Matchwomen's Festival 2018 - celebrating 130 years!

This year we celebrate 130 years since the Bow Matchwomen's groundbreaking strike of 1888.

Speakers confirmed:

Writer and broadcaster MICHAEL ROSEN

SARA ROWBOTHAM And CATH HAYES, the 'Rochdale Whistleblowers' immortalised in 'Three Girls', on their fight for the truth.

LISSA EVANS, BAFTA-winning Father Ted director and best-selling novelist who’s Their Finest Hour is now a major film, on writing comedy, & the suffragette heroine of her latest book.

DONNA GUTHRIE of BARAC UK (Black Activists against cuts)

ANITA ANAND, BBC presenter & author of ‘Princess Sophia’ about the Indian suffragette who rocked the royal family

SARAH JACKSON, author of ‘East London Suffragettes’ and founder of the eagerly-awaited East End Women’s Museum

KAREN INGALA SMITH, founder of the femicide census ‘Counting Dead Women’

AISHA ALI-KHAN, women’s rights activist

NINA, domestic violence survivor turned facilitator of the Freedom Programme, which helps women in abusive relationships

NUT Vice President LOUISE REGAN on sexism in schools


plus a full programme of music in the evening from LOUD WOMEN bands and musicians, including:
Maddy Carty
I, Doris
Steve White & The Protest Family

ABOUT THE MATCHWOMEN'S STRIKE
With no union, no money and no job security, they took action to defend one sacked girl, and ended up facing down one of the country's most powerful employers. Their unexpected victory began a social movement from which the new union movment sprang, eventually leading to the founding of the Labour Party.

For our 6th annual festival we will take inspiration from each other, and from speakers of diverse gifts who have one thing in common: they never, ever give up!

OUR NEW VENUE
We are thrilled this year to be just a stone's throw from the matchfactory, right where the strike began. This is the Bow Road the matchwomen knew, and promenaded, dressed to kill and arm in arm, on their days off. Here they began the strike which led to an unprecedented, supposedly impossible victory for poor, working class, largely migrant women.

Our festival will take place in the courtyard of Bow Arts, an organisation that supports art at the heart of the local community, and celebrates its history.

WOMEN, MEN AND CHILDREN WELCOME!