Six Point Group

The Six Point Group was a British feminist campaign group founded by Lady Rhondda in 1921 to press for changes in the law of the United Kingdom in six areas.

Aims

The six original specific aims were:
# Satisfactory legislation on child assault;
# Satisfactory legislation for the widowed mother;
# Satisfactory legislation for the unmarried mother and her child;
# Equal rights of guardianship for married parents;
# Equal pay for teachers
# Equal opportunities for men and women in the civil service.

These later evolved into six general points of equality for women: political, occupational, moral, social, economic and legal.

History

During the 1920s, it was active in trying to have the League of Nations pass an Equal Rights Treaty.

The group campaigned on principles of strict equality bewtween men and women in contrast to other women's groups of the period, such as the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, which sought protectionist legislation applying only to women.

It campaigned by traditional constitutional methods. Much of its work was done through its journal, 'Time and Tide'. It also made deputations to the appropriate government ministers, organised public rallies and wrote letters to major newspapers.

From 1933, along with the Open Door Council, it spearheaded the movement for the right of married women to work.

It was responsible for establishing the Income Tax Reform Council and in 1938, the Married Women's Association.

During the Second World War, the Six Point Group campaigned on a variety of issues. They protested the fact that female volunteers in the Civil Defence Services received only two-thirds the men's pay. They objected that the compensation provided for by the Personal Injuries (Emergency Provisions) Act of 1939 was skewed between male / female recipients. They were closely involved in the Equal Compensation Campaign from 1941 to 1943 and subsequently had representatives alongside the Open Door Council and the Fawcett Society on the committee of the Equal Pay Campaign from 1944 to ensure equal pay in the Civil Service.

The group continued to have significant political influence in the post war period. It took part in the protests to have the Matrimonial Proceedings and Property Act changed to give married women more financial protection.

From 1967, they played an active part in the co-ordination of other women's groups on a number of issues. From the late 1970s the group declined through its failure to recruit younger women. It went into abeyance in 1980, and was finally dissolved in 1983.

References

* [http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search2?coll_id=6856&inst_id=65 Six Point Group] at The Women's Library archives in AIM25 . Accessed June 2008
*NRA|O35992. Accessed June 2008