Introduction
There is much protest today about gender inequalities. Women resist sexual harassment and violence including rape and domestic violence, also inequalities with men including in pay, work and education, as they have for over a century. More recently gay men and lesbians have protested publicly against prejudice, transgender people more recently still for equal rights with others. Increasingly prominent is support for gender inequality by severely misogynistic men insisting to large audiences on social media that women are inherently inferior to men, that they seek to displace men from power and sexual violence against them is ‘man’s right’. No doubt a deranged minority of men have always held such views, but now social media enables them to spread them further.
My new book Women’s Liberation. Gender Inequality from Suffrage to Austerity, (Polity 2026) seeks to understand how and why profound gender inequalities have survived, and in some cases grown, despite over a century of protest.It seeks to explore the range and persistence of inequalities between people defined as ‘men’ or ‘women’, mostly disadvantaging women, and protest against them, also mainly by women in Britain since c.1900. Some men have always resented inequalities due to gender identity, mainly homosexuals and transgender men, but long felt forced by cultural antagonism to be silent. Men in general have been persistently accused of creating women’s disadvantages through their prejudice and discrimination. There is some truth in this, concerning some though not all men, and we need to understand how and why it has persisted.
Suffrage
In 1900 gender inequality disadvantaged women in almost every area of life: in marriage, the family and home, in employment, education, the justice system and expectations of everyday behaviour. And gender inequality has always intersected with inequalities of income and wealth, age and, increasingly over time, of race. Women protested against inequalities through the later 19th century, achieving limited change, until by the 1900s they were so impatient with the lack of response that protest grew and some became militant. Campaigners demanded abolition of one major inequality- voting rights – for its own sake and to give women political power to end other inequalities perpetuated by an all-male parliament. For example, on marriage women lost all rights over finances and possessions to their husbands- as leading suffragist Millicent Garrett Fawcett commented, if her handbag was stolen, by law it belonged to her husband. Fathers had sole custody rights over children from age 7; husbands could divorce wives for adultery; wives had to prove an additional fault because adultery was judged normal for men.
World War I
Little changed before war in 1914. Jobs previously reserved for men, like bus driving, were opened to women in the absence of men, generally with lower pay and it was clear the work would end with the war. More female doctors were trained, again only temporarily. Middle-class secretarial and clerical work expanded permanently, though with few promotion opportunities and ‘marriage bars’ excluding married women. Women’s branches of the armed forces formed permanently, though women were forbidden to bear weapons or to fight; they worked behind the lines to free men for combat. The suffrage campaign fell silent because it did not expect victory in wartime, until in 1916 the government proposed extending the vote to the 40% of adult men who lacked it, to reward their war service. In 1918 the vote was granted to all men at 21, and to women only at 30 and if they or, if married, their husbands met the property qualification abolished for men. Women had long outnumbered men in the population and politicians resisted a majority female electorate. And they believed older, better-off women would vote conservatively, countering the danger of newly enfranchised working-class men voting Labour or supporting Communism following the Russian Revolution in 1917.. In 1918 parliament, with surprising ease, allowed women to stand as MPs, from age 21. The equal franchise campaign finally saw success in 1928.
Voting for Equalities
Women voters were not as conservative as politicians hoped. After 1918 there was more radical activism than before, more organizations campaigning on more issues, while women were active in all political parties. But the most women elected to parliament between the wars, among 615 MPs, was 15 in 1931. Women wanted to stand but faced severe prejudice at candidate selections which has never disappeared. Women’s organizations encouraged women to use their votes to press parliament for reforms, with some successes, assisted by sympathetic male MPs. Women were more successful in elections for local government which carried responsibility for social services, which were believed to lie within women’s competence as matters of state did not. They achieved real improvements in education, housing and health care.
At national level from 1919 they achieved women’s appointment as magistrates and members of juries and entry to professions including law and architecture, though they faced discrimination. In the 1920s came equal child custody rights for mothers, increased maintenance from fathers for single and separated mothers and their children, and equal divorce rights, though divorce remained costly and most accessible to richer women, and it was hard for single mothers to support themselves and their children even with maintenance, given women’s limited work opportunities. Some very active campaigns failed, including for equal pay and abolition of the marriage bar. Until World War II employment opportunities for better-off, better-educated unmarried women slowly expanded, mainly in areas where they did not compete with men and rarely at senior levels. In 1939 the largest occupation in the country was women’s domestic service.
World War II
In World War II women’s branches of the armed services continued but women still were not allowed to bear arms or enter combat. Due to civilian labour shortage, unmarried women aged 18-50 were conscripted for the armed services or to replace men in essential work including in the civil service, teaching and medicine. Mothers of young children were not required to work but due to the shortage of labour the government funded day-care for children whose mothers worked. It was the greatest state provision of childcare in British history, indicating the importance of women’s work in wartime and its sidelining at other times. Women fled from domestic service which declined permanently as other opportunities opened.
Campaigns for gender equality intensified. Women held successful strikes against unequal pay in industry, where they were again employed in normally male jobs on lower pay. Women MPs demanded nation-wide equal pay to reward women’s war effort. When parliament debated the Education Act, 1944, a female Conservative MP moved an amendment granting teachers equal pay, which passed by one vote. Churchill insisted that this was a matter of confidence in the government and must be withdrawn. Protesting that it hardly threatened the war effort, the Commons gave in. Women protested until Churchill appointed a Royal Commission on Equal Pay. Women MPs won another amendment to the Education Act abolishing the marriage bar in teaching, which the government accepted because it expected a teacher shortage in the improved postwar education system. This war like the last brought gradual moves towards gender equality following women’s protests but generally on men’s terms.
The Welfare State
Labour won the 1945 election promising social and economic transformation. There was no sign that this included gender equality, but women gained from improved living standards and welfare reforms, especially the National Health Service covering all health needs free of charge. But girls were disadvantaged in the new selective state secondary education system: fewer girls than boys passed the 11+ exam to attend grammar schools because, in a gender-divided system, there were fewer existing grammar schools for girls, and few new schools were built. To pass, girls had to gain higher marks than boys.
The labour shortage continued and the pre-war gender division of labour was only partly restored. The marriage bar almost disappeared except in the diplomatic service where it remained until 1973 and in some financial services until the 1960s. There was just one woman in the Cabinet, Ellen Wilkinson, Minister of Education, and 24 women MPs, 21 Labour. Labour wanted more births to increase future labour supply, reinforcing cultural pressures against mothers of young children working. Wartime nurseries closed. Births rose in a postwar ‘baby boom’. The government encouraged older women to work as demand grew for teachers and other public sector workers in the expanding Welfare State, work judged especially suited to women though more men gained senior posts. Many working-class married women gave up work, welcoming the opportunity to escape the double burden of work in and out of the home as living standards rose when Labour achieved full employment (for men) at decent pay for the first time in peacetime. A new cross-class pattern emerged of women working until pregnant with their first child, then staying home until their children were in secondary school, then working, often part-time.
The Royal Commission on Equal Pay reported in 1946 with a comprehensive survey of inequalities in pay, of women’s limited opportunities across the public and private sectors and employers’ opposition to equality. They opposed equal pay, arguing that men had families to support (as many women had and many men had not), or promoting women because they believed, probably correctly, that men resented being managed by women. The report made a strong argument for equal pay but concluded that immediate implementation would harm an economy recovering from war. The government agreed. Women continued to campaign for equal pay.
Conservatives, 1951-64
Conservatives ruled 1951-64, appointing one woman Cabinet Minister, Florence Horsbrugh as Minister of Education, for one year. Anxious to win women’s votes, in 1955 they introduced equal pay in the public sector, gradually over six years. It did not guarantee equal chances of promotion and women remained mainly at lower levels. Demands for equal pay and opportunities in the private sector continued. Women MPs increased to 25 in 1959. They were admitted to the House of Lords for the first time in 1958, after a long campaign, when Life Peerages were introduced. Women have remained a minority in the Lords (32% in 2026) and cannot inherit peerages. Rising living standards continued. Women benefited from new gadgets, especially washing machines, which eased their household tasks though not the time required. There was more women’s activism in the 1950s and early 60s than is generally recognized, especially from growing middle-class organizations.
‘Permissive’ Reforms 1967-70
Labour returned to government, 1964-70. Two women became Cabinet Ministers and female MPs crept up to 29 in 1964. Labour implemented a remarkable series of reforms. In 1967 abortion was legalized. The first legal abortions in western Europe, after campaigns from the 1930s to end women dying after illegal ‘back-street’ abortions because they could not afford private operations like better-off women. In the same year homosexuality was partially decriminalized, following an official report in its favour in 1957, ignored by the Conservative government, and many years of quiet homosexual campaigns. In 1969 divorce became easier and cheaper and increased rapidly, mostly initiated by women. In 1970 an Equal Pay Act, drafted by Barbara Castle, Minister for Employment, required equal pay for the same or similar work, not compulsory until 1975 to allow time for job evaluation. Women increasingly joined trade unions and gained their support for strikes for equal pay and equal work conditions, while employers remained antagonistic. In 1970 the median earnings of full-time women workers were 54% of males’, in 1983 66%.
Women’s Liberation
Labour’s ‘permissive’ reforms horrified cultural conservatives while stimulating radical movements for greater equalities. The Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) was founded in 1969, soon followed by the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and anti-racist movements, linked with international radical activism among young people. From 1970-4 under an unresponsive Conservative government gender equality made no obvious progress until Labour returned to power 1974-1979. WLM became very active. Feminists became public and flamboyant again, attacked in the right-wing tabloids as ‘man-hating bra-burners’. Black and Asian women campaigned against double discrimination due to gender and ethnicity.
Labour introduced the Sex Discrimination Act, 1975, outlawing but not eliminating discrimination in employment, education, advertising and provision of housing, goods and services. Married women no longer needed their husband’s permission for any financial agreement such as raising a loan even when they had independent earnings. The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) was established to investigate complaints and support women claiming discrimination. Medical schools felt obliged to remove the quotas restricting women’s entry; by the early 1990s women progressed from being a small minority of medical students to 50%. The proportion of female lawyers rose from 4% in 1971 to 27% in 1990. Most male-only Oxford and Cambridge colleges admitted women, who increased from 15 and 10% of students respectively to over 50% in both universities by the 1990s.
More women were employed, a high proportion, mostly mothers, still part-time with fewer employment rights than full-timers. About 45% of married women were employed in 1970, 60% in 1980. Labour introduced the Employment Protection Act, 1975, adopting some rights already established in the European Community (later the EU), which Britain joined in 1973. It became illegal to dismiss a woman for any reason concerning pregnancy, though this continued. Statutory maternity leave was introduced after many other countries but more limited than most. Childcare remained scarce and expensive; grandparents, generally grandmothers, helped, sometimes giving up their own work to do so. Women continued to have fewer opportunities than men to train at work because employers believed them less competen and/or more likely to leave or neglect work due to caring responsibilities. More girls than boys still left school without qualifications though the proportion of female university students rose from 28% in 1971 to 38% in 1979, concentrated in arts and social sciences.
WLM publicized and fought to eliminate problems long experienced by women but not publicly discussed because, like homosexuality, they were thought too shameful. WLM led ‘Reclaim the Night’ marches protesting that women risked assault or worse if they walked alone through streets at night. They made domestic violence a major issue, creating refuges for women and children fleeing violence and bringing about Labour’s Domestic Violence and Matrimonial Proceedings Act, 1976, which made domestic violence a specific offence. Violent partners could be imprisoned and banished from the family home, though tragedies continued. The 1977 Housing (Homeless Persons) Act removed a barrier to victims leaving violent homes by obliging local authorities to house them if they became homeless. This followed women’s campaigns on behalf of the growing numbers of single mothers who experienced discrimination in the allocation of council housing. Another issue promoted by WLM, also far from new but neglected by the justice system and previously rarely publicly discussed, was rape. They opened voluntary Rape Crisis Centres to support victims and legislation in 1976 guaranteed anonymity in court to victims, removing an obstacle to their bringing prosecutions. Again, it was progress, though rape remains a severe problem.
Thatcher and Conservative Anti-Feminism
Labour did much to promote gender equality, but lost the 1979 election to the Conservatives, now led by Margaret Thatcher. Some women hoped Britain’s first female Prime Minister might bring progress, but she was fiercely hostile to feminism, insisting that women with ability, like herself, had equal opportunities with men. Only one woman was appointed to her Cabinet for one year in her eleven years in office. Only 19 women were elected MPs in 1979, and she ignored demands to increase their representation. Unemployment and poverty rose rapidly, poverty especially affecting women, especially single mothers and children. Thatcher had no sympathy for them, strongly upholding ‘traditional marriage’. She refused to subsidize childcare on the grounds that it discouraged mothers from staying at home, as she had not while her two children were young. Married to a millionaire, she could afford childcare. Men suffered most from unemployment especially because the government did nothing to stop the decline of manufacturing and mining.
Thatcher removed controls on pay, rights and conditions at work which declined. Welfare services and associated jobs were cut. Income and wealth inequality soared, assisted by fast rising salaries in the overwhelmingly male finance sector. Women’s activism, including WLM, declined in a hostile environment, but did not disappear. Girls increasingly outperformed boys at all levels of education. As opportunities for work and further education expanded and divorce and falling marriage rates discouraged the belief that marriage should be women’s only goal, girls’ incentives for educational achievement grew. Female students in higher education rose above 50% by the mid-1990s.
Thatcher was succeeded by John Major from 1990-97. He appointed two women to his Cabinet and the number of female MPs rose to 41 in 1987, 60 in 1992. Major claimed sympathy for single mothers because it had been experienced by his sister and mother-in-law, but the benefit system underwent more cuts further disadvantaging single mothers. They faced unprecedented denigration by Ministers, including Peter Lilley, Minister for Social Security, making jibes against them at the party conference and blaming the rise in violent crime on the growing numbers of fatherless families, notions promoted in the tabloids, along with the baseless conviction that single women became pregnant just to gain a council house. In 1990, the European Court of Human Rights upheld a man’s case that the lower UK pension age for women, 60, discriminated against men who were pensioned at 65. Major’s government announced the gradual rise of the female age to 65 from 2010 to 2020 but failed to warn women who were shocked when the change came and they had to work five years longer than expected or retire without a pension.
More positively, rape in marriage became a crime, following a series of court judgements. More women were employed, in 1991 67.6% of working-age women, by 2001 70.3%, still predominantly in low-paid, often part-time work. In 1994 the government responded reluctantly to an EU directive lengthening maternity leave and extending it to part-timers, but Britain had the worst provision for working parents in the EU and trailed in most areas of gender equality. The government resisted calls for stronger legislation on equal pay and sex discrimination, insisting it would hamper growth in the free market. Women were at last admitted to combat roles in all the armed services, though not on the front line (until 2016), partly due to shortage of male recruits.
New Labour
Labour led by Tony Blair won the 1997 election which delivered an exceptional 120 female MPs, 102 representing Labour, following Labour’s adoption of a proportion of All-Woman Shortlists (AWS) for candidate selection. Some male party members resented this change from the norm of all-male shortlists and sued successfully for sex discrimination. Legislation in 2002 allowed all parties to take positive action to increase female representation. Labour revived AWS, with little obvious response from other parties. In 2005 128 women MPs were returned, 98 Labour, 17 Conservative, a record number of female MPs but still only 20% of the total. They reported discrimination in parliament, as women MPs always had, but pushed gender equality issues up the agenda.
The first elections for devolved Assemblies in Wales and Scotland came in 1999. Unlike Westminster they used a form of Proportional Representation (PR). Women had lobbied for this because most countries which practised PR had higher female representation. In Wales and Scotland Labour and the nationalist parties, and in Scotland the Liberal Democrats, committed to equal numbers of male and female candidates. In 1999 in Wales 41.7% of elected representatives were female, in Scotland 37.3%, far ahead of Westminster’s 18.2% in 1997. The second election, in 2002, returned 51.7% female representatives in Wales- the first elected assembly in the world with a female majority. In both countries women became prominent in party politics and influenced progressive social policies.
Blair’s first Cabinet included a record five women, among 23. Labour reversed cuts to social welfare and reduced unemployment including among single mothers who received free childcare while training or searching for work and more found work. It introduced the UK’s first minimum wage and other improvements to work conditions recommended by the EU. Especially favouring women were equal rights for part-time with full-time workers, including to holiday and sickness pay; paid maternity leave extended; parents could request flexible working hours, though employers could refuse; discrimination at work including on grounds of gender and sexual orientation or part-time working was (officially) prohibited. The reforms fell behind EU standards but brought real improvements. Sure Start Centres were introduced for children under five. Much needed because by 2000 most mothers of young children were employed, often part-time, but childcare remained scarce and increasingly dependent upon grandmothers. Single-parent families increased, overwhelmingly headed by mothers: by 2006 1.8m caring for almost 3m children, 12% from low-income Black or minority ethnic communities. Child poverty declined under Labour. About one-third of babies were born to unmarried parents, often in a stable relationship as marriages fell to an all-time low, couples openly cohabiting, a cultural change growing since the 1970s.
Women still trailed men in employment opportunities and pay at all levels. In 2007-8 11% of directors of the top FTSE 100 companies were female, up from 8.3% in 2003; female senior judges increased from 6.8 to 9.6%, top civil servants from 22.9-26.6%, secondary school heads, 30.1 to 34.1%. The average gender pay gap was 27.5% in 1997, 16.4% in 2010, with variations across occupations. It was especially stark in finance where women reported considerable discrimination and male salaries continued to soar. Income and wealth inequality continued to grow, more slowly than before as low incomes rose.
Prominent people, including Ministers male and female, and many others, came out as lesbian or gay, though antagonism continued. Labour enabled same-sex couples to unite in civil partnerships and to adopt children, against much hostility. As was granting transgender people Gender Recognition Certificates. They gained all the rights of their acquired gender including marriage, and the first marriages occurred. Labour’s Equality Act, 2010, penalized all forms of discrimination including against trans people.
Austerity, 2010-2024
Labour lost the 2010 election. A Conservative-led coalition with Liberal Democrats followed from 2010-15, then Conservative governments to 2024. An ‘Austerity’ programme immediately cut state services and benefits while deregulating the labour market. Sure Start Centres closed and childcare became even scarcer and more expensive, severely disadvantaging working mothers and preventing many from working. In devolved Scotland local authorities still provided childcare, much cheaper, with better trained staff. The government expressed no commitment to gender equality though Cameron unexpectedly introduced same sex marriage in 2014. The average gender pay gap narrowed to 15% in 2022 largely due to improvements in women’s top-level incomes. The gradual equalization of male and female pension ages from 2010-2020 began, arousing protest from women who had not been warned and were unprepared, without effect. Gender equality was not improved by female PMs, Theresa May 2016-19, Liz Truss for a disastrous 49 days in 2022.
Lone parent families were hardest hit by benefit cuts and rising housing and other costs. Independent surveys showed poverty rising after falling through the 2000s. Millions needed free food banks to survive- unheard of in Britain before 2010. Most households in poverty included at least one inadequately paid worker due to labour market deregulation. Employers ignored the minimum wage and other workers’ rights. Child poverty shot up when Universal Credit was refused for third and further children born from April 2017. 4.3m children were in poverty in 2022-3. Average life expectancy declined for men, faster for women, after rising for decades. From 2011-2018 for the most deprived women it fell to 78. For the least deprived it rose to 86. Maternal deaths in pregnancy and childbirth and baby deaths rose especially in the most deprived areas and among ethnic minorities, largely due to reduced funding of the NHS. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that UK death rates were higher than in comparable countries.
Services declined further when substantial numbers of staff who had migrated to Britain from EU countries to work in the health and care services left after Britain voted to leave the EU. Declining care for older and disabled people shifted responsibility to family members, overwhelmingly females, causing low incomes and stress. Decline intensified when the Covid pandemic hit Britain in early 2020. Sickness further reduced staff.. The government’s compensatory furlough scheme, paying 80% of normal salary, was inadequate for low-paid women suffering when shops and restaurants closed. School closures created difficulties for mothers who had either to give up work or work from home, which was hard to combine with childcare and help with schoolwork. Domestic violence increased during lockdown.
Women kept campaigning about disadvantages and legislation in 2023 allowed requests for flexible working from day one of employment, but employers could and often did refuse. More better-off women gained higher status employment. By 2023 350 FTSE100 companies had at least 40% female board members, though few were top executives. Women were now 39% of barristers, 53% of solicitors, 35% of court judges. Also in 2023 the government announced increased free childcare, but there were immediate complaints that the funding was inadequate and not enough places were available. Sexual violence, including domestic violence, continued. In recent years one woman in the UK has been killed by a man every three days, mostly following domestic abuse. In 2021, an unexceptional year, 121,000 women were raped and 7,000 men by other men. Numerous rape cases were brought to court but long delayed following funding cuts. Misogyny grew with social media. In 2021 the Law Commission of England and Wales recommended an offence of stirring hatred on grounds of sex or gender and making sexual harassment a specific offence, without response until Labour returned to government in 2024. Transgender issues aroused increasing controversy (which are complex and discussed in detail in the book).
Conclusion
Labour won a substantial majority of MPs in the July 2024 election, though only 33.7% of votes. 263 women were elected, an unprecedented 40% of MPs, 190 Labour (41% of Labour MPs), 29 Conservative, 32 Liberal Democrats, and 11 others. Keir Starmer the Prime Minister appointed 11 women to a Cabinet of 26, the largest proportion ever, including Rachel Reeves as the first female Chancellor. All were working mothers, for whom the government increased support as, like previous Labour governments, it began to reverse inequalities, through such measures as the Employment Rights Act and removal of the two-child benefit cap. This is not a story of glorious progress over time against gender, or any other, inequality. There was real, if gradual, change from 1900. By 2024 the UK matched or was in advance of much of Europe in respect of homosexual rights but was way behind on many aspects of equal
