Peggy Antrobus | |
|---|---|
 Antrobus (digital painting) | |
| Born | |
| Occupation(s) | Feminist activist, author, scholar, United Nations advisor |
| Known for | Founding member of Caribbean feminist organizations |
Peggy Antrobus (born 1935) is afeminist activist, author, and scholar from theCaribbean.[1] She served as Advisor on Women's Affairs to the government ofJamaica, and asUnited Nations advisor to theBarbados Ministry of Social Transformation.[2][3] She is a founder member of several feminist organisations, including theCaribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA),[4] the global South feminist networkDevelopment Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), and theInternational Gender and Trade Network (IGTN).[5] She is the author ofThe Global Women's Movement: Origins, Issues and Strategies (Zed Books, 2004).[6][7]
Antrobus was born inGrenada in 1935. She studied inSt. Lucia at St. Joseph's Convent and later at the St. Vincent Girl's High School. She did her bachelor's ineconomics atBristol University in 1954, and went on to receive a professional certificate insocial work at theUniversity of Birmingham, United Kingdom. She completed her doctorate ineducation at theUniversity of Massachusetts,Amherst in 1998.[8]
Antrobus was appointed the advisor on Women's Affairs to the government of Jamaica in 1974. According to Michelle Rowley, associate professor ofwomen's studies at theUniversity of Maryland, this was the beginning of Antrobus' feminist consciousness.[8] In 1987, she set up the Women and Development Unit (WAND) at theUniversity of the West Indies (UWI) and was its head until she retired in 1995.[2]
With other Caribbean activists, artists, and scholars likeHonor Ford-Smith,Sonia Cuales,Cynthia Ellis,Joan French,Rhoda Reddock, andRawwida Baksh-Soodeen, Antrobus set up the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA), in 1985.[9] She was also a founder member of Development Alternatives for Women in a New Era (DAWN) and functioned as the organization's general coordinator for the from 1990 to 1996.[8][10]
With many other leading feminists and women's rights activists of the time, Peggy Antrobus was deeply involved in the UNWorld Conferences on Women, including the first at Mexico City in 1975. US feminist and authorCharlotte Bunch, quotes Antrobus as saying, about this inaugural international gathering of women: "It was within this context that women from around the world first encountered each other in a sustained and ever-deepening process....[that] was to nurture and expand this movement in a way that not even its strongest protagonists could have imagined."[11]
Peggy Antrobus authored an analytical and historical overview ofglobal feminism and the internationalwomen's movement in her book,The Global Women's Movement: Origins, Issues and Strategies (Zed Books, 2004). She contributed an essay toRobin Morgan's anthology,Sisterhood is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology (Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1984).
