Hannah Gavron (; born Ann Fyvel; 19 August 1936 – 14 December 1965) was a British sociologist who was born in British Mandate of Palestine.

Life and work

Ann Fyvel was born in Mandatory Palestine in 1936, the daughter of Mary (Kirschner), who was from South Africa, and T. R. Fyvel, the left-wing

Zionist Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...

who eventually became the literary editor of ''

Tribune Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the Tribune of the Plebs, tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs ac ...

'' and a friend of the writer

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...

.Helen McCarthy
"Social Science and Married Women’s Employment in Post-War Britain"
'' Past and Present'', vol. 233, no. 1 (2016), p. 280. She was registered at birth as Ann, but always used the name in the form of Hannah, both privately and professionally. Aged sixteen, she became a student at the

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, also known by its abbreviation RADA (), is a drama school in London, England, which provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. It is based in Bloomsbury, Central London ...

(RADA). In 1955 she married Robert Gavron, who would become a Labour peer,

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdiction (area), jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include arguing cases in courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, jurisprud ...

and printer, but who had then only just started training in printing, having eschewed a legal career for the time being (the same year he married Hannah, he had been

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

after graduating from the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

)."Lord Gavron – obituary"
''The Telegraph'', 8 February 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2018. Shortly after marrying, Gavron graduated from RADA, but stayed in education; she went on to

Bedford College, University of London Bedford College was founded in London in 1849 as the first higher education college for education of women, women in the United Kingdom. In 1900, it became a constituent of the University of London. Having played a leading role in the advanceme ...

, where she remained for eight years, firstly to study sociology as an

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

(she received a first-class degree) and then to complete a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

, which was awarded in 1964 for a

thesis A thesis (: theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: D ...

on "The position and opportunities of young mothers: progression or retrogression: a study of the difficulties confronting young mothers in the contemporary family based on a comparative study of working class and middle class families". After completing her doctorate, Gavron took up a lectureship at

Hornsey School of Art Hornsey College of Art, also known as HCA, founded in 1880 as the Hornsey School of Arts, was an art school in Crouch End, part of Hornsey, Middlesex, England. From 1965 it was in the London Borough of Haringey. From 1955 to 1973, when it was ...

. On 14 December 1965, she locked herself in the kitchen of her neighbour's house in Jackson's Lane,

Highgate Highgate is a suburban area of N postcode area, north London in the London Borough of Camden, London Boroughs of Camden, London Borough of Islington, Islington and London Borough of Haringey, Haringey. The area is at the north-eastern corner ...

, switched on its gas oven and

committed suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Risk factors for suicide include mental disorders, physical disorders, and substance abuse. Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or acad ...

. The year after her death, Gavron's thesis was published as ''The Captive Wife'', which is cited as an early example of the emergent British

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

literature and a noted early sociological study on women and work. It was a qualitative sociological analysis of narrative accounts of working- and middle-class married women's lives, and has been called one of the "classic examples of feminist interpretation of housework". She argued that women tended to leave paid work after childbirth and that motherhood stripped women of independence, bringing their values and aspirations as 'New' women into conflict with the traditional role they were having to play as mothers.Mary Eagleton and Emma Parker, ''The History of British Women's Writing, 1970–present'', vol. 10 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), p. 115. In the view of

Helen McCarthy Helen McCarthy (born 27 February 1951) is the British author of such anime reference books as ''500 Manga Heroes and Villains'', ''Anime!'', ''The Anime Movie Guide'' and ''Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation''. She is the co-author o ...

, this study meant that Fyvel (Gavron) was one of a number of researchers in the 1950s and early 1960s (such as Nancy Seear, Viola Klein, Ferdynand Zweig, Judith Hubback and Pearl Jephcott) who "helped to entrench new understandings of married women's employment as a fundamental feature of advanced industrial societies, and one that solved the dilemmas of 'modern' woman across social classes." In 1990,

Ann Oakley Ann Rosamund Oakley (née Titmuss; born 17 January 1944) is a British sociologist, feminist, and writer. She is professor and founder-director of the Social Science Research Unit at the UCL Institute of Education of the University College Lon ...

wrote that Gavron was an "optimistic pioneer of modern feminism" who "stood as a role model for many of us, trying to make our way in the male-dominated world of social science. She even at times appears in the guise of a cultural metaphor ''à la''

Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet and author. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for '' The Colossus and Other Poems'' (1960), '' Ariel'' (1965), a ...

and many others – a woman torn apart by her position on the edge of time, by those same dilemmas of being female which form the subject matter of her work and writing".. Hannah Gavron had two sons with her husband Robert. In 2015, the younger son, Jeremy, a novelist, published his memoirs of her, ''A Woman on The Edge of Time'', which was the ''

15 Minute Drama ''15 Minute Drama'', previously known as ''Woman's Hour Drama'', was a BBC Radio 4 Arts and Drama production strand that was broadcast between 1998 and 2021. It consisted of 15-minute episodes, broadcast every weekday 10:45–11:00 am (i. ...

'' on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

in June 2019.

Life and work

References

Further reading