A very interesting read about the beginnings of feminist action in the UK. Though one passage in particular struck me:

Fifty years on, such brazen sexism appears comically old-fashioned. But the women’s libbers who confronted it have also often been the butt of jokes. While achievements such as equal pay and the establishment of women’s refuges are recognised, the movement that fought for them has uncertain status. Second-wave feminists, as this generation is known, have been derided as man-hating harridans but also as entitled princesses – with their unrealistic demand for 24-hour nurseries and insufficiently intersectional politics. Their suffragette grandmothers, by contrast, are held up as courageous heroines.

I suppose it shouldn't be surprising. Especially after my post highlighting the cycle of backlash that happens every twenty years or so (https://www.reddit.com/r/4bmovement/comments/1pjqzh4/backlash\_indicators\_backlash\_by\_susan\_faludi/).

Still, it makes me feel a particular type of way to see now, even in modern feminist (re: libfem) discourse, that even the suffragettes are vilified right alongside second-wavers. Any feminism that focuses on it's true mission, on sex-based oppression and women's liberation exclusively, is demonized. Only now it's done by those that would seek to label themselves as 'feminist' and not strictly it's detractors.

Final thoughtful quote:

“What I remember most is the sense that we actually achieved something,” says Brayfield. “We were dealing with an enormous social injustice and an extremely resistant patriarchy or power structure that didn’t want to change. We really did set out to change our society and to make life better for our daughters but it’s a fight you have to keep winning. There’s never any sitting back and saying ‘we’ve won’ because you never have.”