New book charts a decade of women fighting for equality in Northern Ireland

Women’s rights collective Reclaim the Agenda has published a new book vividly charting ten years of activism to create a fairer Northern Ireland.

Phenomenal Women: A Decade of Action sets out the struggles and successes of the past ten years when the women’s sector formed Reclaim the Agenda to fight hard for equal pay, better representation in politics and public life, healthcare rights, childcare and to campaign vigorously against sexual violence.

The 196-page book, which is illustrated with hundreds of striking photographs and colourful posters, has been edited by four members of Reclaim the Agenda, Lynda Walker, Anne McVicker, Helen Crickard and Danielle Roberts.

Reclaim the Agenda was established in 2010 by a coalition of women’s centres, feminist groups, trade unions and youth and LBTQ organisations to mark the following year’s 100th anniversary of the first publicly held International Women’s’ Day and to reclaim it as a vehicle to achieve equality.

Lynda Walker said: “We are not leaving it to chance for Reclaim the Agenda’s Herstory to be left invisible and untold, and so this book represents just some of the many hours that we have spent working together learning about each other, our differences and appreciating the way that others think and live whilst seeking to transform our lives to a better world.”

Helen Crickard said the book reflected the achievements of the past ten years, fighting to give women an equal place in society but added much more still needed to be done to eliminate discrimination and misogny.

She said: “This book is a record and celebration of the past ten years of struggle, success, frustration and sisterhood. Northern Ireland has changed a lot as a society in the past ten years, but the cheerleaders of the old patriarchal society still refuse to go away. Their sexist attitudes still need to be confronted head on and that is what we intend to do until we achieve full equality.”

The book’s contributors include founder member of Reclaim the Agenda, Dawn Purvis and freelance journalist, Amanda Ferguson from the Women in Media initiative.

Dawn Purvis, in her foreword, described the importance of the book as a historical record of the ongoing women’s struggle for equality and the same basic human rights as their male counterparts.

She said: “It is the first fully comprehensive, accessible account of women’s struggle for these basic rights against a backdrop of the misogynistic, male-dominated institution of state and society. This is Herstory, written and told by women and not left to the ‘chance’ inclusion by authors of historical accounts of this place in later years.”

Amanda Ferguson in the book’s conclusion said that women were on a never-ending journey for equality.

“There is no let up, no done deal. There will be attempts to roll back and reverse what has been achieved so we will always have to amplify, demand, edge, fight, push, protest and raise our voices to deliver.

“There is so much work to be done because none of us are free until we are all free. There is nothing else for it but to keep moving forward,” she added.

Phenomenal Women: A Decade of Action is available in No Alibis Bookstore in Botanic Avenue, the Cultúrlann Bookshop on the Falls Road and the online Feminist Bookshop. It is also available through Reclaim the Agenda by contacting, helen@reclaimtheagenda.org