ABSTRACT
In the early 1970s a group of women, some of whom held academic posts at the Universities of Bristol and Bath, and all of whom were involved in a variety of groups in the women’s movement, began to offer courses in what became known as women’s studies. These courses were provided through the then Department of Extra-Mural Studies at the University of Bristol and they were able to grow in strength and number because they proved attractive to students and brought new kinds of students into the university. During the 1970s, the scope of the courses developed both intellectually, as they drew upon a growing body of published work, and geographically, with courses being established in centres beyond Bristol, such as Swindon, Bridgwater, Taunton, Stroud, and Cheltenham. The courses were all ‘beyond the walls’ in the sense of being outside the formal academic curriculum of the University of Bristol, open to anyone, involving no formal assessment, with the opportunity to challenge both academic boundaries and the conventional relationships between teacher and taught. The group of women who had been involved in teaching the courses were collectively involved in editing the book Half the Sky: An Introduction to Women’s Studies (Bristol Women’s Studies Group, 1979). I was a member of the group and was also, from 1976, the academic responsible for the programme of courses, as I had been appointed Staff Tutor in Sociology in the Department of Extra-Mural Studies in 1976.
