Beyond the Boundaries:

feminist influence in council housing

estates in the 1980s.

A northern English case study.

Jo Somerset, June 2016

Birkbeck College Graduate Certificate in History

Beyond the Boundaries

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Beyond the Boundaries

Chapter 1: Introduction Page 4

Chapter 2: Feminism in the changing local authority 7

Chapter 3: Changing the practice of youth work 12

Chapter 4: Collusion and collision: class and feminism 17

Chapter 5: Connection with the women’s liberation movement 22

Chapter 6: Conclusion 28

Appendix 1 Interviews and conversations 31

Appendix 2 Wigan women youth workers 1979-94 and other relevant people 33

Appendix 3 Staffing structure 38

Bibliography 39

Figures and tables

Figure 1: Estates in greatest need Figure 2: Estate-based young women’s centres in Wigan 1984-93 Figure 3: 489 jobs axed, Wigan Post and Chronicle, 14.1.93 Figure 4: Women Youth Workers’ annual reports Figure 5: Hag Fold Young Women's Centre weekly programme 1989 Figure 6: The Process of Youth Work

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Beyond the Boundaries

Chapter 1: Introduction

During the 1980s, women youth workers in Wigan changed their male-orientated profession, which marginalised young women, and passed on their feminist beliefs to young women in

Wigan’s council estates. This study explores how these women used public sector resources to transmit the feminist message deep into a working-class community, beyond the reach of mainstream feminism at that time. This research is rooted within social history, giving voice to ‘ordinary people’. Using micro-history techniques to zoom in on certain people in one town sheds light on the influence of a social movement on wider society, suggesting important inferences about how gender history interprets late twentieth century

Britain.1

METHODOLOGY

Methods

Feminism underpins both theme and methodology. Feminist scholars such as Joan

Sangster, Joanna Bornat, Hanna Diamond and Jeska Rees alerted me to the pitfalls of oral history: unreliable memory, unresolved conflicts and partial views of events from live subjects.2 Consulting various primary sources - youth workers’ reports, council minutes, newspaper cuttings and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate for Education (HMI) reports - at Wigan

Local Studies Centre, the Feminist Webs archive (Manchester Metropolitan University) and the National Archives, I gained an overview of Wigan Council and the local economy. I created a timeline and ‘cast of characters’ in the Wigan youth work story, thus enabling cross-referencing and verification of differences of memory or perspective during

1 For a discussion of how women’s history developed into gender history, see Laura Lee Downs Writing Gender History (London: Bloomsbury, 2010). 2 Joan Sangster, ‘Telling Our Stories: Feminist Debates and the Use of Oral History’ in The Oral History Reader. (London, Routledge, 1998) pp. 87-100; Joanna Bornat and Hanna Diamond, ‘Women’s History and Oral History’ Women’s History Review, 16, no.1 (2007) pp. 19-39; Jeska Rees, ‘”Are You a Lesbian?” Challenges in Recording and Analysing the Women’s Liberation Movement in England.’ History Workshop Journal, 69, no.1 (2010) pp. 177-187.

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Beyond the Boundaries subsequent interviews. Preliminary conversations before formal interviews allowed me to broach areas of painful emotion, and establish which were too sensitive for audio-recording.

Ensuring I adhered to Birkbeck College Ethical Guidelines on consent and confidentiality, I interviewed six women ex-youth workers (four full-time and two part-time), and held conversations with six others, including a male ex-youth worker, HMI inspector and a youth work academic.3 All twelve are named and consent was given to store the recorded interviews at the Feminist Webs archive. Inevitably, there were significant figures whom I did not interview. The interviews were analysed for conscious and unconscious feminist actions, the influence of class and region, and the impact of higher education.

Utilising archive material, living subjects and the literature about feminism I established what made Wigan’s experience noteworthy. The women’s voices from interviews and contemporaneous reports provide the main evidence, supported by documents which verify or contextualise facts. As the interview sample is small, this study is presented as a case study illustrating important dynamics about the 1980s feminist movement’s limitations and how it extended beyond widely-assumed boundaries.

Historiography

The historiography of feminism’s ‘second wave’ falls into two categories either side of the year 2000. Authors in the 1980s-90s aimed to galvanise other feminists, while later scholars were more detached due to the distance of time. Feminism has influenced numerous disciplines such as history, sociology, cultural studies, anthropology, politics and psychology.

In the 1980s, feminist historians analysed how the women’s movement had developed since

1970. Sheila Rowbotham, Anna Coote and Beatrix Campbell espoused socialist feminism’s dual focus on inequality in the means of production and reproduction.4 The contrasting radical feminist viewpoint highlighted patriarchy rather than capitalism as the oppressor,

3 See Appendix 1: List of interviews. 4 Sheila Rowbotham, Dreams and Dilemmas (London: Virago,1983) and The Past is Before Us (London: Pandora, 1989), Anna Coote and Beatrix Campbell, Sweet Freedom, (London: Pan, 1987).

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Beyond the Boundaries adopting an increasingly separatist lesbian position, often theorising from personal experience.5 The psycho-sociologist Lynne Segal straddled activist and academic positions in the 1980s and 1990s.6 Magazines supporting a particular perspective stimulated debate, while academic journals fed theoretical thinking.7 Feminist analysis of youth work produced a major textbook for students, whose author was consulted for this dissertation.8 After 2000, scholars,9 including men, who were too young to have been involved in the earlier surge of activism offered a more impartial analysis but tended to overlook ‘ordinary feminists’, whom

Barbara Caine categorised as women excluded from the ‘official history’.10

The impact of the women’s liberation movement on wider society has been scantily chronicled. This contribution explores how feminist principles were disseminated in a post- industrial town through the vehicle of youth work, giving a Northern English working class flavour to the women’s movement of the ‘long decade’ from 1979-94, and augmenting the few studies about use of state resources to achieve feminist ends. It spans a period during which the newly-elected Conservative government championed private enterprise over social welfare, resulting in job losses and factory closures. In response, the northern Labour municipal stronghold targeted initiatives in the neediest areas. Wigan appointed several women youth workers to work on the poorest housing estates, joining a male-dominated professional workforce.11 State power and feminism thus converged to counter negative economic effects on the borough’s population.

5 For example: Amanda Sebestyen, ed. 68, '78, '88: From Women's Liberation to Feminism. (London: Ultra Violet, 1988). 6 Lynne Segal, Is the Future Female? (London: Virago, 1987) and Why Feminism? (Cambridge: Polity, 1999). 7 Spare Rib was the monthly news organ of the movement; Red Rag represented socialist feminism; Women’s Report and Trouble and Strife represented radical feminism. Feminist Review, Women’s Studies and Signs are academic journals. 8 Janet Batsleer, Youth Working with Girls and Young Women in Community Settings (2nd ed. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013). 9 For example, Sarah Browne The Women’s Liberation Movement in Scotland. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014), Estelle Freedman No Turning Back (New York: Ballantine, 2007), Finn Mackay, ‘Radical Feminism’. Theory, Culture and Society 32:no.7–8 (2015): pp.332–36. 10 Barbara Caine, English Feminism 1780-1980 (Oxford: OUP 1997) p.263. 11 In 1973, 16 per cent of qualified youth workers registered with the Department for Education and Science, were female. Source: National Youth Bureau, Youth Service 14:6 (January 1975) p. 16.

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Beyond the Boundaries

Chapter 2: Feminism in the changing local authority

Britain’s 1974 local government reorganisation created Wigan Metropolitan Borough

(population 307,721),12 despite allegiances being to people’s home town (Wigan, Leigh, or one of the fifteen smaller townships) rather than the artificial Greater Manchester. They were Lancashire folk, not Greater Manchester people.

The borough’s new council inherited a cohort of youth workers from Lancashire County

Council, transforming the minimal youth provision in Wigan to the status of a council service.

The Marxist youth workers advocated addressing poverty and inequality on estates, concurring with the government’s policy favouring community development rather than youth clubs.13 In July 1979, the council recruited a second ‘detached’ youth worker for the Platt

Bridge estates, to break out of the ‘club-based straitjacket’.14 The subsequent appointment of

Julie Hart swelled the full-time female youth worker workforce to two.15 By 1988, over half were women.

Simultaneously, growing feminist awareness of how the education system short-changed girls permeated Wigan Youth Service (part of the Education Department).16 Between 1980 and 1985, a group of women youth workers, full-time and part-time, driven by a burgeoning awareness of injustice to women transformed the feminist toehold in Wigan into a stronghold. In 1986, the praise for girls’ work contained in two inspection reports of Wigan

Local Education Authority drew national attention to Wigan Youth Service.17 Consequently,

12 Office for National Statistics, Census 1981. 13 The Albemarle Report The Youth Service in England and Wales (HMSO:1960) defined youth work as ‘social and informal education’ and the Fairbairn/Milson Report Youth and Community Work in the 70s (HMSO:1969) linked youth work with community development. 14‘Self-help’ youth plan Wigan Post and Chronicle, 26 May 1978 (Newspaper cuttings XVII p. 304, Wigan Local Studies Centre, henceforth WLSC). 15 Julie Hart, A History and Introduction to Girls Work in Wigan 1989, Feminist Webs archive (henceforth FW). 16SpareRib featured a special edition on education no. 75 (October 1978) 17 Dept of Education and Science – Report by Her Majesty’s Inspectors on Educational Provision in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan (1986) (WLSC) and Report by HMI on Aspects of the Work of the Youth Service in Wigan (1986) accessed at The National Archives (henceforth TNA). These reports will be referred to as HMI (1) and HMI (2) hereafter.

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Beyond the Boundaries work with girls and young women snowballed, gaining credibility and funding. Tony Taylor,

Youth Adviser and (from 1986) Chief Youth Officer, supported the feminist position, but concluded in 2012 in a history of youth work that, in their uncompromising determination to improve the lives of young women, ‘the struggle to have girls’ work accepted in Wigan split the youth service’.18

Alongside changing societal perceptions of women, council housing departments led municipal change to address the combined problems that created ‘unusually high concentrations of deprivation’ in some estates, heralding a multi-disciplinary neighbourhood initiative to reverse the ‘cycle of decline’ (Figure 1).19

Figure 1: Estates in greatest need Estate No. Unemployment One-parent Housing Benefit Households family % % % Hag Fold 2,453 19.7 4.3 73.2 Millers Lane 691 32.0 6.7 75.7 Norley Hall 1,544 24.0 4.3 75.0 Shakerley 508 25.2 7.5 73.3 Woodcock Drive 428 29.0 6.6 76.4 Worsley Hall 1,789 27.4 4.5 73.0 Worsley Mesnes 1,711 26.2 4.0 75.6 Higher Folds 1,188 22.2 4.6 73.1 WIGAN BOROUGH 11.2 2.0 72.9 on council estates

Whilst the outlook for young people across the borough was poor (only 12.7% of school leavers in 1984 found employment)20 it was bleaker on the priority estates. Wigan Council’s

18 Tony Taylor, ‘From Social education to Positive Youth Development’ p.121 in Coussee, Verschieden and Williamson (eds) The History of Youth Work in Europe (Council of Europe, 2012). 19 Wigan’s Council Estates: A Report on Housing Stress and Social Hardship, Wigan MBC (1985). WLSC. 20 HMI (1) p. 2, WLSC.

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Beyond the Boundaries decision to site services closer to those in greatest need included youth workers in the multi- agency teams alongside housing, probation, health and social services departments.21

Some visionary women sowed the seeds of feminism on this fertile ground, opening estate- based young women’s centres (Figure 2) and fulfilling the women’s aspiration to ‘get the goods to where it’s needed, i.e. working class young women living near enough to poverty on poor housing estates.’22 A large and formidable force grew from two female workers in

1979 to twelve full-time and 56 part-time women workers a decade later.23

Figure 2: Estate-based young women’s centres in Wigan 1984-93

21 Platt Bridge Area Youth Workers’ Annual Report 1988-89, FW. 22 Response to National Advisory Council for the Youth Service – Sub-Committee on Youth Work with Girls and Young Women. (undated - circa 1987). FW. 23 During my research I identified the names of 64 full-time and part-time women youth workers over the 15- year period (Appendix 2). The HMI visit in 1985 noted a total workforce of 23 full-time managers and youth workers, and 122 part-time workers (see Appendix 3: Structure Chart).

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Against a backdrop of economic decline, Wigan Council challenged traditional youth work and pushed the boundaries of expectations for young women, continuing until the Local

Government Finance Act (1988) forced councils to cut services24 and virtually all the youth work targeted at girls and young women closed by 1994.25 A local newspaper quoted Julie

Hilling, Wigan-based president of the youth workers’ trade union: "All that we've worked for, for two decades in the Youth Service has come to an end." (Figure 3).

Figure 3 Wigan Post and Chronicle, 14 January 1993, quoting Julie Hilling, Youth Officer and CYWU President.

24 Poll-tax (known officially as the Community Charge) enabled the government to cap the amount of tax a council could raise locally, forcing some councils to revise budgets or face financial penalties. The unpopularity and unworkability of the Poll Tax led to riots and directly contributed to Margaret Thatcher’s downfall. The tax was abandoned after only three years. 25 Wigan MBC, Youth Service Bulletin, December 1993. FW.

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Five factors allowed Wigan’s work with girls and young women to flourish more than elsewhere in the UK: firstly, the council’s neighbourhood services policy; secondly, a politicised youth service where Marxist male youth officers tussled with, but supported, feminist activity; thirdly, a leadership vacuum, since higher management had little understanding of feminism; fourthly, a progressive trade union.26 Finally, there was an available workforce of recently qualified women youth workers with a full-time diploma or part-time in-house certificate.

26 Community and Youth Workers Union (CYWU).

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Beyond the Boundaries

Chapter 3: Changing the practice of youth work

BEGINNINGS

Wigan’s women youth workers rooted feminist concerns in their work, prioritising social education over the traditional recreational model of youth work. Ex-Wigan youth worker

Steph Green, now a youth and community work lecturer at Ruskin College, Oxford, acknowledges its impact as ‘the model for work with young women.’27 Julie Hart reflected in

1989 that the Laurel St Young Women’s Centre (opened in 1984) ‘was the first of its kind in the North of England and began to establish a new kind of youth work practice.’28

Playing pool and trips to Alton Towers kept young men off the streets, and some male workers’ good practice involved young men in planning and executing these activities.

However the women acted as the vanguard for a different style of youth work which was about ‘issues’ rather than recreation, demanding that male workers address sexism and the lads’ attitudes.29 Their approach applied to all young people, not just young women.

The women drew on national agencies for support,30 and followed their initial success in the

1980 national “Boys Rule Not OK” week with establishing girls’ nights, described in an article

‘Taking Off in Wigan’.31 Enacting feminist principles, they advocated equality, involving young women in planning and evaluating activities. Their passion in implementing this youth work principle, and making common cause with the young women against the patriarchal institution was interpreted as being ‘fanatical about girls’ work’.32

27 Interview with Steph Green, 25 January 2016. 28 Hart, History and Introduction, p. 2. FW. 29For example, the Comet Youth Centre’s ‘Workers Consensus’ in Annual Report Worsley Mesnes Outreach Worker September 1987, FW. 30 Girls’ Work Unit at National Association of Youth Clubs (NAYC) and National Organisation for Working with Girls and Young Women. 31 Working with Girls Newsletter, NAYC, Leicester, Spring 1981. 32 Conversation with Julie Hart, 3 December 2015.

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The HMI inspector acknowledged the women’s struggle against the mainstream, noting that,

‘girls are noticeable within the [mainstream] youth service by their absence’, and further criticising the Youth Service’s practice, except the work with young women and young unemployed men.33 These comments galvanised further lobbying for resources. Young women’s participation in outdoor activities tripled from 18% to 61% of attendances by

September 1987; by 1988, 25 young women’s groups existed in 15 centres and on three estates,34 and by 1989 there were four young women’s centres, each producing copious activity reports (Figure 4).

Figure 4 Women youth workers’ annual reports

33 HMI (1) paras 222-4. WLSC. HMI (2) p.38. FW. 34 Tim Warren, The Formative Years of Wigan Youth Service from Albemarle to the Present Day. M.Ed. Thesis, Manchester University, 1988. Unpublished. P.66.

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CONSOLIDATION

The inspection’s official recognition of feminist practice stimulated a policy paper setting a societal context for youth work with girls and pressing for gender equality throughout the youth service.35 Five years earlier the council’s Youth Advisory Committee had deleted part of a report entitled ‘Sexism in the Youth Service’.36 Now the committee agreed to embed feminist principles in the service. Despite suspicion and limited engagement with the establishment Julie Hart was persuaded to enter the management ranks as borough-wide officer for girls and young women to advance their cause.

Figure 5 illustrates a typical working week, but the main impact lay in what happened

‘between the cracks’ whereby young women were supported emotionally and practically, for example in relationships, cooking skills, applying for benefits and negotiating with the adult world. Using the women’s liberation movement’s tactics of small groups and local action,

Wigan’s women youth workers were local government officers behaving like activists. With a

‘no limits’ attitude they created adventurous programmes, stretching small budgets and supplying their own training and personal development as well as that of the young women.

As relatively young women themselves, the workers’ own personal growth took place in parallel with the young women’s. Their zeal fuelled their reputation amongst feminists. Rose

Mawby trained as a youth worker because she knew many of the Wigan youth workers

‘through socialising with them at parties, feminist groups and the lesbian line discos’ although by the time she qualified, most had been made redundant.37

35Julie Hart Work with Young Women and Girls within the Youth Service: Policy and Practice Paper (1985), submitted to Youth Advisory Committee, October 1985. FW. 36 Youth Advisory Committee minutes 22 May 1980, in Warren The Formative Years of Wigan Youth Service, p.72. 37Email from Rose Mawby to Jo Somerset, 29 April 2016.

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Figure 5: Hag Fold Young Women's Centre weekly programme 1989

A disregard for rules and power structures meant that the hierarchical barriers between full- time and part-time were largely dissolved. The ‘make it up as we went along’ approach and lack of hierarchy meant that ideas generated from within could become standard practice.

Marie Brookfield ‘had a clear process in my head of youth work in Platt Bridge’38 and she eventually wrote down, in collaboration with colleagues, a theoretical model based on her experience (Figure 6) which was adopted by other workers.39

38 Interview with Marie Brookfield, 7 April 2016. 39 Tramlines report, 1990, FW.

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Figure 6: The Process of Youth Work, Marie Brookfield 1988

DECLINE Ultimately, the ‘go-it-alone’ anti-establishment mentality sowed the seeds of its own demise.

Steph Green now realises the vulnerability of not engaging with management.

That sort of passionate response is quite common when something’s new, and it’s a bright idea. It comes from that place of protest….people weren’t thinking about it as something that’s got to be managed and got to be sustained – all the boring bits.

She explained that although councillors served on youth centre management committees,

‘we never thought to …… really tie them in, and that’s what we needed to have done if we were going to sustain something that radical.’40 Their position could have been strengthened by willingness to communicate with higher authority who had power over their service, but their dedication lay elsewhere: in empowering working-class young women.

40 Interview with Steph Green, 25 January 2016.

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Chapter 4: Collusion and collision: class and feminism

In the 1980s, not all feminists championed working-class rights, but in Wigan at that time, most youth workers – male and female – came from northern working-class homes.41 Youth worker Sue Cockerill’s memory of communities facing rapid decline during the decade was of ‘everything closing down’, as rising unemployment and poverty affected northern

England’s manufacturing areas.42

SOLIDARITY

There was frequent consensus as well as conflict between the Marxist and feminist positions within the union’s local branch. The trade union actively backed modern youth work methods, and in 1991 CYWU’s national president was from Wigan Youth Service. Workers’ solidarity was implicit in most women workers’ family values. Their parents worked in factories, mills, coalmines and skilled trades, and approved of their daughters getting better jobs in white collar jobs and public service professions. The women’s solidarity aligned with the Chief Youth Officer’s outlook, increasing their understanding of colleagues and the community, but also producing conflict in industrial relations within the council.43

EDUCATION

The universal message of the women’s liberation movement particularly influenced those who accessed it through education. Increased student grants and new universities and polytechnics had expanded opportunities for some working-class children, and Paula

41 Only one of my interviewees identified as middle class, and one came from London. All part-time workers were recruited from the local community. 42 Conversation with Sue Cockerill, 15 November 2015. 43 Interview with Charles Hopkinson, (Director of Education 1975-84), 20 June 1988 in Warren, The Formative Years of Wigan Youth Service, p.31.

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Jenkinson, part-time youth worker, noticed that the full-time workers with the higher education youth work diploma ‘knew where they were going’.44 School was another matter.

Youth worker Jan Alford left grammar school at 18 ‘feeling stupid’ and Marie Brookfield had a ‘crap education’; both spent several years as part-time youth workers before building enough confidence to enter higher education.45

Tertiary education enabled Paula Jenkinson to articulate her feminism. She ‘knew and supported and encouraged and fought for stuff but didn’t have that wider understanding’ until she undertook the diploma course at Manchester Polytechnic six years later. She began to define herself as a feminist ‘and not be frightened of that word.’46 But for Jan Alford, feminism came first. “The women’s movement gave me an explanation of who I was. Trade unions and youth work gave me the confidence to do a degree’.47

REALISM

Janet Paraskeva, ex-HMI inspector, recalled that the women workers’ accurate understanding of what was both important and achievable in young women’s lives came from their strong empathy.48 Jan Alford compared her upbringing on a London council estate with what she saw in Wigan: ‘That could have been me [….] Because my own background had a lack of choices, we knew what the young women were talking about, about violence and shit money. We could respect them, not patronise them.’49 Using personal experience of negotiating the system, they helped young women achieve similar autonomy. They encouraged young women to accept their situation but refuse the subordination and sexism

44 Interview with Paula Jenkinson, 2 April 2016. 45 Interviews with Marie Brookfield, 7 April 2016, and Jan Alford, 24 May 2016. 46 Interview with Paula Jenkinson, 2 April 2016. 47 Group discussion, 6 February 2016. 48 Conversation with Janet Paraskeva, 7 December 2015. 49 Group discussion, 6 February 2016.

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Beyond the Boundaries that came with it. While this appears to clash with the feminist ideal of “We can do anything!” the girls’ options were limited in the emerging low paid service sector.50

Transformation took place within this context, not in spite of it. The women workers’ dogged determination secured popular resources, with the Worsley Mesnes young women’s centre

‘bursting at the seams with young women and children’51 and the impact summed up in a youth worker’s report in 1990:

The Youth Service ....has gone some way towards meeting the needs of and alleviating the pressures on young unemployed women, especially those with children. It has also offered them opportunities and choices which they would never otherwise have had, increasing their self esteem and enabling them to take some more control over their lives…… All [one] young woman’s opportunities for her development and support as a young single parent on Millers Lane estate, were offered through the Youth Service.52

UNITY: “Your life was your job, your job was your life”53

Social class was never explicitly discussed, yet it was always talked about. The working- class ethos blended with feminism to form a solid platform for youth work and the workers’ own youthfulness was a piece in the jigsaw. Marie Brookfield, who volunteered as a 20-year old young mother before becoming a part-time and then full-time worker ‘was learning for the first time about things about me as a woman.’54 Paula Jenkinson, ‘a working-class lass from

Tyldesley’, felt her unfolding awareness was ‘like I was a flower coming into bloom’.55 Fellow part-timer Sue [surname unknown] ‘started work because I wanted the freedom to be myself.’56

50Arthur Marwick, British Society Since 1945, 4th ed, (London:Penguin 2003); pp.248-50. 51 Worsley Mesnes Report, 1991 p.4, FW. 52 Tramlines report, 1990, FW. 53 Julia Keenan, group discussion 6 February 2016. 54 Hart, History and Introduction, p.3. FW. 55 Interview with Paula Jenkinson, 4 April 2016. 56 Hart, History and Introduction, p.3. FW.

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OTHER ‘-ISMS’

While Wigan’s loud voice proclaimed opportunities for young women, many feminists were falling out over layers of identity politics that sometimes resembled a hierarchy of oppression. Unlike the wider women’s movement, class issues did not divide Wigan’s workers; nor did race or nationality due to their lack of ethnic diversity, although they sought to challenge racism and explore with young women the prejudices they had all grown up with, helping a group of girls to organise an anti-racism weekend. Prompted by their inclination towards inclusivity, young women with learning disabilities attended regular sessions and some joined a ski-ing trip to Yugoslavia.

Motherhood, another class-based divisive factor in the wider women’s movement, was not a major conflict in Wigan, as the workers embraced the inevitability of catering for young mothers, most of whom had several children who accompanied their mothers on camps and days out.57 The workers lobbied for crèche worker funding, bought toys and maternity swimsuits, and devised parenting skills courses, although this was balanced with child-free days and events.

DIVISION

Against all this unity, however, factions sparked by differences involving sexuality evolved.

The young lesbians’ group at Laurel St centre operated undercover, posing as a young women’s group, as the dominant ethos of the time precluded openness. Although the majority of the full-time workers were lesbian, and most were ‘out’, the ‘personal is political’ feminist principle was difficult in practice. Some felt that young lesbians’ issues were underplayed because it might deter attendance at young women’s centres. While all the interviewees for this study confirmed that professional/personal boundaries were consistently respected between workers and young women, the same was not true between

57 Interview with Poddy Peerman, 21 January 2016.

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Beyond the Boundaries the workers themselves. Several couple relationships developed, which were both a driver and a detractor of the work: strong partnerships provided an impetus to get things done, but the lack of boundaries between private life and work caused painful emotions under the surface. Whilst being united in protesting against the government’s proposed ban on

‘promotion’ of homosexuality in the Local Government Act (1988),58 break-ups caused divisions and different camps arose, putting the whole initiative in danger of imploding.

Despite the conflict, however, their collective commitment to women’s empowerment remained intact.

58 The infamous Section 28 prompted a large campaign of resistance, and was eventually repealed in 2000.

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Chapter 5 Connection with the women’s liberation movement

Through their ability to connect closely with young women, the women youth workers made change possible in women’s daily lives in Wigan, reaching far beyond the big city, middle class environments where feminism was flourishing at that time. By facilitating resistance to male domination, and creating separate space for women to develop confidence and autonomy, they echoed the seven demands for equality that had been formulated at the UK- wide women’s liberation movement conferences held between 1970 and 1978.

Most full-time youth workers were involved in the Women’s Liberation Movement before working for Wigan, whereas many part-timers developed their feminist consciousness as a result of working in the youth service. All the interviewees identified as feminists and read

Spare Rib, some since they were teenagers, regarding it as an anchor in a turbulent world.

They were immersed in feminist cultural messages immortalised by Gloria Gaynor’s songs ‘I

Will Survive’ (1978) and ‘I Am What I Am’ (1984), 59 yet none considered the seven demands as the framework that motivated them.

Whilst praising their achievements, Janet Batsleer felt that their legacy was hampered by a lack of theory.60 Mapping the women youth workers’ actions against the seven demands in the following paragraphs demonstrates that they understood the scope of the women’s liberation movement but saw themselves as ‘just feminists’ without allying with a particular strand.

59 ‘But now I hold my head up high / And you see me, somebody new….I will survive.’ http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-will-survive-lyrics-gloria-gaynor.html ‘I am what I am/ and what I am needs no excuses.’ http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-am-what-i-am-lyrics-gloria-gaynor.html accessed 12 April 2016. 60 Conversation with Janet Batsleer, 9 February 2016.

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THE SEVEN DEMANDS IN PRACTICE

1 Equal pay now

There were anomalies in the youth service pay scale, with some posts occupied by women being paid less than their male counterparts. The HMI inspectors saw ‘no obvious rationale’ for the pay difference, and the CYWU representatives (male and female) succeeded in ironing out the differences.61

2 Equal education and job opportunities

For girls who had left school with few prospects, equality involved escaping from narrowly gender-defined expectations. Young women were encouraged to pursue education rather than settle solely for unemployed motherhood. The leftist sentiment of ‘knowledge is power’, adopted by the trade union movement and popular in the 1970s underpinned their conviction that education improves lives, which the full-time workers themselves had discovered as the first generation in their families to undertake higher education.

Education meant skills for life rather than ‘O’ Level certificates and was a far cry from most feminists’ equal job opportunities struggle. The opportunities created on estates overcame barriers to learning and prompted a thirst for more. Sometimes there was a qualification for young women such as Tracy Whittle, who hoped to start a playgroup and gained a certificate on setting up a co-operative.62 More informal learning experiences using crafts, discussions, role plays, sports, residential trips, cooking, theatre outings and creative writing aimed to unleash young women’s power to take control of their lives.

3 Free contraception and abortion on demand

The workers’ main thrust was sex and relationship education, to help young women learn about female anatomy, safe sex, contraception and consent. Practical sessions produced revelations about what women had ‘down there’, and taught them how to use condoms,

61 HMI (1), p.17. WLSC. 62 Tramlines Report, 1990, FW.

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Beyond the Boundaries supplied for free.63 These were often new issues for the workers as well. Marie Brookfield studied Our Bodies, Ourselves64 so she could run a women and health course: ‘I was learning as much as them’.65

The youth workers advocated ‘a woman’s right to choose’ and openly supported the National

Abortion Campaign’s marches against proposals to restrict the 1967 Abortion Act. They also had to face ethical issues, for example, whether to provide condoms for a 13-year old girl who requested them.

4 Free 24-hour nurseries

Motherhood dominated much of Wigan’s work with young women. The demand for 24-hour childcare assumes the freedom to work full-time, yet for Wigan’s young mothers, accessing crèche facilities for even an hour or two gave them the space to concentrate on themselves, and was as much about self-esteem as earning power. It was a new experience. Diane

Warburton, a young mother attending a Women’s Studies course on Platt Bridge estate, gained confidence to apply for other courses after experiencing child care provision, saying

‘if we’d had to take the children into the room with us, it would have been a waste of time, we couldn’t have learned much.’66 The main purpose was not the right to work but the right to build self-esteem and new opportunities. Crèche provision was a constant priority for the workers, distinguishing their work from young men’s programmes. Positive parenting was also frequently discussed.

5 Financial and legal independence

Many young women lived with their boyfriends. The workers viewed financial independence as crucial for making independent life choices, so they helped young women to maximise their income through benefit entitlements, and also to manage their bills, deal with debt and

63 Interview with Julie Hart, 4 April 2016. 64 Jill Rakusen & Angela Phillips, Our Bodies, Ourselves, British edition, (Penguin: London, 1978). 65 Interview with Marie Brookfield, 7 April 2016. 66 Diane wrote about her experience in Report of the Work with Girls and Young Women (including Young Mothers) in Platt Bridge, September 1989, FW.

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Beyond the Boundaries join a credit union rather than handing their child benefit book to a moneylender as collateral for cash. Becoming financially independent assisted a number of women in violent relationships to value themselves and change the dynamics with an abusive partner.

6 An end to all discrimination against lesbians and a woman’s right to define her own sexuality

Several workers - part-time and full-time - discovered their own lesbian sexuality while working at Wigan. A young lesbians’ group existed, but most young women were reluctant to discuss sexuality except during Women and Health sessions. Lesbian sexuality was ‘the elephant in the room’ according to Steph Green: always present but rarely discussed.67 The range of interpretations along the separatism continuum, from hard-line separatists to a softer position advocating ‘separate space’ alongside co-operation with men, led to conflicts within the group as well as with male colleagues. The women’s interpretation of freedom from discrimination looked to outsiders like a closed shop. One job vacancy was referred to by the male workers as ‘“There’s no point applying because it will go to a lesbian.”’68

7 Freedom from intimidation by threat or use of violence or sexual coercion, regardless of marital status and an end to all laws, assumptions and institutions which perpetuate male dominance and men’s aggression towards women

Violence against women was a live issue in Wigan and also a cornerstone of radical feminism. At the time, revolutionary feminism’s position propounded ‘all men are rapists’ and advocated ‘political lesbianism’.69 The women workers were divided about considering men as ‘the enemy’.

Domestic violence was a lurking undercurrent. The women workers encouraged young women to be assertive, and report violent incidents if they could. Sue Cockerill and Tim

Warren worked jointly but separately with a young couple on domestic violence, an approach

67 Interview with Steph Green, 25 January 2016. 68 Referring to a HIV/Aids project worker vacancy in 1991. Interview with Paula Jenkinson, 2 April 2016. 69 i.e. a true feminist would reject men and develop sexual relationships with women out of political conviction, advocated by Adrienne Rich in ‘Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence’, in Blood, Bread and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985 (London: Virago 1987), pp. 23-75.

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Beyond the Boundaries not used anywhere else, according to Steph Green.70 Discussions about violence to children convinced at least one young woman at a Parentlink course that she could stop the spiral of violence in the home: ‘I don’t think of myself as dominating [my daughter] anymore’.71

The young women and workers experienced intimidation in their group activities. Some girls’ nights had to be abandoned due to harassment and threat of violence from boys and young men; even after they barricaded themselves into the centre, boys hammered on doors and stomped on the roof.72 Separately, during a residential, a menacing group of older men in a car who followed a group of teenage girls to Bettws Cottage caused consternation and fear.73

AN OVERARCHING PRINCIPLE

All the work with young women related to the seven demands: challenging young women through holding discussions about racism, canoeing trips, encouragement to stand up to their partner, or opening up about sensitive issues and considering different ways of handling their children.

Above all the demands was the principle of separate space for young women. Paula

Jenkinson described how both workers and young women jointly thrived in their ‘separate

[women-only] space’, learning to ‘believe in themselves’.74 Julie Hart recalls that ‘nobody disagreed with the rule that men were not allowed’ at Laurel St young women’s centre,75 although Tim Warren and colleagues ‘went through hell’ to get a girls’ night established.76

Separate space was also for themselves: a Women Workers’ Group, specialist girls’ work

70 Interview with Steph Green, 25 January 2016. 71 Platt Bridge Report, 1990, FW. 72 Karen Piggott and Sue Fletcher Issues Facing Girls’ nights, particularly male violence, staffing and resources (1992), FW. 73Interview with Paula Jenkinson, 2 April 2016. 74 Interview with Paula Jenkinson, 2 April 2016. 75 Conversation with Julie Hart, 3 December 2015. 76 Conversations with Julie Hart (3 December 2015) and Tim Warren 14 December 2015. Tramlines Youth Centre was one of several that resisted the women’s initiative, with the management committee voting in 1984 against holding a girls’ night.

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Beyond the Boundaries jobs, and women-only sessions at training events. According to Janet Batsleer they pioneered women-only residentials, which were a fundamental part of their programme.77 A blend of radical feminism flavoured with socialist awareness had been created by ‘just feminists’.

DISSENSION

Whilst dissension was inevitable within such a large group – and divided loyalties became a destabilising factor as time went on – the unity of their focus was a formidable force for all who were outside the tight-knit group of women. To challenge one was to risk the wrath of the whole. Tim Warren remembers that to the male youth workers, the women were a

‘political pack’.78

However, whilst the concept of leadership was anathema to many in the women’s liberation movement, some individuals nevertheless acted as de facto leaders.79 Sue Cockerill regarded Julie Hart’s role as very significant in the Wigan story, and Steph Green thought she was ‘always more powerful than she realised’. She was the ‘life blood’ and ‘pushed the boundaries’, a view reflected by other interviewees.80 A small group of other influential women workers were perceived as ‘scary’ by some part-timers.81 Their influence was not always positive, but their position was never discussed; despite vehement egalitarian principles, there was no democratic process by which they could be challenged or removed.

Jo Freeman outlined the dangers of elitism in ‘The Tyranny of Structurelessness’, but the issue was not resolved in Wigan.82 Nonetheless, somehow these shifting dynamics did not dim the women’s passion for making a difference in young women’s lives.

77 Conversation with Janet Batsleer, 9 February 2016. 78 Conversation with Tim Warren (above). 79 Julie Hart, Yvonne Edge, Karen Piggott and Julia Keenan were managers of young women’s work at various times in the 1980s. 80 Interview with Steph Green, 25 January 2016. 81 Interview with Paula Jenkinson, 2 April 2016. 82 Jo Freeman The Tyranny of Structurelessness, (1970 - USA), Organisation of Revolutionary Anarchists (1972 – UK)

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Chapter 6: Conclusion

This study, supported by individual voices and documentary evidence, increases the body of historical knowledge on the second wave of feminism in the United Kingdom. It extends the literature about the feminist movement of the twentieth century beyond the boundary of campaigns and consciousness raising to illustrate how, through practical activities with young women who were unlikely to engage with feminism in any other way, feminism was lived rather than talked about or theorised. Using the spotlight of a case study it documents how the impact of the women’s liberation movement was enlarged, supplementing established works on the topic.

In common with the rest of the UK, a twenty-first century girl’s life and prospects in Wigan are radically different from 50 years ago, with less gender division at school, a narrower equal pay gap and more women working full-time outside the home. Teenage girls are less subservient to boys and more intolerant of sexual harassment. Domestic violence is recognised by the police, ‘well women’ is a mainstream concept, and young mothers enjoy greater autonomy than their twentieth century counterparts, notwithstanding the fact that poverty still defines their life opportunities. Social attitudes have moved on despite a new phase of intolerance of ‘difference’; the stigma on single parenting has diminished, and acceptance of gay marriage has improved the lot of lesbians.

Due to the devastating impact of industrial decline on local communities, feminism in a northern town was seasoned with socialist realism. The version that was played out in

Wigan was inspirational to those who understood life on a council housing estate. The borough is not known for being a feminist vanguard, yet the women workers (some in association with male colleagues) assisted a number of young women towards a more equal

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Beyond the Boundaries adulthood; at least some have achieved personal success in the community, in professions or in family life.83

In the twenty-first century it is easy to overlook swathes of feminist influence because they were very local and personal. In Wigan, the women youth workers’ lack of conscious strategy confirmed that their efforts were primarily a gut reaction to the injustices young women (including themselves) had experienced growing up female in the 1960s and ‘70s.

They took things into their own hands because, through their feminist awareness, they knew they could: they had crossed the bridge from subservience to power and decided to take young women with them.

It is also easy to dismiss the passion and heartache involved in creating changes that are taken for granted today. A strong strand of personal development was woven inextricably throughout their work. Analysis did happen: frequent, long and sometimes heated political discussions teased out the impact on women of different courses of action. But the main driver was powerful emotion arising from the consciousness raising process. This reliance on feelings reflected the fluid dynamics of parts of the Women’s Liberation Movement, and could partly explain its lack of resilience to opposition.

A disdain for local authority power structures meant that the women looked inward and outward but not upward towards management and the profession nationally. Their national impact was ultimately narrow, based on the advocacy of female figures in the profession to create a reputation that was the envy of youth workers in other boroughs. However this reputation was not backed up by substantial authoritative sources, and remained mainly within women’s networks.

The successful model created by the Wigan women youth workers owed much to the borough’s neighbourhood services policy. This response to mounting poverty in Wigan provided fertile ground for the seeds of feminism to flourish. However, as few councils

83 Two of the interviewees were in touch with a handful of ex-young women

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Beyond the Boundaries adopted this policy, the opportunities for wider dissemination of the Wigan model of youth work were limited.

After a decade of growth, cuts to local government services decimated the work with girls and young women. For the workers themselves, many were burnt out after years of challenging traditionalism youth work, physical harassment at girls’ nights, job insecurity, over-commitment and internal strife. Notwithstanding their lasting reputation in the profession they were ultimately unrealistic about what was required to solidify, and therefore protect, their position within the council structure. The 1980s work with girls did, however, lay down a bedrock of practice which is acknowledged by youth work scholars to have filtered into mainstream youth work practice and training.

Having investigated what, how, and why it happened, my central theme remains: that in one small corner of England, the principles of feminism were acted out in a town stuffed with traditional values amongst some of the least educated, most disadvantaged and disempowered people. The power of the movement had been wrested from the hands of intellectuals and transformed into practical action at local level by women who were determined to make change possible for other women. It is a story that deserves to be told.

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APPENDIX ONE Interviewees and interview questions Twelve people were live subjects for the research. I conducted initial conversations, one group conversation, and followed up with six recorded interviews.

Name Full time/ Role 1980-94 Conversation Interview part-time date date

Julia Keenan Full-time Youth Worker 05/11/2015 & 06/02/2016*

Sue Cockerill Full-time Youth worker 15/11/2015

Julie Hart Full-time Youth Worker 03/12/2015 04/04 2016 /manager

Janet n/a HMI Inspector 07/12/2015 Paraskeva

Tim Warren Full-time Youth Worker 14/12/2015

Poddy Peerman Full-time Youth Worker 21/01/2016

Steph Green Full-time Youth Worker 25/01/2016

Briege Full-time Youth Worker 06/02/2016* Brannigan

Marie Brookfield Part-time + Youth Worker 06/02/2016* 07/04/2016 full-time

Jan Alford Full-time Youth Worker 06/02/2016* 24/05/2016

Janet Batsleer n/a Polytechnic 09/02/2016 lecturer

Paula Jenkinson Part-time Youth Worker 02/04/2016

*Group session

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INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What was your role? When? 2. What motivated you? 3. What was your background and training? 4. How did you go about informal education with young women? 5. Why was it important to you (underlying motives)? 6. What did you think of feminism? (Can you name the 6 (7) demands?) 7. Why did the women workers’ group become a distinct entity? 8. What was the women workers’ impact beyond Wigan? 9. With hindsight, what was the impact of the Wigan women youth workers?

OPTIONAL QUESTIONS 10. Do you know what happened in later decades in any of the young women’s lives? 11. How did you behave differently from a typical local government officer of the time? 12. What risks did you take? 13. What did you think about separatism (men = the enemy)? 14. What was your attitude to children/ marriage / family? 15. What campaigns were you involved in – abortion, Women’s Aid/reclaim the night/ Section 28/ women’s health? 16. What did you look like? Photos? Badges?

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APPENDIX 2: Wigan women youth workers 1979 - 94 and other relevant people Others NAME 1 NAME 2 DATE FINISH PLACE ROLE 1 f/t ROLE ROLE 3 Charles Hopkinson DATE p/t 2 Director of Education Adele Tulloch Tramlines Youth Worker FT Chris Simms f/t young mens worker, Worsley Mesnes 1990 Andrea Cllr J.M. Fitzpatrick Moved for equal representation on YAC Dec 1985 Angela Bennison Comet Youth Youth Worker Debbie Edwards Club Young woman, Worsley Mesnes YWC Ann Rose 1985 1986 Boroughwide Young women's FT Debbie Seconded worker Stefanowicz from Poly Young woman, Tramlines

Anne Thomas 1990 1994 Boroughwide Young women's FT Diane Warburton worker Young woman, Platt Bridge Belinda Evans 1986 Tramlines Young Women's FT Glynis Francis Worker Exernal supervision for Yvonne Edge, 1989 Briege Brannigan Laurel St Girls & YW worker FT Janet Batsleer Lecturer, Manchester Polytechnic (now Manchester Metropolitan University) Carol Woods 1972? Comet Youth Youth Worker PT Laure Janet Paraskeva, previously Hunt Club l St Dept for Education and Science: HMI Inspector Carol Marsden Laurel St Youth Worker PT Kevin Hampson Director of Education. Wigan MBC Carol Collar 1994 Young women's Mr J. Higgins worker Youth Organiser 1970-74, Chief Youth Officer 1974-86 Carole Love Mrs E. Smith Owner of Bettws Cottage, made available Aug 1985 Cath Prior Roy Pass Social Worker Cathy Stirling 1989 Tramlines Youth Worker PT S. Gough Young woman, Worsley Mesnes YWC Chris Wood PT Tim Warren Youth Worker Beyond the Boundaries

Christine Burrows Tramlines Young Women's FT Centr Tony Taylor Worker e Training Officer, Chief Youth Officer Mana ger, Traml ines Chrys Ritson Tracy Whittle Young woman, Tramlines, planned to start a playgroup Deb M Wendy Rogers Young woman, Worsley Mesnes YWC Diane W Donna Dot Russell 1982 seconded Borough-wide Support for Women FT Youth Workers' Group Elaine Cross 1983? seconded FT Hilary Wood Jan Alford 1989 1993 Laurel St Girls & YW worker FT Neigh bourh ood Work er, Leigh 1994- 2001 Jane Chadbond 1986 Tramlines Youth Worker PT Janet Preece Worsley Youth Worker FT Mesnes YWC Joan Joanna Melling Laurel St PT Julia Keenan 1985 Platt Bridge Girls worker, FT Youn Tramlines g Wom en's

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Work er, Hag Fold YWC Julie Hart 1979 1994 Platt Bridge Detached YW FT Girls Adviser, Girls & and Young Youn Women g Wom en Work er, Laure l St Julie Fuller 1986 Outreach worker, FT girls & yw Julie Keegan Tramlines Team Co-ordinator PT Julie Hilling 1994 FT CYW Bolton West U MP 2010-15 presi dent 1991- 99 Karen May Hag Fold YWC Youth Worker PT/ Worsley Mesnes YWC FT Karen Piggott 1984 Girls & YW worker, FT Laurel St Kathryn Kim PT Linda Froud Liz Kilpatrick Laurel St Youth Worker PT Lucille 1988 Boroughwide Young women's worker Lynda Cox 1990 Worsley Youth Worker PT

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Mesnes YWC Marie Brookfield 1972 2015 Comet Youth P/T youth worker PT/ YW Outreach worker, Platt Bridge 1986-93 Club FT Marilyn Riding 1979? FT Mary Atkinson 1989 1992? Tramlines Girls & YW worker FT Mary Appleton Mauree Edwards 1987 Tramlines Youth Worker PT n Mel Cronin PT/ FT Merri Moira Hill 1984 ?seconded Briarcroft Training Officer FT Nikki Dearn 1989 Shakerley Young Women's FT YWC Worker Pam Corcoran Pat Kavanagh Comet Youth Youth Worker PT Club Pat Roberts Paula Jenkinson 1986 1992 Briarcroft Youth Worker PT Poddy Peerman 1988 1993 Hag Fold YWC Young Women's FT Young Women's Worker, Worsley Mesnes YWC Worker

Sandra Boydell FT Sheila Cheetham Worsley Mesnes YWC PT Steph Green 1989 1994 Woodford St Youth Worker FT Youth Officer 1995-2002

Sue Lewis Tramlines Outreach worker for FT young men Sue Fletcher 1990 Boroughwide Young women's worker

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Sue Cockerill 1986 1991 Platt Bridge Outreach worker, FT YW worker, Worsley Mesnes YWC girls/young women Sue ? PT Tonia Trish Lyons 1986 Tramlines Youth Worker PT Yvonne Edge 1983 Laurel St Girls & Young FT Adviser, Girls and Young Women Women Worker

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APPENDIX 3: WIGAN METROPOLITAN BOROUGH COUNCIL YOUTH SERVICE STRUCTURE 1974 – 90 1974 Director of Education

1 x Youth Organiser Admin support

1975 Director of Education

1 x Youth Officer Admin support

3 x Boroughwide Youth Advisers

3 x Area Youth Advisers 6 x Youth Leaders Training Officer (added 1979)

Part-time youth workers Support staff (cleaners and caretakers

1986 Director of Education

Chief Youth and Community Education Officer Admin support

4 x Boroughwide Youth Advisers + 1 Training & Development Officer

10 x centre-based 2 x outdoor 2 x development/ 2 x detached 2 x girls’ workers** 2 x crèche wkrs youth workers* activity project workers youth workers

Part-time youth workers*** Support staff (cleaners and caretakers)

1993 Interim Director of Education

Chief Youth and Community Education Officer Admin support

2 x Area Youth Advisers

2 x Area Youth Workers 2 x Area Youth Workers 2 x Boroughwide Resource Workers 1 x Outdoor Ed + 1 x Duke of Ed/ (young women) (mixed/young men) (young women + mixed/young men) Voluntary Sector Workers

Part-time youth workers – 22 Centres including 4 young women’s centres *including 2 girls and young women workers (lower paid) **1 Boroughwide, 1 centre-based *** The DES HMI report (1) in 1986 identified 112 part time workers (21 fte) Sources: Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council Education Committee, Establishment list 1986, Tim Warren Beyond the Boundaries

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Periodicals Spare Rib British Library digitised collection. http://www.bl.uk/spare-rib 1975-93 National Association of Youth Clubs Working with Girls Newsletter 1981-86 National Youth Bureau Youth Service Vol 14 Issue no. 6 (January 1975) Theses Power, Anne. The Development of Unpopular Council Housing Estates and Attempted Remedies 1895 – 1984. PhD Thesis, London School of Economics, 1985. Accessed 31 March 2016. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/49/1/Power_The_development_of_unpopular_council_housing_estat es_and_attempted_remedies_1895_1984.pdf Warren, Tim. The Formative Years of Wigan Youth Service from Albemarle to the Present Day. M.Ed. Thesis, Manchester University, 1988 Unpublished.

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