Feminists counted on trailblazer
Dame Shirley Conran Writer and campaigner BORN SEPTEMBER 21, 1932 – DIED MAY 9, 2024, AGED 91
LIFE is too short too stuff a mushroom,” Dame Shirley Conran told readers of her bestselling self-help book Superwoman in 1975 – it was advice she embraced herself as a trailblazing force for feminism. A champion of female fulfilment and sisterhood, Conran authored Lace, one of the earliest so-called “bonkbusters” in 1982. It told the story of four women stranded in unsatisfactory relationships, who must band together when one of them falls pregnant and faces having her career destroyed.
Conran wrote the book to empower teenage girls at a time when sex education was dismal. It sold more than 1.8 million copies, giving her financial security.
In later life, the author, journalist, campaigner and designer was as committed to broadening women’s minds as their sexual appetites.
Frustrated by the gender attainment gap, she founded the Maths Action group in 2009 with the strapline “Maths is a feminist issue”. Its aim was to boost numerical performance in Britain and encourage more girls to study the subject.
She became a government adviser too, encouraging more girls to take on Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects, and wrote a series of money books for young women to overcome “maths anxiety” before founding the Maths Anxiety Trust in 2018.
Conran knew all about financial ups and downs. When her sevenyear marriage to Habitat founder Terence Conran finished in 1962 after he cheated on her, she had to provide for herself. Until writing Lace, she struggled with money during a “zig-zag career”.
Shirley Pearce was born in Portsmouth to Ida and Thirlby. Thirlby ran a dry-cleaning business and was a violent drunk.
Conran attended St Paul’s Girls School in London where many teachers were “quietly subversive” war widows. She said it taught her “how to maximise time”, whereas later, at a Swiss finishing school, she learnt “how to waste time”.
When she was 19, her father threw her out. She studied sculpture and did some modelling before deciding to study painting at Chelsea Polytechnic.
Conran moved into journalism following her divorce. She became the first women’s editor of the Observer magazine in 1964, and founded Femail in the Daily Mail in 1969. She moved into writing selfhelp books after developing ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis).
Conran, who was made a dame in 2023, died of undisclosed causes and is survived by her two sons with Conran, fashion designer Jasper and product designer Sebastian.