Feminism, culture and women's lives in Britain, c.1945-c.2015

This Fellowship will provide a major study of the relationship between feminism (broadly defined as the aim for equality between women and men) and non-activist women in Britain since 1945. Existing studies of feminism focus on activists. This research examines how feminism affected women outside activist networks. But it goes further than this, by revealing the importance of these women in constituting and developing feminism.

My work will offer a new understanding of the relationship between cultural and political action. It will highlight the importance of the cultural sector as a locus where gender roles were challenged and feminist networks established. This is a conclusion I developed in earlier research on Spare Rib magazine and on cultural participation in Manchester. Since then, as co-Director of Oxford's Women in Humanities (WiH) research centre, I have led interdisciplinary networks on women's cultural production and on their political participation. These highlight theatre as a neglected but important nexus that involves amateur and professional writers and performers; viewers, including those of productions adapted for TV or film; and readers, including schoolchildren studying set texts. Advancing on this, my proposed Fellowship will use a case study of the playwright and screenwriter Shelagh Delaney (1938-2012) to examine how women of her generation challenged socio-cultural norms outside activist networks, and specifically within the cultural sector. Analysing the relationship between cultural and political change will develop my intellectual research leadership in modern history and enhance my contribution to interdisciplinary debates.

Building on my first two books, which provided an overview of women's lives across the twentieth century, this Fellowship will use a biographical lens to scrutinize the personal motivations and experiences that provoked women's public actions. I will focus on a pioneering generation of women, those born between c.1935 and 1950. They were the first for whom combining work, family life, sexual and emotional fulfillment was an apparently realizable goal. This research challenges scholarly assumptions that feminism emerged, or was rediscovered, in the 1970s. It questions the existing chronological frameworks of studies of feminism, which suggest that feminism was a series of 'waves' of activism, each of which was generationally specific. My focus on non-activist women demonstrates significant chronological continuities since the early 1960s, the importance of cross-generational relationships, and the importance of cultural participation (both for practitioners and spectators) in shaping political change.

My research will be communicated through outputs devised to foster dialogue between academic and non-academic users. These include a major book aimed at academic and non-academic audiences, a theatrical performance, an international symposium bringing together scholars, practitioners and activists, and a radio docudrama written in collaboration with a professional writer. In-depth life history interviews with cultural practitioners and spectators will enrich and inform scholarship.

Methodologically, the Fellowship will be informed by a groundbreaking collaboration with the cultural and public sectors. Its findings will be informed by, and some preliminary results communicated through, a major theatrical production undertaken with a professional writer, a community theatre company, a social housing provider and its tenants, and theatre audiences. This will generate new knowledge about the influence that cultural participation has on the creation and dissemination of feminist ideas. Building on my existing experience of fostering interdisciplinary debate within Oxford, this Fellowship will develop my leadership by enabling me to create collaborative partnerships between scholars, cultural practitioners and groups with low rates of educational and cultural participation.

This Fellowship is designed to reach journalists, artistic practitioners, theatre audiences, workers in the third and public sectors and residents of areas of socio-economic deprivation. It will have the following impacts on the nation's health and culture:

1. Foster strategies to achieve greater gender and social equality. Equality has significant personal and collective economic and health benefits (Atkinson and Pickett, The Spirit Level, 2010). My Fellowship will show that an increase in gender equality enhanced women's opportunities and enriched British cultural life over the second half of the twentieth century. It highlights the important contribution that women outside formal politics make to attaining equality. This has potential benefits for policymakers, activists and cultural practitioners who are interested in increasing gender equality and community cohesion. This aspect of the research will be communicated to activists and scholars through the Fellowship symposium, and to broader audiences through project partnerships with the Guinness Partnership (GP), a major social housing provider, and the Working Class Movement Library (WCML), and collaboration with a community theatre company (MaD) and a writer (Charlotte Delaney) leading to a theatrical production, a public roundtable discussion at WCML and a docudrama for broadcast or stage.

2. Shape political and media debate on political engagement. In the wake of Jeremy Corbyn's election to leader of the Labour Party, the media and politicians have identified a turn towards a different paradigm of politics that is less focused on the five-year electoral cycle and on persona, and instead emphasizes debate and popular participation in politics. This research intervenes in this debate by demonstrating the significance of apparently 'non-political' activities (such as writing and spectating) which impact on collective identities and political change. Jon Trickett MP (Shadow Communities and Housing Minister) invited me to discuss this aspect of my research with him, and is now drawing on my work to develop a strategy for increasing political engagement in northern England. This Fellowship would enable me to make a more active contribution to the design of this strategy. More broadly, my conclusions will be communicated to public audiences through the WCML event and the audience discussion at the theatre production, and to the media through my existing media networks and through the publicity programme proposed for the theatrical production.

3. Improve the effectiveness of public and third sector services. This research will deliver a groundbreaking collaboration between a housing trust, a community theatre group and a professional writer with a view to achieving impacts (4) and (5) below. This will provide a model of how to enhance personal and collective wellbeing in areas of high socio-economic deprivation in a period of public spending cuts.

4. Increase cultural participation among residents in areas of high socio-economic deprivation. These residents are tenants of project partner the Guinness Partnership (GP). They live in Greater Manchester, in areas that have low rates of participation in a range of cultural activities (Savage et al, Globalization and Belonging, 2001). This Fellowship will build on research which suggests that levels of cultural participation can be raised by providing cultural activities in the targeted areas (Earle, 'Redefining the role of museums in the 21st century', Sociology Compass, 2013). It will provide opportunities to become involved in a theatrical production on the housing estate where residents live.

5. Increase civic engagement. The theatrical production will be initiated within a housing estate but performed at a major theatre (the Lowry in Salford). Residents will be encouraged to engage with the WCML by attending the roundtable discussion there. Evaluation of the event will shape a briefing paper for Jon Trickett.