LOCAL FEMINISTS UNITE WITH RALLYING CALL: ‘We want a society in which women are heard, respected and valued’

It charts how feminist activism across the province by women of all stripes has been pushing towards change in a variety of areas from reproductive rights, education and employment to battling to bridge the gender pay gap, working to combat poverty and reduce sexual and domestic violence against women, as well as the on-going battle to reform rigid and pernicious gender stereotypes, to stamp out misogyny and sexual harassment through increased education, and to improve access to child care and help make the criminal justice system more sympathetic to female victims of sexual assault. In all of this activism, the collective aims to help build a Northern Ireland which is built upon greater gender parity.

Phenomenal Women: A Decade of Action, sets out the struggles and successes of the organisation’s past ten years.

The women’s sector formed Reclaim the Agenda in 2010 to fight hard for reform on manifold issues which also include better representation of women in politics and public life, and presenting a feminist challenge to what it sees as a patriarchal orthodoxy that has often unfairly worked to oppress women.

The book, which is illustrated with hundreds of photographs and colourful posters, has been edited by four members of the collective, Lynda Walker, Anne McVicker, Helen Crickard and Danielle Roberts. Former PUP leader Dawn Purvis and Belfast-based freelance journalist Amanda Ferguson also contributed.

Lynda Walker, 76, who is originally from Sheffield but moved to Northern Ireland in 1969, has dedicated her life to the feminist movement, opened the first Women’s Centre in Northern Ireland and spent many years teaching Women’s Studies in Belfast Metropolitan College.

She said: “Reclaim the Agenda has now seen over 10 years of activity working to improve the lives of women here and to promote equality. In the past women’s history and women’s actions have been neglected. We decided to put together a book to which a variety of women have contributed in order to tell ‘Herstory’ which is often left invisible and untold.

“We started the Reclaim movement by focusing our attention on celebrating International Women’s Day each year on March 8, and in the past have held big meals in the Shankill’s Women’s Centre. And to mark the 100th anniversary of the day we also had a big mural by artist Rita Duffy constructed on the Shankill Road.

“Once we named the organisation Reclaim, we began to campaign on women’s issues including on things like reproductive rights, better childcare and attempting to reduce the incidence of sexual violence against women. We have had some successes on things like the debate around abortion and reproductive rights, issues which are at least more freely debated, and in a great many other areas, but we certainly still have some way to go.

“When I taught women’s studies years ago some of the women on my course would be reluctant to even refer to themselves as ‘feminist’, even though all it really means is wanting to see equal rights for men and women; some of them went to their churches to ask faith leaders if this was a morally circumspect cause. Well, of course we think it is most worthwhile to identify as feminist, but that does not mean in any way that we see men as the enemy, To transform societies we have to work collaboratively for the greater good.”

Fellow editor of Phenomenal Women, Helen Crickard, 57 is a mum-of-two from Belfast and co-ordinator of Reclaim.

She said: “Reclaim is made up of all of the women’s organisations here from trade unions, individual women and other bodies such as the Women’s Support Network and others and we have Women’s Centres right across the province from Belfast to Londonderry and beyond.

“There is this troublesome narrative that women who care about having parity of rights with men are dubbed ‘femininazis’ or that they don’t like men or don’t want to share society with them in a way that is best for both genders. We want to change that narrative.

“We do things like run workshops on the history of feminism from the Suffragette movement onwards, on gender stereotyping and misogyny, and we try to advocate for change on matters of great importance such as the gender pay gap, and the increasing privatisation of childcare, which makes it harder for mothers on a low income to return to work. We want to bring conversations about feminism and equality to women at a grassroots level so that they can become involved in helping us create a fairer society.

“Throughout the Troubles women have worked together through our various Women’s Centres and that work has united women across the sectarian divide, because while we have differences there is much more that unites us. Together we are stronger.”

One project organised by Reclaim the Agenda is a series sexual harassment awareness workshops.

Helen added: “Some women are no longer even aware of sexual harassment because they are dealing with it so often that it becomes normalised and that’s not OK. We also offer workshops on consent and victim blaming. We think things like this should be taught in schools so that we can stamp out the kind of attitudes that lead to sexual violence.”

Amanda Ferguson, a freelance journalist from Belfast, was an important contributor to the book and is passionate about changing what she sees as a pervasively misogynistic attitude in Northern Ireland.

She said: “I still feel that Northern Ireland is a very patriarchal society and I think we need to change that, because if women make-up more than half of the population then we need to see women make up half of representatives in public life and elsewhere.

“In the media, in business, in politics and many other industries women are still under represented and that needs to change.

“Prosecution rates of sexual crimes against women are still disappointingly low, and we see too many instances of women coming forward and not being believed. We need better education in schools and elsewhere so that misogyny is not accepted as a norm in our society.

“The criminal justice system that is in place at the moment certainly does not serve victims. Online abuse of women is another pertinent issue and that’s from both anonymised and personalised accounts and I don’t think it is taken seriously by social media platforms.”

Amanda added: “I don’t think that the Republic of Ireland or the rest of the UK is some kind of utopia where women’s rights are altogether better protected, but I do feel that Northern Ireland has a pervasively misogynistic culture.

“We need to see a greater move towards reproductive rights because I’ve listened to too many horrific stories about how women are victims of our archaic laws and it’s long past the time where the legislation here should be guided by medical experts and by women themselves. Pregnancy and abortion, in my view, are issues for those who can give birth and not for 50 or 60 year-old politicians who have spent decades denouncing women who elect to have an abortion as evil - frankly I think it’s none of their business.

“I want to live in a world where any time women voice an opinion they are heard and not shouted down, but rather respected and listened to.”

Phenomenal Women is available at No Alibis Bookstore, Botanic Avenue, Belfast and via the online Feminist Bookshop.