The Women Who Changed Modern Scotland S01E01 - The Disruptors

In this episode, Kirsty Wark reveals how pioneering women of the 1960s and 70s seized the baton from previous generations and surged forward to disrupt the status quo, transforming all our lives, and Scotland itself, in the process. She reveals how life changed for women during these decades and meets the individuals who battled to make these changes happen.

The 60s and 70s were a time when our laws, political systems and social norms still favoured men, and when most power structures still had men in suits at the top. But they were also a time when determined Scottish women stepped up and fought back. In Ayrshire, Kirsty meets footballer and campaigner Elsie Cook, who struggled for years to win recognition for the women's game in the face of a hostile Scottish Football Association and a society that deemed the sport unsuitable for girls. She also traces the flourishing of the women's liberation movement in Scotland's universities and hears from MSPs and first minister Nicola Sturgeon about the impact of political pioneers Winnie Ewing and Margo MacDonald.

During these decades, the work of a number of inspirational women also changed women's cultural lives and sense of identity, offering young girls support and insight, and taking women's experiences seriously. In Dundee, Kirsty meets the female writers and editors who produced Jackie magazine, the teen bible that accompanied Kirsty through her own high school years. She also reunites actor Vivien Heilbron with trailblazing director Moira Armstrong in the Mearns, the setting for their much-loved dramatisation of the novel Sunset Song, which broke new ground in its portrayal of the complex inner life of a young Scottish woman.

As well as telling the stories of women who made the headlines, Kirsty meets women whose day-to-day activities at work or within their communities transformed the lives of women, men and children. She discovers how activists from the women's liberation movement worked to establish the first refuges for survivors of domestic violence, and how crucial research into the scale of this violence brought about global change.

Kirsty also meets some of Scotland's first female firefighters and trade union shop stewards about their attempts to disrupt the world of men, and she discovers how the mothers of the Craigmillar used the arts to revitalise their communities and create new opportunities for their children.