A groundbreaking contribution to debates on women's oppression and consciousness, and the connections between socialism and feminism, this foundational text shows how the roles women adopt within the capitalist economy have shaped ideas about family and sexuality. Examining feminist consciousness from various vantage points - social, sexual, cultural and economic - Sheila Rowbotham identifies the conditions under which it developed, and how the formation of a new "way of seeing" for women can lead to collective solidarity.

In the midst of the freezing winter of 1978-79, more than 2,000 strikes, infamously coined the "Winter of Discontent," erupted across Britain as workers rejected the then Labour Government's attempts to curtail wage increases with an incomes policy. Labour's subsequent electoral defeat at the hands of the Conservative Party under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher ushered in an era of unprecedented political, economic, and social change for Britain. A potent social myth also quickly developed around the Winter of Discontent, one where "bloody-minded" and "greedy" workers brought down a...