[2] While in the United States, Hollis was active in the civil rights movement, picketing segregated restaurants and helping hold voter registration drives in Mississippi.

[3][4][5] She was married to Martin Hollis, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia from 1965 until his death in 1998: they had two sons.

[6] She was a lecturer in modern history, reader and Dean at the University of East Anglia in Norwich from 1967 until 1990.

She was created a life peer as Baroness Hollis of Heigham, of Heigham in the City of Norwich on 1 June 1990[9] and was an Opposition Whip in the House of Lords between 1990 and 1995, and Opposition Spokeswoman on Housing, Local Government, the Environment, Disability and Social Security from 1990.

Hollis was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Work and Pensions (previously Department of Social Security) from 5 May 1997 to the 2005 reshuffle,[4] She was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society,[10] an honorary fellow of Girton College, Cambridge and the author of several books on women's history and on labour history.