David Broder reviews Sheila Rowbotham’s new book about turn-of-the-century feminism
I first heard about this book when I saw a review of it in The Observer. The reviewer began her first paragraph by referring to the under-representation of women in David Cameron’s Cabinet.
Of course, establishment politics and politicians are sexist. But the ideas typical of the reviewer’s focus—not enough women ministers, not enough women in board-rooms—is greatly at odds with both the themes of the book, and the intentions of the many great working-class women whose activism Rowbotham describes. Their struggles were to liberate the whole of society, not just to pave the way for a handful of women to ‘make it big’. Continue reading “‘dreamers of a new day’”
