ABSTRACT
This chapter expresses the role of the Women’s Institute (WI) in supplying a female cultural space within villages in the inter-war period and their attitudes to domesticity, followed by their activities to improve the standard of rural housing and water supplies. Feminism has always been fragmented, at once linked and divided, held together by networks and very loose commonalities. It is vital that the WI be seen a continuum with the more overtly politicized women’s movements both before and in parallel to it. The National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI) co-operated with the Six Point Group, the Society for Equal Citizenship, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and the National Council for Women. With an organization like the NFWI as an example, perhaps a different perception of feminism in the past can be obtained. The women in the movement struggled in national political terms and locally to improve the material circumstances of women’s lives.
