FOREWORD

Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a
common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social rights
for women.
This includes seeking to establish educational and professional opportunities for women
that are equal to such opportunities for men.
Feminist movements have campaigned and continue to campaign for women's rights,
including the right to vote, to hold public office, to work, to earn fair wages or equal pay, to own
property, to receive education, to enter contracts, to have equal rights within marriage, and to
have maternity leave.
Feminists have also worked to promote bodily autonomy and integrity, and to protect
women and girls from rape, sexual harassment, and domestic violence.
The following paper is structured in three chapters each of them being designed so as to
bring into light various aspects of the feminist movement and the most important women figures
in the UK history.
In the first chapter, I defined the word feminism and I tried to show the roots of
feminism and its history.
The second chapter is entitled Famous English Women is about the most famous
women in England who made history during the years and so they became immortal.
The last chapter is my favourite. There we can find out about the strange facts and
behaviours English women have.

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 CHAPTER I
THE HISTORY OF WOMENS MOVEMENT
Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a
common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social rights
for women. This includes seeking to establish educational and professional opportunities for
women that are equal to such opportunities for men.
Feminist movements have campaigned and continue to campaign for women's rights,
including the right to vote, to hold public office, to work, to earn fair wages or equal pay, to own
property, to receive education, to enter contracts, to have equal rights within marriage, and to
have maternity leave. Feminists have also worked to promote bodily autonomy and integrity, and
to protect women and girls from rape, sexual harassment, and domestic violence.
The writing of women's history has always been closely linked with contemporary
feminist politics as well as with changes in the discipline of history itself.. If a woman's role
could be shown to be socially constructed within a specific historical context, rather than natural
and universal, then feminists could argue that it was open to change.

Activists within the first organised women's movement of the late 19th and early 20th
centuries found that women were largely absent from standard history texts and this inspired
them to write their own histories.
Feminists made a distinctive contribution to these developments by highlighting women's
specific experiences in institutions such as the family, drawing attention to the significance of
sexual divisions in the workplace and in the home and exploring the interconnections between
public and private life.
By looking at history through women's eyes they questioned familiar chronologies and
notions of time and argued that family concerns, emotional support and personal relationships
were just as important as waged work and politics. In doing so they went beyond putting women
back into a familiar framework and began to reconfigure the way in which history in the broadest
sense was written.

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 Women's history and feminist history are often used interchangeably but this serves to
play down the specific approach of feminist historians. Feminists argue that the power
relationship between men and women is just as important as that between social classes in
understanding social change, and that a recognition of conflicts between men and women leads
to a re-interpretation of standard accounts of social movements and ideas, as well as opening up
new areas of enquiry.
The writing of women's history flourished in the 1970s and 80s, in particular in the
United States and Britain, although there were differences of emphasis and approach that
mirrored divisions within the contemporary women's movement, in particular between radical
and socialist feminists. In the United States research concentrated on a separate women's culture,
the growth of all-female institutions, the family and sexuality.
In Britain, where labour history was much stronger and many feminists had come out of
a socialist politics, the emphasis was on waged work, trade union organisation and labour
politics.
In trying to make sense of women's specific experiences socialist historians explored the
complex relationship between Marxism and feminism and introduced the concept of patriarchy
to help make sense of the fact that 'women have not only worked for capital, they have worked
for men'. The boundaries between the different approaches did, however, become more fluid
over time for example Sally Alexander's study of working-class movements in the early 19th
century examined how the unconscious entered politics and how the understanding of self and
sexual identity would change our understanding of class.
Postmodernism has also influenced the theory and practice of gender and women's
history. The emphasis on language and discourse has challenged old feminist certainties about
lived experience, the nature of women's subordination and the use of the category woman.

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 Women's history is now far more embedded in the curriculum in higher education than
half a century ago, the number of professors in women's history has increased and there are far
more publishing outlets.
On the other hand women's studies courses both at undergraduate and at postgraduate
level have declined over the same period and many mainstream history texts still give little space
to women and their specific experiences. In this context it remains important to promote research
into women's history both inside the academy and in the wider community. The close
relationship between contemporary feminist politics and historical practice means that women's
history is still able to excite enthusiasm and is constantly changing, developing new areas to
research and new concepts and approaches with which to analyse them.

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 CHAPTER II
FAMOUS ENGLISH WOMEN
There are a lot of famous English women throughout the history. We find details about women
in all domains such as politics, entertainment, arts, literature, media or publishing.
Prim, reserved and pretty, British women have since long been envied by their
counterparts in other countries for their natural grace and beauty. British women are naturally
blessed with a quiet dignity and seriousness about them that adds to their charm. The British
society was primarily patriarchic up until a few centuries ago and for a long time the men has
tried to control the womenfolk and attempted to thwart their efforts to rise above their situation.
But the gutsy British woman is not someone who would give up her freedom so easily!
Boudicca, a warrior queen of the ancient Iceni tribe led a war against the Romans who had dared
to violate her family proving how fierce British women can become when the need arises.
Coming to more recent times, the feisty Margaret Thatcher upholds the same ideals her fiery
ancient counterpart stood for.
Women's roles
The 1960s saw dramatic shifts in attitudes and values led by youth. It was a worldwide
phenomenon, in which British rock musicians especially The Beatles played an international
role. The generations divided sharply regarding the new sexual freedom demanded by youth who
listened to bands like The Rolling Stones.
Sexual morals changed. One notable event was the publication of D. H. Lawrence's Lady
Chatterley's Lover by Penguin Books in 1960. Although first printed in 1928, the release in 1960
of an inexpensive mass-market paperback version prompted a court case. The prosecuting
council's question, "Would you want your wife or servants to read this book?" highlighted how
far society had changed, and how little some people had noticed. The book was seen as one of
the first events in a general relaxation of sexual attitudes. Other elements of the sexual revolution
included the development of The Pill, Mary Quant's miniskirt and the 1967 legalisation of
homosexuality. There was a rise in the incidence of divorce and abortion, and a resurgence of the
women's liberation movement, whose campaigning helped secure the Equal Pay Act and the Sex
Discrimination Act in 1975.

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 The Irish Catholics, traditionally the most puritanical of the ethno-religious groups, eased
up a little, especially as the membership disregarded the bishops teaching that contraception was
sinful.
In an age of celebrities and womens rights, it is easy to imagine that women have only
made an impact on British history in recent years. Its true that less than 40 years ago Margaret
Thatcher became Britains first female prime minister, but women have been making their mark
in politics, literature, medicine for millennia. Whats more, whether queens or commoners,
theyve achieved their fame without ruling from behind their men-folk. Some, like Nell Gwyn,
have latterly come to epitomise the spirit of their age. Others became national treasures in their
own lifetime, including Florence Nightingale, the Lady with the Lamp, who died more than a
century ago. As the founder of modern nursing she is sometimes named our national heroine,
though many others might have claimed that title in the past 2,000 years.
There were many women that can be names as heroines but among them, there are ten
who are considered as being the women who changed the British history and also the worlds
history.

2.1. Boudicca
Boudicca was a warrior queen of the ancient Iceni tribe, who led a rebellion that nearly ended
Roman rule in Britain. When the Romans plundered the tribes lands in modern-day Norfolk,
Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, flogged Boudicca and raped her two daughters, the Iceni rose up.
With other tribes, they wiped out the Romans Ninth Legion and sacked their strongholds at
Colchester, London and St Albans, taking no prisoners (according to Roman historians) and
massacring at least 70,000. But it is Boudicca alone, standing tall and Titian-haired in her
chariot, who is remembered among the freedom fighters, and honoured with a dramatic statue,
arms raised, by Thomas Thornycroft, near Londons Westminster Pier.

2.2. Queen Elizabeth I

Queen Elizabeth I is surely the most famous in more recent history. She is also the first of three
queens not born to rule but nonetheless outstanding monarchs. She escaped the disgrace of her
mother, Queen Anne Boleyn (executed by Elizabeths father, King Henry VIII), then survived
the politically dangerous reigns of her brother, King Edward VI, and her sister Queen Mary.

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Eventually inheriting the throne herself, she emerged a powerful ruler, adept at boosting her
popularity by progressing around the country and playing up her image as the Virgin Queen
though her closeness to her sweet Robin, Lord Leicester, might suggest otherwise.
While many see in her a charismatic queen addressing her troops as they awaited the Spanish
Armada, to others she is the evil executioner of Mary Queen of Scots, the woman who should
have ruled England, rather than Elizabeth, merely the daughter of the kings former mistress.

2.3. Nell Gwyn

Eleanor Gwyn rose to be an actress who caught the eye of the merry monarch, King Charles II,
and ended up with a royal pension and a splendid house in Pall Mall. When Nell first made her
mark on the stage, London was reveling in the return of the king and court life (in 1660, after the
Commonwealth period of Puritan rule), and the spirit of Restoration London is epitomised in her
ample-bosomed portrait. High spirits, low birth and earthy humour naturally made her enemies at
court, especially among the kings other mistresses. But, with Charles, she remained a favourite
and tradition says that, on his deathbed, he urged his brother to take care of her; just as Lord
Nelson begged others to look after his concubine Lady Emma Hamilton.

2.4. Jane Austen

Jane Austen I considered as being the most celebrated woman novelist. The story of her life in
rural Chawton and fashionable Bath has been told times over; and her subject, as every reader
knows, was the truth, universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good
fortune, must be in want of a wife. But while Regency Londons high society might be led by
libertines, Janes demure heroines know full well that even a runaway romance which ended in
marriage, like Lydia Bennets, brought shame and destroyed her sisters hopes of finding
husbands. From Pride and Prejudice and Emma to Persuasion, Janes final story, it is Janes
genius to observe, and sometimes satirise, their attention to status, manners and reputation.

2.5. Elizabeth Fry

Mrs Fry was the least familiar of our famous ladies, but her pioneering work as a prison reformer
has long been recognised and still earns her a place here.

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Born into the Gurney family, her marriage to Joseph Fry united two old and wealthy Quaker
families, equally noted for piety and philanthropy, and Elizabeth became deeply involved in
charitable work and the Quaker ministry. It was a visit to Newgate jail that opened her eyes to
the appallingly squalid conditions women prisoners suffered, crowded together with their
children.
Thereafter she became a familiar figure, in her Quaker dress and bonnet, prison visiting
and reading the Bible. Her campaigning and religious convictions succeeded in reforming
prisoners and their conditions, by introducing education, paid employment, female warders, and
recognition that all inmates must be treated humanely.

2.6. Queen Victoria

Victoria is the second queen who came to the throne by default, when her royal uncles,
King George IV and King William IV, failed to produce a surviving legitimate heir. Crowned in
1838, her initial limited grasp of constitutional matters was soon supplemented by her husband,
Prince Albert (whose death in 1861 left her in mourning for the rest of her life); and her favourite
prime ministers, Lord Melbourne and Disraeli. With their help, and the colonising power of
British forces and trading companies, she became the most powerful woman in the world. At
home, her scandal-free private life made royalty respectable, after the racy behaviour of her
uncles. If the rigid formality of her Court now seems absurdly stiff, its worth remembering that
her Court composer was Sir Arthur Sullivan, co-creator of the comic Gilbert and Sullivan light
operas.

2.7. Florence Nightingale

She was the first women who appeared on a UK banknote and she was a national treasure
before she was 40. Her pioneering work tending British troops in the Crimean War earned her
the thanks of a grateful nation. The money raised in appreciation funded her nurses training
school at Londons St Thomass Hospital, and from there her influence and principles spread
worldwide. Despite her own ill health she devoted the rest of her long life to improving
sanitation and health care, not without a reputation for bossiness. Yet her popular image remains
that of a ministering angel, as The Times war correspondent put it, paying night time visits to
the wounded soldiers.

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 Every year, her birthday in May is marked at Westminster Abbey and East Wellow
church, in Hampshire, where she was buried; and this year there are special services for the
centenary of her death, as well as new exhibitions at St Thomass Hospital museum, redeveloped
for the anniversary, and at Claydon House in Buckinghamshire, where she often stayed with her
sister.

2.8. Emmeline Pankhurst

Emmeline gave to the womens suffrage movement, but few doubt she was one of its most
inspirational figureheads. After years working for votes for women, but with little success,
Emmeline, helped by her daughter Christabel, established the Womens Social and Political
Union as a militant wing of the womens movement. Their campaign of window-smashing, arson
and violent demonstrations led to regular arrests, hunger strikes and brutal force feeding, which
inevitably drew mixed public reaction. On the outbreak of war in 1914, Emmeline suspended the
campaign, encouraging women to put their efforts into war work instead. After peace was
signed, women over 30 were granted the vote, and shortly before Emmelines death the age was
reduced to 21, to match mens votes.

2.9. Margaret Thatcher

She was the first female British prime minister and place in history is rightly guaranteed. Yet it
is her 11 consecutive years as PM, unmatched in the 20th century, and her role as the first
woman leader of a major Western democracy, that make her one of the most dominant figures in
modern politics. As leader of the Conservative Party, her pro-privatisation policy and public-
spending cuts naturally brought her into open conflict with trade unions and socialists, earning
her the nickname the Iron Lady. With victory in the Falklands War and her narrow escape from
an IRA bomb in Brighton, her popularity soared and, in 1987, she won a then unprecedented
third general election. But her Euro-sceptic and Poll Tax policies had caused division in her
cabinet and, in 1990, she was forced to resign as party leader. Two years later, she went to the
House of Lords as Baroness Thatcher.

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2.10. Queen Elizabeth II
Like Elizabeth I and Victoria, the Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was not expected to
become queen. But the abdication of her uncle, King Edward VIII, propelled her father to the
throne, as George VI, and when he died tragically young, in 1952, Elizabeth found herself ruler
of the UK and Commonwealth. Since then she has witnessed greater changes in her realms in
society, science, technology, medicine and world affairs than any of her predecessors can have
imagined.
They would have been astonished, possibly appalled, at the millions of miles she has
travelled, hands she has shaken, and public engagements she has fulfilled. But they would have
admired the unwavering sense of duty that has given Britain a head of state for nearly 60 years
whose personal standards of service to her country must be the envy of many countries. And
doubtless they would have applauded the courage and humour in her Annus Horribilis speech in
1992, only hours after her much-loved Windsor Castle was devastated by fire.

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 CHAPTER III
STRANGE FACTS ABOUT BRITISH WOMEN

The strangest thing about dating a British girl is that she will out-drink the person she
meets.
Another crazy thing is that women tend to fill the phone memory of their partners with
stupid things such as a photo of a dog or a photo with her morning coffee
British women tend to be sarcastic while interacting with men
Women eat more than men and usually are fatter than them
British women are very well known as being strong and competitive, so they will never
stop challenging their partners
Women are hard to be understood
Women tend to mock or make fun of their husbands
If they break up with their partners, they are an absolute mess
They do not like being called fat girls
British women are never on diet

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 CONCLUSION

Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom was a movement to give women the right to vote. It
finally succeeded through two laws in 1918 and 1928. It became a national movement in the
Victorian era. Women were not explicitly banned from voting in Great Britain until the 1832
Reform Act and the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act. Both before and after 1832, establishing
women's suffrage on some level was a political topic, although it would not be until 1872 that it
would become a national movement with the formation of the National Society for Women's
Suffrage and later the more influential National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies.
As well as in England, women's suffrage movements in Wales and other parts of the
United Kingdom gained momentum. The movements shifted sentiments in favour of woman
suffrage by 1906. It was at this point that the militant campaign began with the formation of the
Women's Social and Political Union. Violence by the militant suffragettes discredited the cause
in the view of many, and postponed Parliament's decision to grant votes for women.
The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 led to a suspension of all politics,
including the militant suffragette campaigns. Lobbying did take place quietly. In 1918, a
coalition government passed the Representation of the People Act 1918, enfranchising all men,
as well as all women over the age of 30 who met minimum property qualifications. In 1928, the
Conservative government passed the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act giving
the vote to all women over the age of 21 on equal terms with men.

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