Feminist activism in movement: UK activism against VAW

Mackay, Finn

Abstract

This chapter will look at UK feminist activism against male violence against women, from the 1970s to the present day. From the often controversial theories of Radical and Revolutionary Feminists, theory and activism against male violence appears today to be a largely unifying and mobilising issue; one that is central to the contemporary UK feminist movement. Familiar areas of conflict remain however, as power relationships between women trouble notions of unified Sisterhood and solidarity, and raise questions for the means and ends of protest. Where once these debates remained mainly in the domain of small Consciousness Raising or CR groups in women’s homes around the UK, new social media has made virtual CR possible on a much larger scale, involving a new generation in debates and controversies old and new. The chapter concludes that despite the persistence of such, still urgent discussions, the subject of male violence against women has evolved to become a mainstream area of campaigning for the current Women’s Liberation Movement, and indeed in wider society.

• Publication Date: Aug 18, 2014
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 81-94
• Series Title: Routledge Studies in Crime and Society
• Book Title: Understanding Gender Based Violence: National and International Contexts
• ISBN: 9780415858724
• Keywords: activism, feminism, third wave, protest, gender Based violence
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/813569
• Publisher URL: http://www.sponpress.com/books/details/9780415858724/