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Ellen Malos

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Ellen Malos
Born
Ellen Scarlett

(1937-11-21)21 November 1937
Ballarat, Australia
Died22 August 2023(2023-08-22) (aged 85)
NationalityAustralian
EducationMelbourne University
Occupation(s)Teacher, academic
Known forKey figure in Bristol's Women's Liberation Movement
SpouseJohn Malos

Ellen Malos (née Scarlett, 21 November 1937 – 22 August 2023) was an Australian-British scholar and activist associated with Bristol Women's Aid, and a key figure in Bristol's Women's Liberation Movement.

Early life and career

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Ellen Scarlett was born in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, on 21 November 1937.[1][2] She was the first of five children. Her father was a longtime socialist, glazier and decorator, and her mother had made knitwear. At primary and Sunday school, she discovered a love of books.[1]

Malos committed to teach in order to obtain a scholarship. She studied English and history at Melbourne University. She wrote a prize-winning thesis about the novelist Patrick White.[1] She had to take up supply teaching as she was discriminated against because she was married. Her husband lost his job because he was a socialist. She studied for a master's degree and he completed his doctorate.[1]

In 1962, she came to the UK with her husband and two-year-old son. She started a doctorate but had to abandon it as her supervisor that it unbelievable that a woman would try and get a Ph.D. while she had a child to care for.[3] In 1969, she was living in Bristol when the first women's group was formed.[4] In 1973, she gave over the basement of her house in Bristol to become the city's first women's centre.[5]

The British Library have an oral history recording from her. She recalled how in 1971 a man who spoke at a Women's Liberation Movement meeting of "fighting for Women's Liberation all my life", while condemning lesbians, was dragged off the platform.[6]

In 1990, Gill Hague and Ellen Malos founded a Violence Against Women Research Group. This would become the Centre for Gender and Violence Research at the University of Bristol.[7] In 2019, Professor Hague was appointed a CBE for her contribution to combating violence against women.[8]

In 2007, Next Link, a British domestic abuse support service, named their Women's Safe House "Ellen Malos House" to record her contribution.[9]

The National Lottery funded "Feminist Archive South" to hire a part-time archivist to catalogue Malos's archives. Her archives, which cover an important period of Bristol Women's history, are now part of the Special Collections at the University of Bristol.[5][10]

Personal life and death

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In 1958, she married fellow socialist John Malos, an Australian of Greek heritage.[1] He died in 1995. Ellen Malos died at home on 22 August 2023, at the age of 85.[11][2]

Publications

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  • Ellen Malos, ed. (1980). The Politics of Housework. Allison & Busby.
  • Emma Bullard; Ellen Malos; R A Parker (1991). Custodianship : caring for other people's children. HMSO.
  • Gill Hague; Ellen Malos; Wendy Dear (1996). Multi-agency work and domestic violence: a national study of inter-agency initiatives. Policy Press.
  • Mullender, Audrey; Thangam Debbonaire; Liz Kelly; Gill Hague; Ellen Malos (May 1998). "Working with children in women's refuges". Child & Family Social Work. 3 (2): 87–98. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2206.1998.00074.x.
  • Audrey Mullender; Liz Kelly; Linda Regan; Gill Hague; Umme Imam; Ellen Malos (2002). Children's Perspectives on Domestic Violence. London: SAGE. ISBN 9780761971061.
  • Tina Skinner; Marianne Hester; Ellen Malos, eds. (11 January 2013). Researching Gender Violence. Routledge.

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e Bristol, University of. "Ellen Malos". www.bristol.ac.uk. Retrieved 8 January 2023.
  2. ^ a b "Ellen Malos". Funeral Notices. Retrieved 1 November 2023.
  3. ^ Bruley, Sue. "'It didn't just come out of nowhere did it?' The origins of the Women's Liberation Movement in 1960s Britain" (PDF). interviews ?: 9 – via University of Portsmouth.
  4. ^ Malos, Ellen (January–February 1978). "Housework and the politics of Women's Liberation" (PDF). Socialist Review (San Francisco) (37).
  5. ^ a b "Ellen Malos' Archives - Heritage Lottery Project (2013)". Feminist Archive South. Retrieved 8 January 2023.
  6. ^ "British Library". www.bl.uk. Retrieved 8 January 2023.
  7. ^ Hague, Gill (2015). Cirrus Clouds: Poems of Travelling and Social Justice. Tangent Press. p. v.
  8. ^ Bristol, University of. "December: Gill Hague CBE | News and features | University of Bristol". www.bristol.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
  9. ^ WHN (20 July 2013). "Living Memories – Ellen Malos' Archive, Bristol". Women's History Network. Retrieved 8 January 2023.
  10. ^ Her records are in the University of Bristol's Special Collections under class mark DM2123/1/Archive Boxes 112–128.
  11. ^ Bradley, Harriet (1 November 2023). "Ellen Malos obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 November 2023.
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