Jill Sheila Tweedie (22 May 1936 – 12 November 1993) was a British

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

, writer and broadcaster. She was educated at the independent

Croydon High School Croydon High School is an independent day school for girls located near Croydon, London, England. It is one of the original schools founded by the Girls' Day School Trust. History The school was founded in 1874 in Wellesley Road just north of th ...

Croydon Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an exten ...

, South London. She wrote a column in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'' on feminist issues (1969–1988), "Letters from a faint-hearted feminist", and an autobiography entitled ''Eating Children'' (1993). She succeeded Mary Stott as a principal columnist on ''The Guardian's''

women's page The women's page (sometimes called home page or women's section) of a newspaper was a section devoted to covering news assumed to be of interest to women. Women's pages started out in the 19th century as society pages and eventually morphed into ...

. Her light style and left-leaning politics captured the spirit of British feminism in the 1970s and 1980s. In November 2005 she was one of only five women included in the ''

Press Gazette ''Press Gazette'', formerly known as ''UK Press Gazette'' (UKPG), is a British media trade magazine dedicated to journalism and the press. First published in 1965, it had a circulation of about 2,500, before becoming online-only in 2013. Publis ...

's'' 40-strong gallery of most influential British journalists. She was married three times, to the Hungarian Count Bela Cziraky, to Bob d'Ancona, and finally to journalist

Alan Brien Alan Brien (12 March 1925 – 23 May 2008) was an English journalist best known for his novel ''Lenin''. This took the form of a fictional diary charting Vladimir Lenin's life from the death of his father to shortly before his own demise in 1924. ...

, her partner until her death from

motor neurone disease Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most commo ...

in 1993. She is commemorated in a group portrait at the National Portrait Gallery with fellow ''Guardian'' Women's Page contributors Mary Stott,

Polly Toynbee Mary Louisa "Polly" Toynbee (; born 27 December 1946) is a British journalist and writer. She has been a columnist for ''The Guardian'' newspaper since 1998. She is a social democrat and was a candidate for the Social Democratic Party in the 1 ...

Posy Simmonds Rosemary Elizabeth "Posy" Simmonds MBE, FRSL (born 9 August 1945) is a British newspaper cartoonist, and writer and illustrator of both children's books and graphic novels. She is best known for her long association with ''The Guardian'', for ...

and Liz Forgan.

References

External links

Jill Tweedie: The Fainthearted Feminist
BBC {{DEFAULTSORT:Tweedie, Jill 1936 births 1993 deaths British feminists Neurological disease deaths in England Deaths from motor neuron disease The Guardian journalists People educated at Croydon High School Women's page journalists 20th-century British journalists