Seminar Paper on the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

On Wednesday 14 October, Sarah Hellawell - a PhD student and member of the Histories of Activism group - will give a paper as part of the History Seminar Series at Northumbria University.  The event will take place at 4:30 pm in room 121 of the Lipman Building (building no. 15 on the campus map). Here are some further details regarding the subject of her talk:

'Peace is not a mere denial of war': 

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

In April 1915 over 1200 women gathered at The Hague in the Netherlands to discuss the issues of war and peace. This women's peace congress ultimately led to the formation of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), which still exists today. The paper will demonstrate how WILPF used the rhetoric of motherhood to demand a place for women in the sphere of international politics, linking its feminist and pacifist aims. In other words, for these internationally-minded women, peace meant much more than the absence of war. This paper will highlight some of the organisation's campaigns for peace, internationalism and women's rights during the 1920s and 1930s, with a particular focus on the British section, known as the Women's International League (WIL).