Identifying and labelling women’s grassroots activism in modern Britain

A rich body of scholarship has examined the complex terrain associated with labelling women’s activity in the past as ‘feminist’. In contrast, the label ‘activist’ has yet to be interrogated by historians in a similarly robust way. This article explores the complex, ambiguous, and often contradictory relationship that many women had with the label ‘activist’. It seeks to understand why the label has in many times and places been resisted by women—particularly small ‘c’ conservative women, older women, or religious women whose political work has often been obscured by a historiographical focus on ‘loud’ activism emerging from the women’s suffrage movement and the Women’s Liberation Movement. It suggests that whilst the concept of activism can be understood broadly as being active, a distinction must be drawn between doing activism and being an activist. The article thereby considers the varied meanings women have invested in the term ‘activist’ and argues that historians must be attentive to the alternative vernaculars used by women to identify and describe their activism.