The year is 1968. Veronica (Vee) Moon is a junior photographer for a local newspaper, but she is frustrated by the type of jobs considered suitable for a woman, in this male dominated environment. There are only so many church fairs and Mothers' Union meetings you can photograph before you go mad. Vee yearns to be part of a bigger story.
Vee does not know a lot about feminism, but she knows she wants more than to be the little wife of her fiance, Barry: tied to domestic servitude and motherhood, with a sweet martini and lemonade on a Saturday.
Vee decides to take a trip to see the on-going protest of the Ford Dagenham machinists, who are striking for equal pay, and to take some photographs while she is there. This is where she meets the fierce Leonie.
Leonie takes Vee under her wing and undertakes to be her mentor in the feminist cause. Vee's life starts to change from this day onwards. Leonie offers her the chance of a free and exciting life - one she has never even thought possible - at the heart of the rising tide of the fight for women's equality.
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Fifty years later, Vee lives the life of a recluse. Leonie has gone and the circumstances surrounding her death brought an end to Vee's ground-breaking career as a famous photographer.
One of Vee's final photographs - her most controversial one - of her friend Leonie, is now the focus of a new feminist exhibition being curated by Leonie's niece, Erica. Vee has been persuaded out of her home to help Erica with the exhibition, and buried memories of the past are resurfacing. What really happened on the day Leonie died? Is it time to let go of the pain of the past and step back into the light?
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What a wonderful book! It has been an absolute pleasure to read.
There is an fabulous "light bulb" moment in this book too, which I thoroughly loved!
The story alternates between two different timelines - significant moments in the past for Vee and Leonie; and moments from the present day for Vee and Erica, as preparations for the exhibition progress.
Through the years, Leonie becomes increasing bitter that the direction of feminism has not gone the way she would have liked. Her ambition to become a successful published author has been thwarted at every turn, by her projects being just behind those published by the famous guiding lights of the feminist cause - although her "Dear John" column has been a success, even this has a sell by date in the end.
Meanwhile, Vee's career has gone from strength to strength and she has become a role model for women who want to forge ahead in the previously male-dominated areas. Leonie considers Vee to have "sold out", but Vee is actually benefiting from the changes initiated by women like Leonie and doing the best to make all the progress she can.
Leonie is a pretty tough character and she is not easy to like, especially as she gets older and her experiences seem to weigh her down. However, it is important to remember that the uncompromising women like Leonie, at the coal-face of the feminist movement, are the very ones we owe thanks to for initiating the very changes we benefit from today. Leonie is exactly the kind of character we need her to be in this story - one who can be a suitable mentor to the naive Vee - and she is a perfect vehicle to explain what feminism was hoping to achieve from the beginning. By explaining things to Vee, she is also explaining to the reader.
Vee is the softer face of feminism and she has more in common with the majority of women who "just wanted more" - the right to have freedom over their own bodies, make their own decisions, and control their own finances, without reference to a man.
Erica is the face of modern feminism - she has a lot more freedom that the women of Vee and Leonie's generation, but she sees the progress as more of leading to a right to decide how to live your life as a woman. Erica, as some of Leonie's friends from the past, show that it is important to include men in the fight for equality, rather than seeing them all as the enemy.
Interestingly, Vee takes on the role of staunch feminist herself, when she first starts to work with Erica and is disappointed that their struggles from the past have not led to women today having the equality she and her sisters hoped they would. In effect, Vee becomes the mentor to Erica., as their relatonship develops.
I think some of the younger readers of this book may be surprised by how much women were still controlled by the patriarchy in the later half of the twentieth century - for example, needing the permission of a male member of their family to apply for a mortgage, or even open a bank account/hold a cheque book. It is shocking to think that domestic violence within marriage was not even a crime until 1976!
I was born in 1967: the year that The Pill became available to unmarried women (only available from 1961 to married women) and that The Abortion Act became law. This has always given them a personal significance to me, especially since they made such a difference to the lives of women at the time, because this has all been within my own lifetime. For the first time, all women could choose whether to become mothers and the spectre of the back-street abortion was finally being laid to rest (more on this later).
The events covered in this book are therefore, all within the span of my own life, and women have made significant progress in the fight for equality during this time, following on from the work of the second wave feminist pioneers - albeit perhaps, not as much as was hoped.
Of course, I am too young to recall the Dagenham women's fight for equality or the protests at the 1970 Miss World competition first-hand, but I do remember pretty much every other milestone in this book - it was very helpful that each part of the book listed other memorable events, such as books, movies etc too. This makes it much easier to place the events in time.
There are a lot of books exploring feminism and the fight for equality among characters in their twenties/thirties recently, and although I enjoy reading them, they are more relevant to my children than myself. This book really spoke to me a much deeper level, as it has so much more to say about women of all ages.
Reading this book has made me think about whether the women of my own generation have actually done enough. Yes, things have been much better for us than for our own mothers, but will our daughters continue reap the same benefits? Have we sat back on our laurels and not continued to fight with the passion necessary to improve things even more for our own daughters?
It seems clear by the need for campaigns such as the recent #Metoo movement that there is still a lot of work to be done, but worse than that, the current political climate is leading to backward change - take the recent alterations in the law on abortion that are happening in some of the states of the USA. It is more important now, than ever, that we stand up against this trend - a return to the horror of the back-street abortion cannot be allowed to happen.
This is a fabulous book and I applaud Stephanie Butland for being brave enough to write it. I have found it to be something of a wake-up call and stirring to the soul, and will be recommending it widely.
Continue the fight Sisters....and remember to bring the men along too!
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