Women's liberation at the grass roots: a view from some English towns, c.1968–1990

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.