Sue Innes

Sue Innes

Sue Innes was a feminist campaigner, journalist, and academic who helped establish St Andrews as a centre for second-wave feminism during her time as a student between 1970 and 1974. She was a founder of the Women's Liberation Movement, the head of the University magazine Aien, and represented St Andrews on BBC Scotland. Innes worked as a journalist in the Scottish Parliament before gaining a doctorate from the University of Edinburgh where she focused on the study of working mothers. She later worked as an editor for The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women, seeking to represent all facets of ordinary women's lives.

greatthinkers,womensta,womenofstandrews

May 4th 1948

dr203@st-andrews.ac.uk

Organisation

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Sue Innes

TEXT

Sue Innes was born May 4th, 1948 in Weymouth and grew up in North Wales and Peterhead, Aberdeenshire. She attended Peterhead Academy before dropping out and joining the hippy movement in San Fransisco, California. Returning to Scotland in 1970, she enrolled in St Andrews for degrees in Philosophy and English Literature. She was editor of the student magazine 'AIEN' as well as one of the co-founders of the Women's Liberation Movement, famously participating in a charity beauty pagent using deliberately ugly dress. Innes met her husband, John Clifford, at St Andrews, and they soon moved to Merlindene, Fife and Edinburgh. She worked as a correspondant for BBC Scotland as well as 'The Scotsman' and completed her doctorate at the University of Edinburgh in 1998. She taught at the University of Glasgow as well as holding a fellowship at Glasgow Caledonian University. She published her foremost book, 'Making it work,' in 1995 and acted as an editor for 'The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women,' though she passed away before its publication in 2006. She had two daughters, Rebecca and Katie Innes.

Innes published pieces relating to working mothers, feminist politics, and childcare. She aimed to capture the whole lives of women through the entires in 'The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women.' Innes contributed to university life by acting as editor of AIEN for many years, publishing articles about abortion, women's rights, and other controversial topics that made St Andrews come to be known as a "veritable hotbed of feminism."