Jill Sheila Tweedie (22 May 1936 – 12 November 1993) was a British

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

, writer and broadcaster.

Biography

She was educated at the independent Croydon High School in

Croydon Croydon is a large town in South London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a Districts of England, local government district of Greater London; it is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater Lond ...

, South London. She wrote a column in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' on feminist issues (1969–1988), "Letters from a faint-hearted feminist", and an autobiography entitled ''Eating Children'' (1993). She succeeded Mary Stott as a principal columnist on ''The Guardian's''

women's page The women's page (sometimes called home page or women's section) of a newspaper was a section devoted to covering news assumed to be of interest to women. Women's pages started out in the 19th century as Society reporting, society pages and event ...

. Her light style and left-leaning politics captured the spirit of British feminism in the 1970s and 1980s. In November 2005 she was one of only five women included in the ''

Press Gazette ''Press Gazette'', formerly known as ''UK Press Gazette'' (UKPG), is a British trade magazine dedicated to journalism and the press. First published in 1965, it had a circulation of about 2,500 before becoming online-only in 2013. Published wit ...

's'' 40-strong gallery of most influential British journalists. She was married three times, to the Hungarian Count Bela Cziraky, to Bob d'Ancona, and lastly, to journalist Alan Brien, her partner until her death from motor neurone disease in 1993. She is commemorated in a group portrait at the National Portrait Gallery with fellow ''Guardian'' Women's Page contributors Mary Stott, Polly Toynbee, Posy Simmonds and Liz Forgan. In October 2024, Polly Toynbee claimed in an

op-ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page," is a type of written prose commonly found in newspapers, magazines, and online publications. They usually represent a writer's strong and focused opinion on an issue of relevance to a targeted a ...

for ''The Guardian'' in support of

assisted suicide Assisted suicide, sometimes restricted to the context of physician-assisted suicide (PAS), is the process by which a person, with the help of others, takes actions to end their life. Once it is determined that the person's situation qualifie ...

that Tweedie had taken her own life, rather than having died from motor neurone disease, as previously thought.

References

External links

Jill Tweedie: The Fainthearted Feminist
BBC {{DEFAULTSORT:Tweedie, Jill 1936 births 1993 deaths British feminist writers Deaths from motor neuron disease in England The Guardian journalists People educated at Croydon High School Women's page journalists 20th-century British journalists