Generation Case Con from the North: L.deChenu

1. Generation Case Con from the North: L.deChenu • An activist generation from the North whose personal & political experiences contributed to the creation of Case Con • Case Con on Tyneside • Feminist generation Case Con • Case Con editorial collective & cartoonist: Liz Mackie • Feminist cartoons in the Women’s Issue and the Community Work Issue

2. Generation Case Con from the North: my story • From Northern communities with stark class divisions • In 1960s many working class children were the first in their family to go to University • At my working class grammar school all the girls took domestic science (not science) & many girls left at 15 or 16yrs • Told by Headmaster not apply for University as ‘no girls from this school have been to University’ (ignored) • Identified as socialist & aware of sexism & discrimination • Joined the University Socialist Society , seamen’s picket lines, Vietnam demos, student occupation & women’s liberation movement

3. Tyneside Case Con • Social work student at Newcastle upon Tyne Uni (71-72) after social work trainee • Student critique of the course then organised a conference on social work education in Newcastle 72-73 • Convened regular case Con meetings with members from different LAs and workplaces. • Regional conferences in Leeds from 1973 • Campaigns on Unionisation, Welfare Rights . Homelessness, campaign against the cuts, Course Con

4. Homelessness in and around Tyneside 1974 • Case con meetings organised campaigns at regular meetings • collecting and analysing census data & homelessness statistics, • writing about SW and homelessness procedures, • raising funds, • getting access & permission for photographs, • producing a report • holding a conference, • liaising with newspapers & radio • agreeing a local campaign • plus a Party!

7. Feminist Generation Case Con • 1960s the first generation that had access to the pill (1961) and abortions (1967). Start of ‘Consciousness Raising Groups’ & growth of feminist literature, Spare Rib and Red Rag • 1970-78 Annual National Womens Liberation Conferences • 1971 Chiswick Womens refuge & 1974 national Womens Aid • 1973 Rape Crisis Centres • 1975 Sex Discrimination Act • 1976 Womens Therapy Centre • 1977 Reclaim the Night March

8. Editorial Collectives & Liz Mackie cartoonist Women’s Issue Editorial collective & cartoonists Editorial collectives spent a weekend writing and editing then‘pasting up’ the magazine by hand & planning the next issue. Liz Mackie feminist cartoonist who ‘tackled subjects such as patriarchy,, relationships &sexuality, childbirth and child rearing, previously unseen in cartoons’ (Inking Woman,2017) (Cartoon collective: John Bennetts, Gaylene Preston, Nick Kavanagh & Liz Mackie) Women’s Issue Editorial Collective increased confidence, theorising and cooperation as a women’s group and advocated for women’s groups Anyway, the important thing isn’t that I am an artist, but that the cartoons grew so directly out of the discussions held by the great mix of women who put those issues together. I was often at the meetings where ideas were kicked around and writers allotted articles, and that was why the cartoons were so alive and so much a part of the whole thing. Liz Mackie 2017