When 21-year-old Emma Woolf looked around her in mid-1980s Birmingham, she saw plenty of things for women to be angry about. The UK had its first female prime minister in Margaret Thatcher, but in everyday life many women were still overlooked and underpaid – and they wanted to do something about it. “I was in a group of women who went: ‘No.
We're having what we want and we will be fighting for it,’” said Ms Woolf, now 61. She was one of a group of 1980s feminists in Birmingham who came together to put on city-wide events for women, battling accusations that this was a “waste of money”. put together by researchers at Birmingham City University (BCU), hopes to showcase this little-known part of the city’s history for today’s Brummies.
It follows the Women’s Committee and the Women’s Unit, two council bodies that were set up in 1984 and hired women to carry out trailblazing projects. These included a week-long women’s festival, a free directory that listed women’s groups and services, and a report on low pay that highlighted issues within the council itself - A budding activist, 23-year-old Ms Woolf jumped at the chance to run the festival when she saw the job advert. She remembers the 1980s as “a very politically active time” for female campaigners - equal pay laws were strengthened in 1984 but court wins were rare, while a private members' bill Women also played and set up an in Berkshire that she visited.
"[We were] in a series of never-ending b.