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FreedomBy Carol Wills Do women really have complete freedom? Five years into the twenty first century and what have we got? Well computers didn’t crash and burn and the world didn’t end for most of us. So, have things changed much in the last hundred years? Of course they have, one would have to live in total isolation not to notice. However, as a feminist I thought it might be interesting to look back over the last hundred years from a woman’s point of view. I am sure that many women reading this today know a lot more about the fight for women’s rights than I do. So, forgive me if I have anything wrong. It is after all a little Herstory, mixed up with my view. Great changes took place in the 20th century that have affected the freedom of woman both socially, and economically. So, what has been achieved during the last hundred years? What have we gainedin terms of freedom? In the middle of the 19th century, it was almost impossible for women to become doctors, engineers, architects, accountants or bankers. After a long struggle, the medical profession finally allowed women to become doctors. Even so, by the start of the 20th century there were only 200 women doctors. It wasn’t until 1910 that women were allowed to become accountants and bankers. However, there were still no women diplomats, barristers or judges. At the beginning of the 20th century it was very difficult for women to acquire a good education and almost impossible to obtain a university place. Without a university degree, it was very difficult for women to enter any of the professions. In 1917, things heated up a little. After years of campaigning, women gained the right to vote. Nevertheless, in the beginning it was not all it was cracked up to be. For a start, women could only vote when they reached the age of thirty. Why? Do women suddenly become more capable when they attain the grand old age of thirty? Do they take longer than men, to develop wisdom and make informed decisions? Moreover, why did they have to be householders, wives of householders, or graduates? Were women of that status deemed more ‘suitable’ than shop workers and factory hands? I have a sneaky suspicion they were. Something even more worrying to me than status is, the group of irresponsible women who actually tried to prevent us getting the vote. The women in question, under the banner of the Anti-Suffrage League, claimed that the vast majority of women in Britain were not interested in having the vote. That politics would go on without the help of women, but the home would not. To quote the words of the ill-informed Lady Jersey of Freedom ‘Women were not equal to men in endurance or nervous energy, and I think I might say, on the whole, in intellect’. The equally foolish Lady Musgrave was quote as saying she was strongly against the franchise being extended to women, for she ‘did not think it would do any good whatsoever, and in sex interests, would do a lot of harm’. Therefore, according to this misguided pair, not only were women less intelligent than men were but giving women the right to vote, would destroy the male sex drive too. Well, we all know that men have a very fragile ego, but please, that’s going a bit too far even for those times. of Freedom Things were changing in the first twenty years of the 20th century, but not fast enough for one woman. Another shackle to be addressed was no education on safe reliable birth control, and in 1918, Marie Stopes wrote a book called Wise Parenthood, an in-depth guide to contraception. It caused mayhem for church leaders all over Britain. Marie continued her campaign, and in 1921 opened the first of her birth-control clinics in Holloway North London. It was the beginning of the end. Manufactured sanitary towels became the norm, culminating in the wonderful product we now know as ‘Tampons’. The 60’s gave us the long awaited ‘PILL’ and new abortion laws gave us the right to choose. Hallelujah! So where are we now, well, we are supposed to have equal pay, equal opportunity, and equal rights. However, do we really have these things? In law maybe, but I know many women who would argue that ‘the Law is one thing, putting it into practice is another’. Try asking the women who keep trying to break through the glass ceiling in the work place. Try asking the women who need affordable childcare so they can get back to work. Try asking the women who are discriminated against daily, because of age, shape, colour, sexuality, religion, or disabilities. To all 21st Century women out there I say, don’t sit back and be satisfied with what we’ve achieved so far. We may have left the 20th century with more freedom than we had at the beginning of it, but it’s not nearly enough. If it was, we wouldn’t need the very place that this web site is about, would we? To say, as some do, ‘we have total freedom now’, is to belittle those who fought and died to get us this far, do not let their deaths be in vain.
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