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what became of ‘frontline feminism’? a retro-perspective on post-conflict Belfast

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Feminist Review

Abstract

A feminist stock-taking on ‘post-conflict’, this paper revisits a study made by the author in 1996–1997, when the women’s community sector was a lively actor in the processes leading to the Good Friday Peace Agreement of 1998. Refusing to observe sectarian conflict lines, women’s centres were re-writing official ‘community development’ policy as community empowerment and political challenge. The author draws on new interviews conducted in 2012 with feminist community activists of that earlier period of ‘frontline feminism’, associated with the Belfast Women’s Support Network. The women reveal how continuing poverty, discrimination, violence and unhealed trauma still characterise working-class life in the post-conflict period, and impede the integration of Protestant and Catholic communities. Official provisions for gender equality have been interpreted in gender-neutral ways, and in some cases turned against women. The demilitarisation of masculinity has been painfully slow. The women’s community sector has experienced a loss of political drive as women’s centres have become service providers, dependent on state funding. Feminism is renewing itself, but in fresh forms with different priorities. Will it recover a voice that ‘speaks truth to power’?

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Notes

  1. The other subjects of my earlier study were the Medica Women’s Therapy Centre in Zenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Bat Shalom in northern Israel-Palestine. See Cockburn (1998), and Cockburn (2013a).

  2. I have written at greater length elsewhere about the methodological choices involved in the ‘revisiting’ project. See Cockburn (forthcoming).

  3. I have written elsewhere about the betrayal of the ‘equalities and inclusion’ clauses in the GFA by subsequent administrations. See Cockburn (2013b).

  4. Fergus, L. (2012) ‘More Northern Ireland teenagers crossing religious divide to make friends’ Belfast Telegraph, Wednesday 16 May, http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/more-northern-ireland-teenagers-crossing-religious-divide-to-make-friends-28749754.html, last accessed 30 July 2013.

  5. O’Hagan, S. (2012) ‘Belfast, divided in the name of peace’ The Observer, 22 January, http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jan/22/peace-waIIs-troubles-belfast-feature?INTCMP=SRCH, last accessed 30 July 2013.

  6. Canning, M. (2012) ‘Services worst hit as slump enters its 50th month’ Belfast Telegraph online, 13 February, http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/business-news/services-worst-hit-as-slump-enters-its-50th-month-28714165.html, last accessed 30 July 2013.

  7. Unison (2012) ‘Women and spending cuts’ Fact Sheet 21, https://www.unison.org.uk/upload/sharepoint/On%20Iine%20Catalogue/19576.pdf, last accessed 30 July 2013.

  8. NISRA: Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (2005) ‘Northern Ireland multiple deprivation measure 2005’, http://www.ninis2.nisra.gov.uk/public/pivotgrid.aspx?dataSetVars=ds-1167-Ih-38-yn-2005-sk-137-sn-Deprivation-yearfilter, last accessed 30 July 2013. Cited by Wilson, 2007: 157.

  9. BBC (2011) ‘Post traumatic stress disorder highest in Northern Ireland’ BBC News Online, 5 December, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-16028713, last accessed 30 July 2013.

  10. OFMDFM: Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (2011) ‘Gender equality strategy statistics: 2011 update’, http://www.ofmdfmni.gov.uk/gender_eguality_strategy_statistics__2011_update-2.pdf, last accessed 30 July 2013.

  11. See websites http://belfastfeministnetwork.wordpress.com and http://thegfr.wordpress.com/, last accessed 30 July 2013.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to express my warmest gratitude to the following women who afforded me their valuable time in in-depth interviews during February 2012, and also for the wealth of knowledge and experience they have all shared with me in the more distant past: Edel Quinn, Eleanor Jordan, Gillian Gibson, Inez McCormack, Joanna McMinn, Joanne Vance, Joy Poots, Margaret Ward, Marie Mulholland, May McCann, Patricia McKeown and Úna ní Mhearaín. My thanks also to Carmel Roulston and Shirley Simpson for informative conversations during my recent visit to Belfast, and to the WRDA for generously making available to me their space and resources. I am indebted to the following organisations for their generous funding support of the project reported in this paper: the Network for Social Change, the Feminist Review Trust, the Irene Bruegel Trust Fund, the Lansbury House Trust Fund, the Scurrah-Wainwright Charity and the Maypole Fund.

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Cockburn, C. what became of ‘frontline feminism’? a retro-perspective on post-conflict Belfast. Fem Rev 105, 103–121 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.2013.20

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