Sheila Rowbotham

Sheila Rowbotham (born in 1943 in Leeds, West Yorkshire) is an British socialist feminist theorist and writer.

Rowbotham attended St Hilda’s College at Oxford and then the University of London. She began her working life as a teacher in comprehensive schools and institutes of higher or Adult education.

Her political activism began with her involvement in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the British Labour Party’s youth wing, the Young Socialists. Disenchanted with the direction of party politics she immersed herself in a variety of left-wing campaigns, including writing for the radical political newspaper ‘Black Dwarf’.

Towards the end of the 1960s she had become involved in the growing Women’s Liberation Movement (also known as Second-wave feminism) and, in 1969, published her influential pamphlet ‘Women’s Liberation and the New Politics' which argued that Socialist theory needed to consider the oppression of women in cultural as well as economic terms.

Since then, Rowbotham has produced numerous books and articles expanding upon her theory, which argues that as women’s oppression is a result of both economic and cultural forces then a dualist perspective (socialist feminism), which examines both the public and private sphere, is required to work towards liberation.

In 2004, Rowbotham was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She is currently Professor of Gender and Labour History, Sociology at the University of Manchester, England.

Bibliography

• "Women’s Liberation and the New Politics" (1969)
• "Woman, Resistance and Revolution" (1973)
• "Woman's Consciousness, Man's World" (1973)
• "Hidden from History: 300 years of Women's Oppression and the Fight against it" (1973)
• "Promise of a Dream: Remembering the Sixties" (2000)

See also: socialist feminism

References

• Shiela Rowbotham and the 1960s by Phil Shannon, Green Left Weekly, Issue 428, 2000.
• Administrative/Biographical History – Women's Library Archive entry
• Staff Profile – University of Manchester