We turn out in the streets and nothing seems to happen. Maybe we’re doing it wrong.

See a gallery of photos of 120 years of women’s protest signs, from suffragettes in the early 1900s to modern-day protests around the world.

The shot of Saffiyah Khan calmly staring down an EDL demonstrator in Birmingham became instantly famous. Why are images like these so transfixing?

A protest.

Explore Elizabeth Delacruz's 778 photos on Flickr!

Photojournalist May James covered the 2019 Hong Kong demonstrations and unrest extensively for HKFP. We round up some of her best shots from the frontlines of the city’s months-long protest movement. Hong Kong Free Press relies on direct reader support. Help safeguard independent journalism and press freedom as we invest more in freelancers, overtime, safety […]

I have always been interested in protest and civil disobedience. What first caught my eye was an episode of Whale Wars on Discovery Channel some years ago

A roundup of funny and clever signs protesting President Donald Trump and his administration.

Back in 1974, a small ad placed in a Women's Liberation publication started a movement. Fed up with the media and advertising industry's sexist representation of women, a group of women artists met up in London to express their discontent, which they quickly turned into a group called the See Red Women's Workshop and a barrage of silkscreened signs and posters paraded across the U.K. in both "peace camps" and the streets. Their posters from 1974 to 1990, though, which have just been published in a collection by Four Corner Books, should not be limited to the period in which they were made: slogans like "Our Bodies Our Choice" are more relevant than ever these days, and increasingly in use. And, thanks in part to the group's inspiration from black and chicana women's groups in the U.S., they're also surprisingly intersectional for the time, acknowledging that the campaign for women's rights is inextricably linked to issues of racism, housing, and income inequality, which the liberals in Britain were then tackling head-on under Margaret Thatcher's conservative administration. (Even the Workshop's most explicit signs—"Media & the Men Are Our Enemies," for example—don't seem nearly as out-there when you take into consideration that the posh were reportedly wearing buttons reading "I am rich.") Take a look back at their early posters, and get inspiration for your own on this International Women's Day, here.

The 2019 Women’s March (on Washington D.C., and cities around the world) marked “two years of resistance to the Trump presidency, two years of training new activists, and two years of building power.” Since the first march on January 21 2017, the day after the inauguration, the Women’s March has gro

A passionate advocate for gay rights, Marsha was an instrumental figure in the Stonewall uprising

“It is all about love and how we all are connected.”— Mark Wahlberg Ellen Pompeo (you probably know here as Meredith Grey) just became the highest-paid actress on a television drama. As of her rece…

Ruth Persky was born in the Bronx N.Y. in 1934 to a somewhat observant Jewish family, which had immigrated to the U.S. in 1920 from Russian-occupied Poland. In 1943 the family moved to L.A. by trai…

Explore addie65's 1586 photos on Flickr!

One hundred years ago today, on Jan. 12, 1915, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to reject a constitutional amendment that would have given women the right to vote. The final vote — 204 against and 174 for — came at the end of a 10-hour debate. It was not until five years later, in 1919, that the 19th Amendment passed, giving the vote to all American women. (Women had only previously been permitted to vote in certain states.) Here's a collection of dramatic photos from the women's suffrage movements in the U.S. and UK, circa 1910-1920. (via Mashable/ Retronaut) 1913. English suffragette Annie Kenney (1879 - 1953) is arrested during a demonstration. IMAGE: HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES 1914. Flora Drummond, British suffragette, being arrested in Hyde Park, London. IMAGE: UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/UIG VIA GETTY IMAGES c. 1912. Police arrest a militant suffragette during the campaign for women's rights, in London. IMAGE: BOB THOMAS/POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES March 20, 1907. A "Lancashire lassie" being escorted through the palace yard, in Westminster Palace, London. IMAGE: MUSEUM OF LONDON/HERITAGE IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES 1913. A suffragette who was attacked is escorted from the crowd, at a meeting given by Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd-George at Criccieth. IMAGE: P. A. REUTER/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES May 21, 1914. A suffragette recovers after fainting in police custody, following a raid on Buckingham Palace. IMAGE: TOPICAL PRESS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES c. 1910. A suffragette under arrest, in Dundee, Scotland. IMAGE: POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES 1913. A suffragette in the hands of the police, location unknown. IMAGE: UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/UIG VIA GETTY IMAGES May 21, 1914. Arrested suffragettes are escorted over the bridge in St. James Park, London, after their attack on Buckingham Palace. IMAGE: TOPICAL PRESS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES July 5, 1910. A woman campaigning for the vote is restrained by policemen. British women did not win full voting rights until 1928. IMAGE: SSPL/GETTY IMAGES 1914. Police arrest suffragettes who are chaining themselves to the railings outside Buckingham Palace, London. IMAGE: CENTRAL PRESS/GETTY IMAGES May 21, 1914. English suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst (1858 - 1928), founder, with her daughter Christabel (1880 - 1958), of the Women's Social and Political Union in 1903, is removed from a Suffragette protest by a policeman. She was frequently imprisoned and underwent hunger strikes and forcible feeding. IMAGE: TOPICAL PRESS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES Nov. 18, 1910. A suffragette struggles with a policeman on 'Black Friday,' in Westminster, London. The Conciliation Bill (which would have given the vote to women who occupied premises for which they were responsible) was shelved by Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. On learning of this, the Women's Social and Political Union marched on the House of Commons. A riot followed and the women were assaulted — some severely beaten — by police and others. The newspaper "Votes for Women" reported that 115 women and four men were arrested. The WSPU quickly learned the lessons of that day, and a policy decision was made to pursue their campaign using different tactics. Large deputations were considered to be too dangerous. From this moment, the suffragettes went underground and waged "guerrilla warfare" (their phrase) against the Liberal government. IMAGE: MUSEUM OF LONDON/HERITAGE IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES 1914. A police officer tries to remove a suffragette from the railings outside Buckingham Palace, during a suffragette demonstration in London. IMAGE: CENTRAL PRESS/GETTY IMAGES May 21, 1914. A suffragette is arrested on a London street by two policemen. IMAGE: KEYSTONE FRANCE / GETTY May 21, 1914. Emmeline Pankhurst arrested by Superintendent Rolfe outside Buckingham Palace, London, in May 1914. Pankhurst was trying to present a petition to the king. 'The Suffragette' newspaper reported that as she was driven away to Holloway Gaol, she called out, "Arrested at the gates of the palace. Tell the king!" Pankhurst was jailed several times during the fight to get women the vote. Rolfe died two weeks later of heart failure. IMAGE: MUSEUM OF LONDON/HERITAGE IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES c. 1914. A suffragette is arrested. IMAGE: CENTRAL PRESS/GETTY IMAGES c. 1912. A suffragette arrested by police, location unknown. IMAGE: UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/UIG VIA GETTY IMAGES Nov. 19, 1910. A tall policeman leads a short suffragette away by her arm. Many suffragettes were imprisoned and force-fed during their struggle to win the vote. IMAGE: MUSEUM OF LONDON/HERITAGE IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES c. 1911. British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst (1858 - 1928), being jeered by a crowd in New York. IMAGE: TOPICAL PRESS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES 1917. Members of an anti-suffrage mob tear a suffragette banner to bits during protests outside the White House. IMAGE: TOPICAL PRESS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES c. 1911. Capt. Schmittberger escorts suffragettes from City Hall, in New York. IMAGE: BAIN COLLECTION / LIBRARY OF CONGRESS> c. 1918. American suffragettes Elizabeth Smart, Elizabeth Glass, Mrs. A. Dugan and Catherine McKeon, of the Brooklyn Woman Suffrage Association, pose with rifles and a flag. IMAGE: FPG/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

a little punk rock inspiration…

My aim was to talk to the men constructing the silos for the American cruise missiles stationed there, to help them understand the seriousness of what they were doing

The 1970s were a scary time, but when New York City got squeezed, its resilient denizens made cultural lemonade.

Utilitarian household object, sinister tool of unsafe abortion, cornerstone of a Home Shopping Network dynasty: the humble clothes hanger contains multitudes.

My mum flagged up last Saturday's omnibus edition of Woman's Hour for me, as there was some interesting discussion about the role of craft and creativity in women's protest movements. Beginning with brief interviews of female members of the current protest camp gathered outside St Paul's Cathedral, Jenni Murray spoke with Dr Deborah Thom, (Fellow and director of Studies for the faculties of History and Social and Political sciences at Robinson College) and Ann Pettit (a founder of the Greenham Common camp)about the history of women's protest. Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp came into being on the 5th September 1981, when the Welsh group Women for Life on Earth marched to Greenham Common in Berkshire, with a view to challenge the RAF's decision to site nintey six Cruise missiles there. When the women were denied a debate, they set up camp around the military base, with only a nine mile fence seperating them from the base itself. They were joined by more women, and the protest (and camp) lasted for nineteen years. On Woman's Hour, Ann Pettit described how, at Greenham, women came together to transform the nine mile fence into a work of art and a site for protest, embroidering and weaving into it. The nine mile fence at Greenham Common in the 1980s, woven with a message of love Dr Deborah Thom went on to explain that this creative spirit was also present in the Suffrage Movement, from embroidered banners to smaller-scale embroideries and knitting.  Women sewing stars on to a Suffrage banner I have written before about how embroidery was employed by the Suffrage Movement for a subversive cause, and later reclaimed by the Feminist Movement in the 1970s. Domestic handicrafts had long been considered just that; merely domestic "women's work", and not "high art". Many feminist artists of the 1970s set out to challenge this notion, transforming this "women's work" into "high art", embracing the femininity of craft, "shedding their shackles, proudly untying the apron strings—and, in some cases, keeping the apron on, flaunting it, turning it into art" (Lucy Lippard, Household Images in Art). Miriam Schapiro was one such artist who embraced femininity through her art. In the 1970s she began creating sewn collages from scraps of fabric which she christened "femmages"; these femmages recalled the woman's craft of quilting. In fact, Schapiro wrote of her femmages that she "wanted to validate the traditional activities of women, to connect myself to the unknown women artists who had made quilts, who had done the invisible 'women's work' of civilization. I wanted to acknowledge them, to honor them."  Miriam Schapiro, Explode, 1972 Schapiro was also involved in the Womanhouse exhibition of 1972; an installation and performance space situated in a deserted Hollywood mansion. Each participant in the exhibition was given her own space in which to operate inside the building. The exhibition was conceived by Schapiro and her colleague Judy Chicago (together the pair founded the Feminist Art Program at the California Institute of the Arts). The exhibition explored the concerns and mundane stereotypes of female existence; from the household chores of washing, ironing, cooking and sewing, to menstruation (as in Chicago's Menstruation Bathroom). It makes me a little sad to think that I'm too young/live in the wrong part of the world to have experienced this exhibition! A selection of work from Womanhouse, 1972 (including crochet, an example of craft) The reclamation of craft for political purposes by women continues into the present day through the Craftivism Movement. Reading up on Craftivism on the internet, the ubiquitous Wikipedia reminded me that craft has long had links with subversion, even etymologically; firstly, in the Old English, the word craft actually means "power, physical strength, might"; a far cry from the "passive, gentle" feminine craft as envisaged in the 19th Century! Also, as Wikipedia points out, "to call someone crafty is to identify them as clever and cunning. In Greek, one would say to “spin” a plot. Similarly, the French word for trick is tricoter, which means to tie or knot together". Craftivism is closely linked with Third Wave Feminism and the Riot Grrrl Movement, and continues the practise began in the 1970s of reclaiming craft for subversive aims. In Craftivism, crafters take the traditionally domestic pasttimes of, for example, crochet and knitting, and bring them into the public sphere. For example, on May 23rd 2006, the Anarchist Knitting Mob held a Massive Knit in Washington Square Park, New York, in remembrance of Jane Jacobs, an activist who helped prevent the construction of an express-way through the park. The participants covered every possible surface with brightly coloured yarn. Participants in the Massive Knit in Washington Square Park I don't think it would be possible for me to conclude a blog post on craft and feminism without writing about Tracey Emin. During my A Levels I wrote a dissertation on text in feminist art, which featured Emin rather heavily! I have written about her before on this blog, as she explores the theme of this project (love) through writing and sewing. Emin may have the Marmite effect and be known almost more for that famous appearance on Channel 4 than her art, but she undeniably considers herself a feminist and I would argue that she is one. Despite the often raw and unsettling aesthetic and subject matter of her work, the materials and colours Emin chooses to produce it in are often described by the media as “feminine”(though arguably this is a somewhat hackneyed term the art world tends to use when describing the work of any female artist). Like Miriam Schapiro, Emin recalls the lineage of woman's craft through her hand-appliqued blankets; they are not dissimilar to quilts. Also like Schapiro, Emin's aesthetic is (like her subject matter) raw and unpolished; in this way she subverts the femininity inherent in craft.  Tracey Emin, The New Black, 2002  In subject matter, too, Emin is a feminist artist; she records the experiences of her emotional life as a mirror by which to reflect the human (and, in particular, the female) condition. In my opinion, having visited her most recent exhibition, Love Is What You Want, Emin’s work has a universal value, rather than merely being an indulgence of the artist’s narcissism, as many critics have derided it as; many if not all women would be able to relate to the emotions expressed in one of her blankets. She certainly carries out the old feminist rallying cry of "the personal is political". Emin follows in another female lineage, this time a feminist one; like the feminist artists of the 1970s, she has said that she does not use embroidery "like a craft, but like high art".

The emerging Scottish artist Charlie Anderson is known for his epic scale pop art paintings. At first glance, they appear to be cut-and-paste collages – layered fragments of advertising billboards...

The Women's March was initially centered around Washington, however it soon became a record-breaking worldwide protest to promote gender equality, LGBTQ rights and to address racial inequities. There were 408 marches reported in the U.S.

It's an existential threat to millennials—and older Americans are standing in the way of action.

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Blackheads, whiteheads, ones with no heads, zits, acne, hormonal cysts, spots that burrow under your skin, spots that nestle gently upon it, whatever you wanna

"Well behaved women seldom make history." — Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Other lives: Communist who spent 17 years in the anti-nuclear protest at RAF Greenham Common

This 1975 protest march, led by Whina Cooper, began at Te Hāpua in the far north and made its way down through the North Island to the steps of Parliament in Wellington. The primary aim was to call for a halt to the alienation of Māori land; however, its impact was much wider.