The rights of women

In 1918, some women over the age of thirty gained the right to vote after a long, hard struggle. John Stuart Mill, a radical thinker, had tried unsuccessfully to include votes for women in the 1867 Reform Bill. The industrial revolution had increased the power of men, and their feelings about property. Karl Marx noticed that the factory-owning Englishman's attitude of "chivalry" to women had not prevented them from forcing women to work like slaves in their factories and workhouses.

A man thought of his wife and daughters as his property, and so did the law. It was almost impossible for women to get a divorce, even for those rich enough to pay the legal costs. Until 1882, a woman had to give up all her property to her husband when she married him. And until 1891, husbands were still allowed by law to beat their wives with a stick "no thicker than a man's thumb", and to lock them up in a room if they wished. By 1850, wife beating had become a serious social problem in Britain. Men of all classes were able to take sexual advantage of working women. Women were probably treated worse in Britain than in any other industrialising European country at this time.

After 1870 the situation, particularly for middle-class women, began to improve. Women were allowed to vote and to be elected to borough or county councils. A very small number started to study at Oxford and Cambridge in separate women's colleges. But while they were allowed to follow the same course of study as men, they could not receive a degree at the end. Middle-class women became increasingly determined to have equal rights.

Working-class women were more interested in their legal rights concerning working conditions, and they found support in the trade union movement. In 1888 the policy of the unions was that "where women do the same work as men, they should receive equal pay". It was nearly another century before this principle became law. Female membership of the unions increased, but it was not always easy to persuade working men to respect the equal rights of their wives, particularly in times of unemployment.

In 1897 women started to demand the right to vote in national elections. Within ten years these women, the "suffragettes", had become famous for the extreme methods they were willing to use. Many politicians who agreed with their aims were shocked by their violent methods and stopped supporting them. However, if they had not been willing to shock the public, the suffragettes might not have succeeded.

The war in 1914 changed everything. Britain would have been unable to continue the war without the women who took men's places in the factories. By 1918 29 per cent of the total workforce of Britain was female. Women had to be given the vote. But it was not until ten years later that the voting age of women came down to twenty-one, equal with men.

The liberation of women took other forms. They started to wear lighter clothing, shorter hair and skirts, began to smoke and drink openly, and to wear cosmetics. Married women wanted smaller families, and divorce became easier, rising from a yearly average of 800 in 1910 to 8,000 in 1939. Undoubtedly many men also moved away from Victorian values. Leading writers like D.H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf freely discussed sexual and other sensitive matters, which would have been impossible for earlier generations.

Once women could vote, many people felt that they had gained full and equal rights. But there was still a long battle ahead for equal treatment and respect both at work and at home. The struggle for full women's rights is one of the most important events in recent British social history, and its effects continue to be felt.

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1476