Reasons to Rebel 
Sheila Rowbotham, Merlin Press, £17.99

FOR those unfortunate enough never to have come across the exemplary writing and dedicated activism of Sheila Rowbotham, it is important to set out from the start that from my perspective, she is one of the most important socialist and feminist academics of our era.

Not only do all of her more historical studies remain widely available but she has now released a third autobiographical volume, Reasons To Rebel, that covers the 1980s pretty much until the present day. Her earlier memoirs Promise Of A Dream (Verso, 2019) and Daring To Hope (Verso, 2021) respectively document her experiences of the 1960s and 1970s.

Entering Oxford university as a hippy idealist, but then leaving very much a hard-working, democratic and inclusive leftist, she subsequently embarked upon a lifelong journey insisting on the need to link women’s liberation and socialism, much to the chagrin of those who have often emphasised one at the expense of the other.

Whilst involvement in the wider social movements and burgeoning political networks characterised her commitments after graduating, the 1980s see the ever active Rowbotham on perhaps less optimistic, but more focused and narrowly defined territory as Thatcherism and the whole monetarist project starts to not only smash the earlier revolutionary aspirations of the 1970s left, but the whole post-war social democratic consensus.

In response, Rowbotham decides to join the Labour Party, works for the GLC, supports momentous disputes such as the miners’ strike of 1984, and agitates against the bigotry enshrined in the disgracefully homophobic Clause 28. Later she researches the exploitation of casual labour internationally in a fashion that recalls her earlier work with London night time cleaners.

Her activity, previously documented in Beyond The Fragments (Aakar, 2016), continues to find fruition in the founding of Red Pepper magazine by close associate Hilary Wainwright, and her participation in the significant but much neglected Chesterfield Socialist conferences.

She achieves all this together with countless books, articles and a punishing lecture schedule that sees her travelling up and down the country giving presentations in diverse locations from the village hall to the university, to the political, the organised, the academic and the downright curious. International trips to Holland and the US are also of relevance, not least for the shifting debates around what has now come to be termed intersectionality. 

Always a pleasure to read, her clear, honest and realistic approach often brings to mind Gramsci’s comment about how pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will is often the best way to negotiate difficult times.

Very much her own person politically, it would be fair to say that Rowbotham identifies with a tradition which has often been termed, rightly or wrongly, libertarian socialist. Certainly more than critical of Leninism, she was no particular friend of the Soviet Union and her understanding of the collapse of much of the socialist bloc isn’t one that others will find easy to share. That said, it’s fair to point out that she was no natural ally to the Eurocommunists or the Labour Left during this period either.

As might be expected from someone who has always emphasised the links between the personal and the political, a fair chunk of the book is taken up by less groundbreaking stuff: earning a living, raising kids, falling in and out of love and getting older means that reflections around work, relationships, parenting and age often — and quite rightly — take centre stage, as do holidays and funny and less-than-funny stories. In a sense, tales about the “normality“ or otherwise of everyday life are no less compelling for the more nosy amongst us.

All in all, a wonderful and fascinating account, and I am already looking forward to the next volume.