---
title: "HUMANIST WOMEN OF THE 20TH CENTURY"
date: "2020-05-27T13:49:41+01:00"
modified: "2020-05-27T14:43:24+01:00"
url: "https://andrewcopson.com/2020/05/humanist-women-of-the-20th-century/"
post_id: 2235
categories: ["Video"]
---

# HUMANIST WOMEN OF THE 20TH CENTURY

**Last week, I published videos discussing the little-known humanist women of the 20th century. Here they are conveniently all in one place!**

Starting at the end of the century and working backwards, this clip is on **Barbara Wootton**, who died in 1988.



As an extra fact: among many other things she chaired the Home Office committee in 1968 that recommended effective decriminalisation of cannabis. Here she is:

[![](https://andrewcopson.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/05/Barbara-1-e1590576794783.jpeg)](https://andrewcopson.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/05/Barbara-1-e1590576794783.jpeg)

The second woman is **Margaret Knight**, who shot to national notoriety for what seems – to us now – the mildest of acts…



[Here are the transcripts](https://humanism.org.uk/humanism/the-humanist-tradition/20th-century-humanism/margaret-knight/) of Margaret Knight’s original 1955 broadcasts and below is an excellent talk on Margaret Knight by our current President, Alice Roberts.

Finally, here is a photo of her!

[![](https://andrewcopson.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/05/margaret-knight.jpeg)](https://andrewcopson.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/05/margaret-knight.jpeg)

The third humanist woman of choice was **Susan Stebbing** (1885-1943) – first woman to be President of Humanists UK.



Any of Stebbing’s books you read today will impress you: crystal clear prose and an elegant style. Especially recommend *Ideals and Illusions* (identifying and rejecting illusions in our thinking) and *Thinking to Some Purpose* (the need for democratic citizens to think clearly). Here she is:

[![](https://andrewcopson.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/05/susan.jpeg)](https://andrewcopson.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/05/susan.jpeg)

The fourth, **Olga Jacoby** (1874-1913). Not an activist or philosopher, but an ‘ordinary’ wife and mother (self-described) who left diaries and letters that to us seem extraordinary…



[Here is my review](https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/5472/book-review-words-in-pain) of the centenary edition of her letters last year, and here she is in full colour!

[![](https://andrewcopson.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/05/Olga.jpeg)](https://andrewcopson.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/05/Olga.jpeg)

I couldn’t choose just one so: **Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner**, **Emilie Holyoake Marsh**, **Zona Vallance**, **May Seaton-Tiedeman**, and **Hettie Millicent MacKenzie**. And here’s to all those others who have kept Humanists UK going for the last 124 years! May they all be better known.