognise communities as assets when it come to ending FGM. It also shows how community-based organisations have transformed attitudes among many of the communities affected, by identifying community champions, creating 'safe places' for discussion and developing best practice approaches for tackling FGM. Particular success has been seen among young people and young mothers. The Practical Guidance for FGM Engagement section is divided into three key parts: Prevention; Access to Mental Health Care and Support; and Working with Statutory Professionals and local authorities – including FGM case work. Each of the three chapters details the rationale for each target group, outlines activities conducted by CBOs to reach this group and then highlights best practice. Community-based organisations have also successfully trained more than 6,000 professionals – including teachers (52 per cent of the total trained), health professionals (13 per cent), social workers (7 per cent) and GPs (5 per cent) – with statutory responsibilities to safeguard girls and support women. They have also worked alongside local safeguarding agencies to connect with communities, develop local guidance and improve integration of FGM into child protection policies. And they have shown how an increased understanding that FGM is not a religiously required practice, is illegal and has severe health implications has led to an attitudinal change and a decrease in the number of people in affected communities who see FGM as an important 'cultural artefact'. The Tackling FGM Initiative was established in 2010 to strengthen community-based prevention work to protect the rights of children, its aim being to reduce the risk to girls and young women of undergoing FGM. The guide was funded by the Trust for London, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Rosa (the UK Fund for Women and Girls), Comic Relief and the Kering Corporate Foundation. To read the full guide, click here.  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Women's Views on News. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |