Dorothy Simons was one of a stream of highly motivated women – starting perhaps with the suffragettes, proceeding to Germaine Greer and on to women forcing their way into the military front line – who refused to remain in the stereotyped roles of wives and mothers, sidelined in society, obeying husbands and bearing children.
Women, she said, should be free – to choose their careers, to decide whether they wanted to have children or not and, ultimately, when they wanted to die. When the Women’s Electoral Lobby decided to honour her in 2002, it presented her with the Grand Stirrer award, for ”inciting others to challenge the status quo”. Such activism involved some unpleasant scenes, such as battles with pro-life campaigners, but she remained steadfast. On family planning, she said: ”If you can’t control your fertility, you can’t control your life.” Continue reading
