The long struggle for women’s rights
SUFFRAGETTES FOREVER! THE STORY OF WOMEN AND POWER BBC Two, 8pm HOW far we have come, and how far we have not come. This programme is about the status and rights of women before they were given the vote, but at the General Election in May, millions of women will not vote at all. At Westminster and at Holyrood, the number of women members is way below 50 per cent. And the Labour Party still thinks it is a good idea to send a pink bus to Asda to connect with women.
The history that Amanda Vickery delves into is fascinating though. There are the attempts to stop “unruly” women from speaking in public for instance. And there are the laws that essentially left women with no legal right over their own children, property or wealth.
The first episode starts at the Derby on June 4, 1914. It was the biggest fixture of the pre-war sporting society – all of high society was there, including the King. There are snippets of jumpy archive footage and then we see a tall woman, Emily Davison, slipping under the rails and under a horse. It’s grainy, old, distant footage but the shock of it is still there.
When Davsion died of her injuries four days later, the cause of women’s rights had gained a martyr. Campaigners had firebombed buildings and had been labelled terrorists and the male ruling elite had responded with two weapons: violence but also ridicule.
But by 1914, the campaign had attracted recruits from all parts of the social order, from factory girls to the grandest women in the land. What is extraordinary is the depth of the institutionalised prejudice they faced: in the 18th and 19th centuries, for example, women were still sold at markets. It was technically against the law, but such sales embodied a legal principle that persisted: a woman was her husband’s property so why shouldn’t he sell her if he wanted?
And if this programme makes one thing clear above all else it is how recent the reforms are. It was not until 1997 that rape in marriage was made a crime; it was not until the 1970s that equal pay legislation was introduced. That is the conclusion of the programme: the struggle still goes on.