New book documents the history of the fight against domestic violence

This article discusses domestic violence and violence against women.

A new book from a retired University of Bristol professor records the history of the women’s liberation movement in the UK and around the world.

History and Memories of the Domestic Violence Movement: We’ve come further than you think looks specifically at domestic violence and the history of the movement surrounding it, from the 1970s to present day.

Gill Hague, who co-founded of Violence against Women Research Group at the University of Bristol, now the Centre for Gender and Violence Research, wrote the non-academic book to document the history of early activists.

“I’ve worked as activist, collective member, refuge worker, trainer, researcher and more latterly professor on the issue for nearly 50 years,” says Gill, who lives in south Bristol.

“The passionate early history we all made is in danger of being forgotten, so the book is part of remembering and passing on the beacon. So many other women’s activists then and now contributed that it is at least the beginning of a collective remembering of our collective history.”

With anecdotes, memoir and testimonies from survivors, History and Memories of the Domestic Violence Movement is also illustrated and includes poems.

The cover features a red shoes (zapatos rojos) protest held in the Zocalo, Mexico City, on International Women’s Day in 2020. Each shoe, coloured red for blood, represents a femicide (a woman killed). Image: Policy Press

Published by Bristol-based Policy Press its release comes at a time when the women’s liberation movement has been reignited following Sarah Everard’s murder.

“I hope people will learn from what went before,” says Gill. “The early politics of the domestic violences movement and of refuges were quite revolutionary but are being forgotten now.

“So I hope the history will assist with activism today in fighting domestic violence, and supporting the LGBT+ movement and women’s struggles.”

The book starts in the 1970s but takes readers to the present and the now wide-ranging domestic violence and abuse sector in the UK – a far cry from the initial refuges on 50 years ago.

It also charts the rape crisis, sexual violence movement and the campaigns and service development around honour-based violence, female genital mutilation, forced marriage and other forms of gender-based violence.

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Read more: ‘The most serious costs of domestic abuse are measured in ruined lives’

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“The emphasis throughout is on what the activists did, our triumphs, victories, inadequacies and defeats but mainly on the fact that, even though domestic abuse by men continues to occur almost universally, the movements against it have changed the world in terms of support offered, campaigns, services, policies and awareness,” says Gill, who has already published eight books on domestic violence.

“Despite cutbacks and attacks, there have been real transformations. The landscape is unrecognisable to what went before. We have indeed come far in this huge and brave endeavour to take on male violence. But there is still so very, very far to go.”

Main photo of Sarah Everard vigil: Simon Chapman

Read more: Supporting Polish victims of domestic abuse