Beyond the Fragments began life in 1979, as a pamphlet, and soon became the classic statement of socialist feminism in the form it took in Britain following the political explosion of May 1968. Its three authors  — Sheila Rowbotham, Lynne Segal, and Hilary Wainwright  — had spent much of the decade as members of organizations of the “libertarian” left such as the International Socialists, which in 1977 became the Socialist Workers Party. They were also centrally involved in the women’s liberation movement, and grew utterly frustrated by the male-dominated politics of both the Labour Party and Leninist groups.

They were not alone in such feelings. The pamphlet edition of 2000 copies sold out. A huge conference devoted to Beyond the Fragments was held in Leeds in 1980, by which time the authors had revised and expanded it into a book. They took pains to unpack the failings of leftist political groups, especially in Rowbotham’s mammoth central text “The Women’s Movement and Organising for Socialism.” But the essays were forward-looking as well, and posed several pivotal and interlocking questions:

How can both the Leninist and Labour left learn from the women’s movement? What forms of political organizing can adequately reflect the personal experiences of marginalized and oppressed groups without dismissing these experiences as secondary to class struggle, or as something to be sorted out “afterwards”? How is it possible to link up local organizing with national campaigns and movements? What’s the relationship between unions and smaller initiatives? Between feminism and the state? How to link up participatory forms with representative forms, and representative democracy with direct participation?