The University of St Andrews, Scotland’s oldest university, has been “home” to a great deal of feminist activity for more than 40 years and was host to “one of the first women’s liberation groups to form in Scotland” (Browne 104): the St Andrews Women’s Liberation group. This group was formed on November 3, 1970 and consisted of a few dedicated members, almost all of whom were university students (Browne 104-105, 109). The members were extremely active in heated debates over womens’ rights and participated in numerous activities to promote equality within the university setting, such as exposing discrimination against women in job interviews, starting alternative celebrations to oppose “masculine” university celebrations, and protesting sexist material taught in classes (Browne 104, 108-109, 112). Even though the group and university were/are located in Scotland, many of these students’ activities and overall ambition to achieve equality between genders was influenced by foreign ideas and events, particularly the feminist movement in the United States. A few of the St Andrews Women’s Liberation group members were American and contributed new ideas to the group, while other members traveled to the United States and returned with a changed perspective on feminism (Browne 109-111). Some were able to express these viewpoints in AIEN, the student newspaper, and used this medium, as well as several other newspapers to which the students were able to contribute, to make students and staff aware of discriminatory acts on campus (Browne 112-113). The group was also very active in campaigns and political protests, one of which included twelve women standing on a university street and staring at, commenting on, whistling at, and embarrassing the men who passed by as a way to “highlight the sexist treatment women had to endure on a regular basis” (Browne 112). This particular event was even reported on by the Nationwide television programme and led to the group being televised several times in the future (Browne 112).
Over the years, many women became members of the group during their time at the university (Browne 110-112), and some of them continued to practice their fearless feminist activism well after college. One of the members, Franki Raffles, for example, was an art student at the university and a significant contributor to the feminist effort. When studying at the university, she became involved in the feminist activism and found a way to distribute the group’s ideas without having to “[oppose] negotiation with authority figures of the patriarchy” (Benoit-Blain 2). Raffles began writing for several local publications, including “the Tayside Women’s Liberation Newsletter, the Brighton and Hove Women's Liberation Newsletter[,] and WIRES” (Benoit-Blain 2-3). After moving on from the university, Raffles became a successful photographer and activist, specializing in taking pictures of womens’ working environments to promote a deeper representation of the female gender (Benoit-Blain 1-2).
Despite all of these instances of promoting women’s rights and the feminist movement, though, the University of St Andrews itself was not liberal and did not necessarily support feminism. Rather, the university was a very conservative school, which largely contributed to the prevalence of feminist students and their activism in this time period (Browne 106-107). Even before the late twentieth century, the university was very traditional and did not support women’s rights. One early recorded instance in which women were overlooked includes a “contested election” for the parliamentary university seat in 1906 (Staff 41-42). When handing out the ballots, officials “refused to send ballot papers to the women graduates” (Staff 42). This injustice caused several feminists and feminist organizations such as the Committee of Women Graduates of the Scottish Universities to file court complaints against the university officials (Staff 42). Although more than sixty years before the foundation of the St Andrews Women’s Liberation group, this example shows the long past of the university’s discrimination towards women even as the women’s suffrage movement advanced.
Works Cited
Benoit-Blain, Marine. “Franki Raffles, Photographe Engagée : La Photographie Féministe En Écosse Dans Les Années 1980 et 1990.” Cahiers de l’École Du Louvre, translated by Google Translate, vol. 10, no. 10, École du Louvre, 2017, https://doi.org/10.4000/cel.555.
Browne, Sarah. “‘A Veritable Hotbed of Feminism’: Women’s Liberation in St Andrews, Scotland, c.1968-C.1979.” 20th Century British History, vol. 23, no. 1, OXFORD UNIV PRESS, 2012, pp. 100–23, https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwq058.
Staff, Michelle. “Women’s Rights on the World Stage: Feminism and Internationalism in the Life of Chrystal Macmillan (1872-1937).” Journal of Women’s History, vol. 32, no. 3, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020, pp. 38–63, https://doi.org/10.1353/JOWH.2020.0026.