The History of British Feminism

Feminism is now generally used to describe the movement for gender equality. However, historically it focused on the inequalities between men & women.Mary Wollstonecraft is often seen as the Grandmother of British Feminism and was famous for her book The Vindication of the Rights of Woman which she wrote in 1792. However, the feminist movement didn’t really gain momentum until the late 19th early 20th century when the suffragettes and suffragists campaigned for the right of women to vote. The Suffragist Movement, was founded by Millicent Fawcett and used only peaceful means to campaign but when peaceful methods failed Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia founded the Suffragette Movement. Suffragettes protested by organising large marches, causing damage to property, disrupting meetings and parliament and going on hunger strike. Tragically Emily Wilding-Davison became a martyr to the cause in 1913 when she threw herself under the King’s horse at the Derby. However it wasn’t until after the First World War that parliament recognised the crucial part women had played in war and granted women the right to vote in 1918 but it wasn’t until 1928, in our Great Grandmothers’ lifetime, that women were allowed to vote from the age of 21. Both Elizabeth Anderson & Dorthea Beale are recognised for their support for feminism. Dorthea Beale became the Vice-President of the Central Society for Women’s Suffrage and helped to improve the national standard of education for women While Elizabeth Anderson was the sister of Millicent Fawcett and was not only the first woman to qualify as a doctor & surgeon but also active in the women’s suffrage movement paving the way for future generations of women to work in the British medical profession.

Later in the 1960s & 1970s a new movement developed known as Women’s Liberation Movement or Women’s Lib. They campaigned for equality in marriage and the workplace; sex and sexuality; and violence against women. As a result, the contraceptive pill was introduced in 1961, the Equal Pay Act which made discrimination in pay based on gender illegal was passed in 1970 and the Sex Discrimination Act was passed in 1975.

More recently feminism has focused on the broader issues effecting women of different classes and ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

2018 marked the 100th year anniversary of women winning the right to vote and next year will mark the 50 years since the Equal Pay Act was passed. However, the gender pay gap, though smaller, still exists. Today, on an average, women earn 13.9% less than men among full time workers in Britain. It is also estimated 85,000 women & 12,000 men are raped each year in England & Wales, and ¾ of the victims of domestic violence are women.
As Chimananda Nogozi Aidchie wrote, in her book ‘We should all be Feminists’, explains “My own definition is, a feminist is a man or a woman who says, yes, there’s a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better. All of us, women and men, must do better.”

The British feminist movement has come a long way, but we still have a long way to go and together we must do better to ensure equality for all genders.