|
|
After centuries of
second-class status, women crashed into the twentieth
century with new verve. Victorian feminists had battled
to become doctors (1865), to go to university (1869), to
gain basic property rights (1882) but after more than
thirty years of campaigning, they were still far from
winning the vote.
With the founding of the Women's Social and Political
Union in 1903, the "suffragettes" were born and the
fight for "Votes for Women" began in earnest. The decade
saw other daring exploits, from the first women to drive
cars and fly planes to new developments in business and
science. Childbirth was made safer with midwives
regulated for the first time; children were better
provided for with the first school clinics and school
meals.
By 1909
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was Britain's first woman
mayor and
Marie Curie the world's first woman Nobel laureate.
The close of the decade also witnessed the first
suffragette hunger-strike and the introduction of the
horrific practice of force feeding.
|
|
click for
details |
With the outbreak of the
First World War, differences were forgotten as the
suffrage leaders urged women's support. Women are called
on to take up male jobs as their men folk are sent to
the front. They prove their worth as munitions workers,
bus conductors, and office staff. Women were also
recruited into the forces and tens of thousands are
employed to work on the land.
The result, in 1918, was the vote. But not all women
were enfranchised. The vote only goes to those over 30
who held property. By the close of the decade, women
could also become MPs and enter the professions. In
1919, Nancy Astor was welcomed into the House of Commons
by the Prime Minister himself, the first woman to take
her seat as an MP.
|
|
click for
details |
|
The nineteen twenties saw
women in the ascendant. New fashions liberated them from
corsets and long skirts. The acceptability of single
women going to work and having their own money to spend
saw a boom in dance halls, cinemas and off the
peg-clothes.
Electricity was beginning to ease the burden in the home
and the first birth control clinics meant that married
women could at last have some control over their
fertility. The handful of women MPs helped push through
legislation giving women equality in property rights,
divorce and the guardianship of children.
The first professional women qualified as lawyers, civil
servants, vets and engineers and the new world of
broadcasting gave women a voice on the airwaves. This is
the decade that saw the first woman cabinet minister and
the launch of the campaign for women priests.
|
|
click for
details |
|
After the euphoria of the
twenties, the thirties were a less vibrant decade for
women.
The Depression meant that they were increasingly
encouraged back into the home as jobs for men became
scarce. The BBC, which had prided itself on being a
modern organisation, introduced a marriage bar in 1932,
bringing it in line with the teaching profession and the
civil service. This meant that married women were not
employed and if you married, you had to resign.
In the world of the arts, however, women were making
better progress. Ballet was thriving under Marie Rambert
and Ninette de Valois and the singers Edith Piaf and
Billie Holiday were making their debuts.
In 1930, a new international hero was born when Amy
Johnson successfully flew to Australia. The decade also
saw Britain's first woman police inspector, the first
Oxbridge professor and the first woman commissioner of
prisons.
|
|
click for
details |
The
Second World War, like the first, had a dramatic
effect on women's lives. This time were expected to play
a far fuller part in the armed forces.
In many work places childcare was provided to help with
the juggling of work and home. Thousands of women found
themselves holding down a full time job whilst managing
their families on strict rations.
After the war, the introduction of family allowances and
the National Health Service undoubtedly improved women's
lot but there was also frustration as they were pushed
back into the home. Most went willingly, relieved to
re-build their families.
Some advances were made with married women allowed to
retain their jobs in teaching and the civil service.
Cambridge University finally admitted women to its
degrees.
|
|
click for
details |
1950 - 1959
Office work for the
ladies
Key Events follow on
The nineteen fifties was
very much the decade of domesticity. Most women's lives
revolved around their homes and families as they took
advantage of new technologies and the consumer boom.
In the world of work, women teachers and civil servants
won equal pay and the decade saw Britain 's first woman
bank manager, TV newsreader and managing director of an
advertising agency.
In the USA, Rosa Parkes galvanised the black civil
rights movement when she refused to give up her seat to
a white man on a bus. In the UK,
Claudia Jones founded the West Indian Gazette
and the Notting Hill Carnival. The Kinsey Report
into women's sexual behaviour caused shock waves while
Dr Spock started a revolution in how to raise your
child.
Doris Lessing and Iris Murdoch made their debuts as
novelists and at King's College London, research carried
out by
Rosalind Franklin was key to the discovery of DNA.
|
|
click for
details |
The Swinging Sixties saw
the re-kindling of female radicalism. In the United
States, Betty Friedan published The Feminine
Mystique and founded the National Organisation of
Women. In Britain, a burgeoning women's liberation
movement met for the first time. This was the decade
that saw the first sales of the contraceptive pill and a
law that legalised abortion.
In 1965 Jean Shrimpton appeared in a mini skirt for the
first time and Twiggy set a new style for body and hair.
Valentina Tereschkova became the first woman in space
and Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the world's first woman
Prime Minister, with Indira Ghandi and Golda Meir
following soon after.
As Minister of Transport,
Barbara Castle introduced seat belts and the
breathalyser. As Secretary of State for Employment she
paved the way for equal pay. Jocelyn Bell discovered
pulsars, Dorothy Hodgkin won a Nobel Prize and The
Women's Football Association was founded, with 44 clubs.
|
|
click for
details |
|
This was the decade of
feminism. The Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination
Act became law and landmark books like Germaine Greer's
The Female Eunuch and Kate Millet's Sexual
Politics sold in their millions. Magazines like
Ms and Spare Rib increasingly found their
way into women's homes and the feminist publishers
Virago was launched.
Self-help became a by-word as women increasingly took
control of their lives with women's refuges and rape
crisis centres providing a sanctuary for women who faced
violence. It was also the decade that Margaret Thatcher
became Britain 's first woman Prime Minister.
|
|
click for
details |
|
The early 1980s saw a
proliferation of women-only organisations. This is also
the decade of power woman with her shoulder pads and
high ambitions. At the same time, many women began to
question whether there was a "glass ceiling" as they
failed to reach the top jobs in their companies and
organisations.
In employment, amendments to the Equal Pay Act and the
Sex Discrimination Act established the principal of
equal pay for work of equal value and allowed women to
retire at the same age as men.
|
|
click for
details |
1990 - 1999
Women were ordained as
priests
Key
Events
Over the decade many women
reached the top. In the armed forces, women could go to
sea, fly jets and join regular army regiments, although
they were still restricted from carrying arms.
The decade also saw Britain 's first woman in space, the
first to climb Everest and the first to trek to the
North and South poles. After more than sixty years of
resistance the Church of England finally ordained women
priests. The House of Commons elected a woman speaker
and the 1997 election doubled the number of women MPs
from 60 to 120, though this number fell in the election
of 2001.
|
|
click for
details |
|
