The forgotten history of feminist campaigning in ϳԹhas been rediscovered thanks to research collaborations between ϳԹ researchers Laurel Forster and Sue Bruley and local community groups.
The Challenge
The history of ϳԹhas long been dominated by the naval dockyard, commemorating the achievements of men, with the city considered “little touched by feminism”.
What did we do?
Laurel Forster and Sue Bruley carried out extensive research to uncover the feminist history of Portsmouth, other local feminist movements across the UK, and the implications and influences of women’s media. By interviewing members of the local community, the pair connected individual life stories with general struggles faced by women living in naval cities, and broader concerns of the national Women’s Liberation Movement. A series of public talks, training events, community centre visits and touring exhibitions took place sharing a feminist history of Portsmouth.
The Impact
The project increased awareness of, and engagement with, women’s activism in ϳԹand further afield for a diverse audience. It has also increased awareness of ethnic diversity across Portsmouth, acknowledging the scope and significance of the contributions of women from diverse backgrounds.
The work carried out has enhanced skills and dialogue in gathering women’s narratives, encouraging intergenerational dialogue and reflection. This has also augmented women’s self-esteem and social acknowledgement, as the sharing and capturing of stories of women’s activism has reflected the significance of individuals’ contributions.
A history of feminism in Portsmouth
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ϳԹis a very famous naval city and has a huge dockyard as well.
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And both of those combined have always meant that the history of ϳԹis predominantly a masculine history.
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The main focus of the project was to capture those oral histories,
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those testimonials, those life stories from different women across the city before they forgot.
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I served in the Royal Navy for 34 years.
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The Women's Royal Naval Service was a separate service to the Royal Navy,
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and I went through for officer in 1985 and still at that time the Wrens was very much a shore based service.
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I was a counsellor here for 18 years.
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I would walk into a room and maybe somebody would be coming into the room to talk to the counsellors and then walk in and say, Don't send a child.
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It's because I had a ponytail and I was young.
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I was one of a small group of women who helped to set up the ϳԹWomen's Aid Refuge.
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We were looking for a place of safety for women who experienced violence in the home.
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The initial thing, of course, was to find a house.
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I phoned the council.
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Three properties here in 1930s were really, really poor and not enough properties.
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There was huge frustration.
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You know, we were circumscribed.
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We couldn't take decisions.
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We didn't have any money.
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When I arrived at Portsmouth, I would get involved in community voluntary activities and tackling the authorities.
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It was very, very difficult.
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Male dominated council and who didn't want anything to do with women in any position.
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We got this sense that the, you know, the suspicion would be that we were all very well-meaning and probably quite energetic and enthusiastic,
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but actually we probably didn't know what we were doing.
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I became the chair of Posent Multicultural Group and although I made the leader of the council, etc., etc.
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No one took any notice of me.
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And so it was a battle.
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You felt as though you weren't quite taken that seriously.
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So you changed.
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I think that's how I developed a deeper voice.
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There were a lot of challenges when women first went to see.
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There was still a lot of resentment at that time.
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There was an awful lot of aurorae in the press, and it wasn't very polite.
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We had the wives marching in ϳԹagainst women going to sea and stealing their husbands,
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and that we shouldn't have women on board their husband's warships.
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So that was quite challenging.
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Researchers at ϳԹhave done some great work on ϳԹas a naval town, but mostly that focuses on men.
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And women have worked hard to make the city what it is and to stand up for their rights to improve conditions within the city.
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Sue Bruley and I are both academics studying feminism for a very long time.
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We invited women into the university, women from all walks of life, women who had worked for the city, worked for their communities in different ways,
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really, to tell their stories, to give their testimonials, to talk about their activism.
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What had they done for the city?
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I was interested in particular issues like housing issues, not just repairs, but trying to get new properties.
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And one of the reasons is because people were continually wanting out of Portsea and we didn't want people to keep moving.
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We wanted people to stay.
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So the way to get that was to improve the properties and get more properties.
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So there were a number of women involved in the group.
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At the same time, the council were knocking down old houses.
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Some of the women said, Why are they knocking those houses down?
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We could we could get them done up.
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You know, there would be more houses for us to live in.
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So one of the issues was to try and stop the demolition.
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So they went up and they stood in front of the bulldozers.
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My fellow counsellor.
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She was knocked through a window.
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A number of the women were arrested and put in the cells.
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I was sitting there taking all the numbers as who to phone, what grounds to phone, which husbands to tell, and how to take care of everything.
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Your confidence comes by wanting to to do something, wanting to change it, and also having others around you that want the same thing.
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We were the first women's aid in the country to produce its annual report.
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It was a professional piece of work and I think almost more than any other single thing.
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This document reassured people that we perhaps could be trusted with this relatively small amount of money,
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without these men kind of tossing around to see if we were doing the right thing.
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One of the most helpful people on the project was Marie Costa, because at first, I think she was quite hesitant to come into the university,
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and I think she thought that Sue and I might be two stuffy academics, not really interested in people beyond the academe.
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When I first heard the project, I thought it wasn't for me.
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Most of the people there were all Caucasian and I was the odd one out.
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Laurel said
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"We want women who come from diverse backgrounds."
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"We want everybody included."
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So it's not just about white women.
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That history is missing in Portsmouth, and I need to to fill that gap.
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So I felt that.
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This is my role in it.
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I've got to and I have a voice now and I need to speak up for everybody who can't be there.
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By going in regularly, I found I could ask questions and contribute something or even challenge something, and I think that was a turning point for me.
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ϳԹis a very diverse and multicultural city, and we wanted to reach as many different communities as we could.
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We managed to get to a group of Chinese women and we managed to get to Bangladeshi communities.
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Marie helped us with all of that.
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For me, collaboration and research is absolutely vital.
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So that's why I got involved.
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And I'm really glad I did because, of course, I've met other women now and made new connections, which of course be useful for new campaigns.
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It's important to understand that no city is just about men.
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It's really important to demonstrate women's activism and the significance of feminism to their lives.
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And it's really important to capture this history before it disappears.
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A lot of it is just sitting up here.
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It's memories that we have and memories that you've left behind because things have moved on.
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And if you don't capture them, then they're just going to sort of just be an amorphous mass in the background of history,
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without anybody really sort of recognising that this was an incredibly amazing period of change.
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And I think it's just really important to recognise that it's, you know, it's not always been that way,
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and people have had to work hard so that you can be where you are today.
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There's masses of documentation about how men lived and what they achieved in ϳԹand very little about women.
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It's important to redress that balance.
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My mother died when I was two.
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I'd love to have known what she did for a living.
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There is absolutely no official record of what my mother and I'm only talking now one or two generations back.
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That's why something like this is so important.
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Feminism isn't just about what happened on the marches in the streets of London,
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but it's also what happened in our local city, and in this case in Portsmouth.
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I think I felt that women were beginning to be heard and not just seen,
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take up the mantle and fight their corner and want to be represented in the history of Portsmouth, because that's missing, still missing.
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You don't have any statues of.
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If there is, it's the odd one.
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Even women in the forces are not seen anywhere or represented anywhere.
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So it was good to see that women are saying, you know, we have done something.
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We should be included in the history.
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After years of being male dominated, we want to be heard and represented everywhere.
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It was a very busy year trying to capture the stories of as many women as we could.
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But I am immensely proud of the work that we did in that year, and we have achieved a fantastic archive forever.