The Women’s Liberation Movement and the Gendering of Undercover Police Surveillance in 1970s Britain: the Public Inquiry as (Un)Ethical archive

Abstract In the 1970s a female police officer went undercover in the feminist movement in Britain. Across two years, she shared plans, conversations, and ephemera with Special Branch, while uncovering nothing that threatened state security. Yet her time in the movement is important to historians; she inadvertently created a rich archive of the feminist movement. For feminist historians, though, the use of this archive, made available by the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI, 2015–ongoing), raises issues around consent. This article considers these issues and uses the material exposed by the UCPI to explore the Women’s Liberation Movement’s perceived threat to social order.