Women’s liberation was a movement, not an organisation

Abstract

This article argues that understanding any relationship between the Women’s Liberation Movement and the state depends upon a recognition of the variety and change through time encompassed by each. It considers, first, some of the key concerns of the Women’s Liberation Movement in the years of its initial eruption, then three instances when individual participants in the Women’s Liberation Movement engaged with government, and concludes, finally, that the driving force in each instance was ultimately the utopian dream of a level of transformation unimaginable in conjunction with any government that we know.