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Women’s liberation bursts back onto the scene
Almost 1,000 women packed out University College London at the weekend to discuss their sex-based rights as part of a rejuvenated and growing movement. LYNNE WALSH reports
Researcher Maya Forstater on stage at the event, Pragna Patel of Southall Black Sisters (top left) and Joanna Cherry QC MP (bottom left) [Mina Boromand]

IT’S been a long time since this country has really witnessed the phenomenon known as the Women’s Liberation Movement.

Glance at a timeline helpfully provided by the British Library, and you’ll see the launch of the contraceptive pill in 1961, real liberation made possible by the hard slog of campaigners, as was the Abortion Act of 1967. A year later, the Ford factory workers at Dagenham won equal pay. 

Those burning issues, plus demands for equal job opportunities and free 24-hour nurseries, formed the agenda for the first meeting of the WLM in 1970, at Ruskin College, Oxford. More than 600 women attended: a few men ran the creche.

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