Biography
Sheila MacLeod was born on 23 March 1939 in the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland. MacLeod attended the Wycombe Abbey School in Buckinghamshire, England before completing her degrees in English in Somerville College, Oxford. She got her bachelors in 1961 and her masters in 1993. MacLeod later completed a bachelor's in French from Birkbeck College, University of London in 1996. [1]
MacLeod wrote for a number of publications including The Times Literary Supplement , Vogue, The Observer , and the Evening Standard . She also worked for Clarendon Press. Her novels ranged from science fiction to the non fantastic. MacLeod wrote a BBC television play in 1965 and another play in 1985. [2] [3] [4]
MacLeod experienced anorexia during her teens and later wrote a book about her experiences based on diaries she kept at the time. It is considered a key feminist text on anorexia nervosa. She married Manfred Mann singer Paul Jones in 1963, and later divorced. She moved to London with her sons, Matthew and Jacob. [5] [6]
Joanna Russ was an American writer, academic and feminist. She is the author of a number of works of science fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism such as How to Suppress Women's Writing, as well as a contemporary novel, On Strike Against God, and one children's book, Kittatinny. She is best known for The Female Man, a novel combining utopian fiction and satire, and the story "When It Changed".
Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, and even though she was not considered one at the time of her death, she had a significant influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory.
Toni Cade Bambara, born Miltona Mirkin Cade, was an African-American author, documentary film-maker, social activist and college professor.
Sandra Dee was an American actress. Dee began her career as a child model, working first in commercials, and then film in her teenage years. Best known for her portrayal of ingénues, Dee earned a Golden Globe Award as one of the year's most promising newcomers for her performance in Robert Wise's Until They Sail (1958). She became a teenage star for her performances in Imitation of Life and Gidget, which made her a household name.
Katherine Murray Millett was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She attended the University of Oxford and was the first American woman to be awarded a degree with first-class honors after studying at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She has been described as "a seminal influence on second-wave feminism", and is best known for her book Sexual Politics (1970), which was based on her doctoral dissertation at Columbia University. Journalist Liza Featherstone attributes the attainment of previously unimaginable "legal abortion, greater professional equality between the sexes, and a sexual freedom" in part to Millett's efforts.
MacLeod, McLeod and Macleod are surnames in the English language. The names are anglicised forms of the Scottish Gaelic MacLeòid, meaning "son of Leòd", derived from the Old Norse Liótr ("ugly").
Lesbian feminism is a cultural movement and critical perspective that encourages women to focus their efforts, attentions, relationships, and activities towards their fellow women rather than men, and often advocates lesbianism as the logical result of feminism. Lesbian feminism was most influential in the 1970s and early 1980s, primarily in North America and Western Europe, but began in the late 1960s and arose out of dissatisfaction with the New Left, the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, sexism within the gay liberation movement, and homophobia within popular women's movements at the time. Many of the supporters of Lesbianism were actually women involved in gay liberation who were tired of the sexism and centering of gay men within the community and lesbian women in the mainstream women's movement who were tired of the homophobia involved in it.
Alison Stewart Lurie was an American novelist and academic. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her 1984 novel Foreign Affairs. Although better known as a novelist, she wrote many non-fiction books and articles, particularly on children's literature and the semiotics of dress.
Naomi Mary Margaret Mitchison, Baroness Mitchison was a Scottish novelist and poet. Often called a doyenne of Scottish literature, she wrote over 90 books of historical and science fiction, travel writing and autobiography. Her husband Dick Mitchison's life peerage in 1964 entitled her to call herself Lady Mitchison, but she never did. Her 1931 work, The Corn King and the Spring Queen, is seen by some as the prime 20th-century historical novel.
Sheila Jeffreys is a former professor of political science at the University of Melbourne, born in England. A lesbian feminist scholar, she analyses the history and politics of human sexuality.
Cheryl Lynn "Cherry" Boone, also known as Cherry Boone O'Neill, is an American writer, author, and singer. She and her three sisters formed the 1970s pop singing group, The Boones. Boone has spoken publicly about her experiences and recovery from anorexia nervosa.
The history of anorexia nervosa begins with descriptions of religious fasting dating from the Hellenistic era and continuing into the medieval period. A number of well known historical figures, including Catherine of Siena and Mary, Queen of Scots are believed to have suffered from the condition.
Anorexia mirabilis, also known as holy anorexia or inedia prodigiosa or colloquially as fasting girls, is an eating disorder, similar to that of anorexia nervosa, that was common in, but not restricted to, the Middle Ages in Europe, largely affecting Catholic nuns and religious women. Self-starvation was common among religious women, as a way to imitate the suffering of Jesus in his torments during the Passion, as women were largely restricted to causing themselves voluntary pain by fasting, whereas holy men experienced suffering through physical punishment, voluntary poverty, and celibacy.
Elise Matthesen is an American essayist, journalist, poet, and fiction writer, an award-winning maker of art jewelry and a long time Bisexual Rights activist. For 13 years she was the companion of the late John M. Ford, until his death in September 2006. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota and is a member of the First Universalist Church there.
Andrea Rita Dworkin was an American radical feminist writer and activist best known for her analysis of pornography. Her feminist writings, beginning in 1974, span 30 years. They are found in a dozen solo works: nine books of non-fiction, two novels, and a collection of short stories. Another three volumes were co-written or co-edited with US Constitutional law professor and feminist activist, Catharine A. MacKinnon.
The role of women in speculative fiction has changed a great deal since the early to mid-20th century. There are several aspects to women's roles, including their participation as authors of speculative fiction and their role in science fiction fandom. Regarding authorship, in 1948, 10–15% of science fiction writers were female. Women's role in speculative fiction has grown since then, and in 1999, women comprised 36% of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's professional members. Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley has been called the first science fiction novel, although women wrote utopian novels even before that, with Margaret Cavendish publishing the first in the seventeenth century. Early published fantasy was written by and for any gender. However, speculative fiction, with science fiction in particular, has traditionally been viewed as a male-oriented genre.
Rosalyn Baxandall was an American historian of women's activism and feminist activist.
Alice Eleanor Jones was an American science fiction writer and journalist.
Patricia McElroy Carlson is an American writer of mystery fiction.
The Women's Press was a feminist publishing company established in London in 1977. Throughout the late 1970s and the 1980s, the Women's Press was a highly visible presence, publishing feminist literature.
