Reading Sheila Rowbotham’s latest memoir, I feel I am inside  her  head as we spin through the 1980s  on a rollercoaster of emotions, feelings, and activities.   Sheila is a socialist feminist, historian, activist, mother, partner,  lover, comrade, friend… and this is an action packed, intense experience  of the era.

The 80s are now being examined through books, television, and social media,  but few people who are holding forth can match Sheila’s honesty (maybe too much sometimes – the episode with her coil (ouch!) I could have done without) and her razor-sharp insight into the politics (big P and small P) that she lived through.

In 1983 Sheila went to work for the radical Greater London Council  (1981-86), led by leftwinger Ken Livingstone,  who was promoting a wider debate about  how Londoners could have a bigger say in how the council and services worked.

Sheila worked in the Popular Planning Unit,  developing an alternative economic strategy which included childcare and domestic labour. In their paper Jobs for Change  she featured a GLC funded women’s cooperative in Lambeth –  whose members were  Asian and Afro-Caribbean women – which made multi-ethnic toys. This reminded me of another  London cooperative making toys set up by Sylvia Pankhurst in 1914 to give work to local women.

It was an ideal job for Sheila,  although at the time she had many doubts about her involvement in what was a large and bureaucratic organisation. But her work at the GLC  did give  her the opportunity to investigate how feminist ideas could be put into practice. It also convinced her that resources were needed so that people without power could   themselves define their own needs. It reminded her that whilst childcare was an important  economic necessity for parents and carers,  it  also involved  a much deeper issue about the emotional link between parent and child.

Sheila too  was also juggling caring for her small son Will with her partner Paul,  alongside work and political activity.  She was also travelling to  Europe, America, and Canada,  giving papers on women’s history, and making links with other like-minded feminists and socialists.  Being part of a community of activists meant that she could take Will with her and there was always another child or adult who would look after him whilst Sheila worked.

The GLC became a focus of a mass resistance to the Tory government,  promoting and supporting all kinds of grassroots movements. It was also very creative,  not just in terms of responding to the needs of people at a local level, but also organising and funding free music festivals Thus .it had an impact far beyond London, influencing  cities such  Manchester, Sheffield, and Liverpool.

 The Miners’ Strike, 1984-1985,  sparked feelings of solidarity between a wide variety of individuals and groups across the country.  Sheila became involved with new organisation,  Women Against Pit Closures. She says it threw up challenges to feminist ideas of personal freedom and liberation as the miners’ wives spoke from a different perspective of collectively and defending their  communities. I was involved in the north west miner’s support group and coming from a working- class background  it struck me at the time that the big difference between the feminists and the miner’s wives  was class.

But the defeat of the miners’ strike and the abolition of the GLC by the Tories in 1986  were seismic changes to the world that Sheila and the rest of us lived in and had hoped to change.

Over the following years Sheila continued to speak about her work at the GLC and made  links with a variety of women, groups and individuals who were still  keeping alive ideas of cooperation:  valuing work done by women and looking for alternatives to the rampant capitalism and individualism that was now everywhere in society.

Sheila published three books during the 1980s:  Dreams and Dilemmas; Collected Writings;  Friends of Alice Wheeldon and The Past is Before Us; Feminism in Action, while also  lecturing, editing, journalism, speech-making and so on. It is an exhausting life that she documents!

Her books reflect herself:  questioning, insightful and encouraging  others wanting to follow in her footsteps. Sheila  shows how important ideas of socialist feminism still are: particularly at a time when the word “class” is hardly used in feminist circles and it seems to me that  working class people are absent from most political movements.

Sheila’s historical research is inspiring,  showing  the importance of researching working class history to prove that even in the worst of times people at the bottom have got together to improve their lives,  their community, and the world. Her writing is also accessible,  and very respectful of the individuals and groups she writes about.

In conclusion Sheila  says; “My yearning is to bring a smile of recognition across the generations, revive submerged visions and strengthen the resolve of those in left movements from below to keep on keeping on.”

“Reasons to Rebel My Memories of the 1980s” is available from  my favourite women’s cooperative bookshop News from Nowhere https://www.newsfromnowhere.org.uk/

Or if you live in Greater Manchester, it is available to borrow  in Manchester  Libraries.

You  can read my review of Shelia’s memoir of the 1970s here.  https://lipsticksocialist.com/2021/07/04/my-review-of-daring-to-hope-my-life-in-the-1970s-sheila-rowbotham/

S