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‘Women remain the exploited, oppressed as workers and oppressed as women’
50 years ago SHEILA ROWBOTHAM wrote a landmark article about the real problems women had in society and in socialist parties. Bernadette Hyland talks to her about the continuing struggle for working-class women’s liberation
Sheila Rowbotham, pictured in 1969

ON January 10 1969 in an article called “Women: The struggle for freedom,” published in the Marxist magazine Black Dwarf, socialist feminist Sheila Rowbotham poured out her anger and resentment about the inequality and injustice of women’s lives: “A much less tangible something — a smouldering, bewildered consciousness with no shape — a muttered dissatisfaction — which suddenly shoots to the surface and EXPLODES.” 

Rowbotham lived in a communal house in London, worked part-time teaching at a local FE college, and was involved with socialist politics.  

But she saw her male comrades as part of the problem. 

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