Lesbian politics caused a lot of upheaval
1972
Pam was aware of, but didn’t get involved in, the
development of women's politics not because she didn’t believe in
equality, or feminism, but she didn’t think the politics directly
affected her, and they caused quite a lot of upheaval.
“You were trying to gently and gradually get yourselves accepted, suddenly there was this political ‘burn your bras’ people that would invade the House of Commons etc and said, ‘We want to be heard’, and there was us older ones that had been fighting since the early sixties, very gradually introducing ourselves into society and trying to get accepted by pure personality. ‘We’re non-threatening, we want to live our lives openly and lovingly, and don’t want any animosity between you and us, we just want to be accepted as part of society’. Then you get these intellectuals, university groups fired them up and they’d come in demanding their rights, which caused a lot of ill-feeling not only in the gay community but the straight community as well.”
Contributed by: Pam Hudson, 63