Scottish Women Against Sexual Harassment was set up in August 1986 to support ‘working women in Scotland’, offering help to ‘any woman who is sexually harassed whether she chooses to put up with it, to leave or to make a formal complaint’. Running on a shoestring, SWASH was dependent on volunteers to run the office it shared with the Women’s Legal Defence Fund in Edinburgh.
Writing in the edited collection Grit and Diamonds, Dorothy Fall explained how SWASH had emerged from a shared experience of harassment and the lack of easily accessible advice in Scotland. The group of women had contacted their trade unions and the EOC about their case, who were able to give them legal advice. Both were ‘extremely helpful … but they couldn’t give us what we felt most in need of – a sympathetic (and hardwearing) ear, constant reassurance and advice on how to handle day to day events.’
Organisations like WASH (in London) and SWASH (in Edinburgh) were important in providing women with the moral support to tackle sexual harassment and assess the options with confidence.
Further reading
- Dorothy Fall, ‘Ending the Isolation’, in Alison Henderson and Shirley Mackay (eds), Grit and Diamonds. Women in Scotland Making History 1980-1990 (Strathmullion, 1990), 34-36.