ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the forgotten feminist teachers in the National Union of Women Teachers (NUWT) and their role within the women’s movement during the interwar years. Feminism is an extremely difficult concept to analyse, particularly from the vantage point of second wave, late twentieth century feminism. Feminism still lives in England today because the incompleteness of the English franchise represents but one symbol among many others of the incomplete recognition of women as human beings. Hostility escalated with the formation of the National Association of Schoolmasters, a separate male elementary teachers’ union formed to protect men’s interests against the ‘selfish women’ motivated by ‘sex hatred’. Although the Union did perform the ‘normal’ functions of a trade union, the outlook of its members meant that they sought more from a professional association. The activities of the NUWT within the feminist network are too extensive to recount in detail but a sample suggests the inordinate activity.
