ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a history of the women's health movement in Britain, and focuses on two main themes. First, it shows how the priorities of feminist health activists have changed in response to wider social and economic developments, particularly monetarist economic policies and attempts to dismantle the welfare state. Second, it is important to stress that while the chapter discusses only the contemporary women’s health movement, women have always been involved in struggles around health-often in ways that have gone unrecognized and entirely unrecorded. However, in Britain, as in other countries, the movement has also produced a large amount of more informal material, often written by health groups for local circulation, and has built up a network of speakers and other resources to provide health education in small group settings. The factor most immediately responsible for recent developments in the movement in Britain has been the attacks on welfare begun under Labour and pursued with vigor by the Conservative government elected in 1979.
