The self and self-help: women pursuing autonomy in post-war Britain

Abrams, L. (2019) The self and self-help: women pursuing autonomy in post-war Britain. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 29, pp. 201-221. (doi: 10.1017/S0080440119000094)

Abstract

In the history of post-war womanhood in Britain, women's self-help organisations are credited with little significance save for ‘helping mothers to do their work more happily’. This paper suggests that the do-it-yourself impetus of the 1960s and 1970s should be regarded as integral to understanding how millions of women negotiated a route towards personal growth and autonomy. Organisations like the National Housewives’ Register, the National Childbirth Trust and the Pre-School Playgroups Association emerged from the grass roots in response to the conundrum faced by women who experienced dissatisfaction and frustration in their domestic role. I argue that these organisations offered thousands of women the opportunity for self-development, self-confidence and independence and that far from being insufficiently critical of dominant models of care, women's self-help operating at the level of the everyday was to be one of the foundations of what would become, by the 1970s, the widespread feminist transformation of women's lives.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Abrams, Professor Lynn
• Authors: Abrams, L.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities > History
• Journal Name: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• ISSN: 0080-4401
• ISSN (Online): 1474-0648
• Published Online: 01 November 2019
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2019 Royal Historical Society
• First Published: First published in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 29:201-221
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy