The Women Who Changed Modern Scotland

In this episode, Kirsty Wark reveals how pioneering women of the 1960s and 70s seized the baton from previous generations and surged forward to disrupt the status quo, transforming all our lives, and Scotland itself, in the process. She reveals how life changed for women during these decades and meets the individuals who battled to make these changes happen.

The 60s and 70s were a time when our laws, political systems and social norms still favoured men, and when most power structures still had men in suits at the top. But they were also a time when determined Scottish women stepped up and fought back. In Ayrshire, Kirsty meets footballer and campaigner Elsie Cook, who struggled for years to win recognition for the women's game in the face of a hostile Scottish Football Association and a society that deemed the sport unsuitable for girls. She also traces the flourishing of the women's liberation movement in Scotland's universities and hears from MSPs and first minister Nicola Sturgeon about the impact of political pioneers Winnie Ewing and Margo MacDonald.

During these decades, the work of a number of inspirational women also changed women's cultural lives and sense of identity, offering young girls support and insight, and taking women's experiences seriously. In Dundee, Kirsty meets the female writers and editors who produced Jackie magazine, the teen bible that accompanied Kirsty through her own high school years. She also reunites actor Vivien Heilbron with trailblazing director Moira Armstrong in the Mearns, the setting for their much-loved dramatisation of the novel Sunset Song, which broke new ground in its portrayal of the complex inner life of a young Scottish woman.

As well as telling the stories of women who made the headlines, Kirsty meets women whose day-to-day activities at work or within their communities transformed the lives of women, men and children. She discovers how activists from the women's liberation movement worked to establish the first refuges for survivors of domestic violence, and how crucial research into the scale of this violence brought about global change.

Kirsty also meets some of Scotland's first female firefighters and trade union shop stewards about their attempts to disrupt the world of men, and she discovers how the mothers of the Craigmillar used the arts to revitalise their communities and create new opportunities for their children.

In this episode, Kirsty Wark explores the 1980s and 90s, a time of contrasts and contradictions for Scotland's women. During these decades, legislative leaps enshrined new rights, many glass ceilings were smashed, and women were told that it was possible to have it all. However, at the same time, everyday sexism and domestic violence remained rife, and the burden of domestic labour continued to fall on women. For many who lived through these years there were new opportunities to be seized in business, in politics and on the stage, but more often than not a truly liberated life felt as far away as ever.
In the world of business, where in the 80s and 90s women were still vastly outnumbered by men, Kirsty meets pioneering entrepreneurs such as Shirley Spear, who established The Three Chimneys restaurant on the Isle of Skye and revolutionised Highland hospitality, and Karen Koren who gave women a platform in comedy when she set up her hugely successful production company, Gilded Balloon. Kirsty also hears from the women who made headway in local politics at this time, gaining seats on local councils and establishing the first Women's Committees.
As well as meeting the women who forged successful new career paths, Kirsty tells the stories of those who fought to change the systems and structures that were holding women back. She hears from the family of Jean Porcelli, who fought a landmark sexual harassment case in the 1980s and changed the law for women across Britain, and learns about the determined feminism of the Church of Scotland's Anne Hepburn, who fought for greater inclusivity in church life. In St Andrews, Kirsty delves into the University's archives to explore the work of feminist photographer Franki Raffles, who, with the Edinburgh District Council Women's Committee, produced the hugely successful Zero Tolerance campaign which called for an end to violence against women.
These were years when women sought to amplify their voices and make the reality of their lives visible – from activists in the Scottish Black Women's Group whose tireless efforts helped Scotland face up to racism, to the women who founded the Glasgow Women's Library – still the only organisation of its kind in the UK. Kirsty hears from all these women, and chats to Laura Norris, the Edinburgh University student who helped organise the first Pride Scotland march. She also catches up with Elaine C. Smith to discuss how The Steamie - a phenomenally successful stage play starring women, validated women's lives and experiences.
As the 90s drew to a close, the institutions that exerted the greatest power over our lives were still dominated by men, but the balance in many walks of life was finally shifting, thanks to the women who fought to make the promise of equality, a reality.

In the final episode, Kirsty Wark explores the devolution era and discovers what happens when women take the lead and seize control of the megaphone – in politics, in communities and in the workplace. During these years, there have been many breakthroughs to celebrate, some of which Kirsty discusses when meeting our first female first minister, Nicola Sturgeon.
But as their conversation reveals, such breakthroughs have frequently been accompanied by a backlash: as more women have put their heads above the parapet, they have also had to face new forms of hostility, including threats and abuse on social media and the manipulation of new technologies to coerce and control.
In her exploration of these highs and lows, Kirsty meets with women who campaigned passionately and persistently for better representation in the new Scottish Parliament, and celebrates the fact that more women were elected to represent Scotland on a single day in 1999 than had been elected over the 80 years since women were first eligible to stand for parliament. She goes on to explore how having more women in positions of political power has transformed all of our lives – whether through shining a light on period poverty, or passing new domestic abuse legislation which is now revered as a global gold standard. She also speaks to women who, in different ways, have put Scotland and its history on the map, reclaiming our past as well as our present. At Doune Castle, one of the filming locations for the TV series Outlander, she meets Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series of novels, to discuss the boost that the ‘Outlander Effect' has given to Scotland's tourist industry.
Kirsty also hears from Scottish nursery nurses who, in 2003, began what would become the largest and longest all-out strike since the miner's strike of the 1980s and asks what this strike can tell us about how the caring work traditionally done by women is valued in our society. But the nursery nurses weren't the only women to find their voice in recent years, as Kirsty discovers when she seeks out a new generation of young Scottish activists who continue to push for change. These include Pinar Aksu who fights for the rights of refugees and asylum seekers, and Back Off Scotland's Alice Murray and Lucy Grieve who are responding to anti-abortion protests by campaigning for buffer zones to be established around women's healthcare facilities.