Sheila Rowbotham

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Sheila Rowbotham (born in 1943 in Leeds, West Yorkshire) is a British socialist feminist theorist and writer.

Rowbotham attended St Hilda’s College at Oxford and then the University of London. She began her working life as a teacher in comprehensive schools and institutes of higher or Adult education.

Her political activism began with her involvement in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the British Labour Party’s youth wing, the Young Socialists. Disenchanted with the direction of party politics she immersed herself in a variety of left-wing campaigns, including writing for the radical political newspaper Black Dwarf.

Towards the end of the 1960s she had become involved in the growing Women’s Liberation Movement (also known as Second-wave feminism) and, in 1969, published her influential pamphlet ‘Women’s Liberation and the New Politics' which argued that Socialist theory needed to consider the oppression of women in cultural as well as economic terms. She was heavily involved in the conference and book called Beyond the Fragments, which attempted to draw together democratic socialist and socialist feminist currents in the UK.

Since then, Rowbotham has produced numerous books and articles expanding upon her theory, which argues that as women’s oppression is a result of both economic and cultural forces then a dualist perspective (socialist feminism), which examines both the public and private sphere, is required to work towards liberation.

In 2004, Rowbotham was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She is currently Professor of Gender and Labour History, Sociology at the University of Manchester, England.

In 2008, Rowbotham's involuntary retirement from the University of Manchester caused protest from students. The Facebook group Save Sheila Rowbotham was established to campaign for her continuation as a Lecturer.

[edit] Bibliography

• Women’s Liberation and the New Politics (1969) ISBN 0-85124-008-9
• Women, Resistance and Revolution (A Lane, 1973) ISBN 0-7139-0346-5
• Woman's Consciousness, Man's World (1973)
• Hidden from History: 300 years of Women's Oppression and the Fight against it (Pluto, 1973) ISBN 0-902818-28-7
• New World for Women: Stella Browne, Socialist Feminist (Pluto Press, 1977) ISBN 0-904383-54-7
• Dutiful Daughters: Women Talk About Their Lives with Jean McCrindle (Viking, 1977) ISBN 0-7139-1050-X
• The Past is Before Us: Feminism in Action since the 1960s (HarperCollins, 1989) ISBN 0-04-440365-8
• Dignity and Daily Bread: New Forms of Economic Organization Among Poor Women in the Third World and the First with Swasti Mitter (Routledge, 1993) ISBN 0-415-09586-7
• Women in Movement: Feminism and Social Action (Routledge, 1993) ISBN 0-415-90652-0
• Homeworkers Worldwide (Merlin Press Ltd ,1993) ISBN 0-85036-434-5
• Women Encounter Technology: Changing Patterns of Employment in the Third World with Swasti Mitter (Routledge, 1997) ISBN 0-415-14118-4
• A Century of Women: The History of Women in Britain and the United States (Viking, 1997) ISBN 0-670-87420-5
• Threads Through Time: Writings on History and Autobiography (Penguin Books Ltd, 1999) ISBN 0-14-027554-1
• Promise of a Dream: Remembering the Sixties (Verso, 2000) ISBN 1-85984-622-X
• Looking at Class: Film Television and the Working Class in Britain with Huw Beynon (River Oram Press, 2001) ISBN 1-85489-121-9

See also: socialist feminism

[edit] References

• Shiela Rowbotham and the 1960s by Phil Shannon, Green Left Weekly, Issue 428, 2000.
• Administrative/Biographical History - Women's Library Archive entry
• Staff Profile - University of Manchester