Rebel Women is a podcast about history's troublemakers.

This episode is the final instalment of our five-part series about the battle for equal pay; a journey that spans nearly 100 years, from the late 1880s to the 1970 Equal Pay Act.

The 1960s was a decade unlike any other. Young people across the world were rising up - with opposition to the Vietnam War, the 1968–69 civil unrest in France, the US civil rights movement and Women's Liberation.

But while Soho and Mayfair may have been swinging with style and revolution, out in the East London suburbs it was quite a different picture. In working class corners of the capital, post-war traditionalism ran alongside social and cultural change. While middle class women may have enjoyed new opportunities and freedoms, in places like Dagenham the options remained slim and wages low.

The fight for equal pay may have been forgotten altogether if it hadn't been for a group of working class women at the Ford factory in Dagenham. Change was coming, but would it be enough?

For show notes, reading lists and further stories about East London women, visit our website eastlondonwomen.org.uk. Or find us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram or Pinterest. 

Rebel Women is part of the Women Activists of East London project, which has been developed by Share UK, a non-profit community group based in London. 

Special thanks to the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust for their support of today's episode.

Main theme by DanoSongs. Incidental music by Purple Planet Music.

Produced and edited by Steve Woodward at PodcastingEditor.com.

Further reading and links

Dagenham sewing machinists recall strike that changed women's lives (Simon Goodley, The Guardian, 6 June 2013)

Protests in Paris, May 1968 – photographs then and now (Alicia Canter and Guy Lane, The Guardian, 2 May 2018)

My part in the anti-war demo that changed protest for ever (Donald Macintyre, The Guardian, 11 March 2018)

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