Women have been vigorous campaigners for social and political reform for more than two centuries. They are known to have played an active but discreet role in the first campaign which employed ceramics as propaganda, namely the Abolition of Slavery. Middle and upper class women held tea parties in the 1800s, at which Anti-Slavery literature was distributed and tea-wares decorated with appropriate images and inscriptions were produced.

In the 20th Century a number of important feminist campaigns have been commemorated in ceramics. The Womens Social and Political Union was formed in 1903 by the feminist reformer Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia. Their main aim was to recruit more working-class women into the Suffragettes struggle for the vote. By 1905 the media had lost interest in reporting their meetings and publishing their articles and letters so the WSPU embarked on an increasingly violent campaign of destroying public and private property. Vandalism and arson led to prison sentences but the women responded by going on hunger strikes. By the summer of 1914, 1,000 Suffragettes had been imprisoned. The WSPU suspended hostilities for the duration of World War I. In 1918, the Representation of the People Act finally granted the vote to women householders over the age of thirty.

One of the most publicized campaign of recent years took place at Greenham Common. In 1981 it was decided to site Cruise Missiles (guided nuclear weapons) in the UK. A group of women marched in protest from Cardiff to Greenham Common Air Base near Newbury, Berkshire. They set up what became known as the Womens Peace Camp and, for the next two years, blockaded the base and persistently cut through the wire fences. In December 1982 more than 30,000 women joined hands around the base. Despite their efforts the first Cruise missiles arrived in November 1983 although protests continued throughout the 1980s. In 1987 the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty was signed by Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev. This paved the way for the removal, between 1989 and 1991, of all missiles sited at Greenham. The Peace Camp finally disbanded in 2000.