Happy International Women's Day everyone!
The 'emancipating process has now reached the limits fixed by the physical constitution of women' said Mary Humphrey Ward in 1908. Many agreed with her. At the time, the women of the United Kingdom didn't have a vote in national elections, would have struggled to find an institution that would award them a degree, could not have been barristers, MPs, or taken up many other roles, could not have divorced their husbands for adultery unless it was coupled with 'cruelty'. They had come a long way: they were better educated than their forebears, some worked, they had some property rights and some could vote in local elections. But any further liberation, felt Mary Humphrey Ward, would cause the country to 'drift towards a momentous revolution, both social and political, before it has realised the dangers involved.'
International Women's Day started in 1911 - at a time when many women in this country felt the only way to achieve equality was through violence - and the authorities were responding with more violence. Female protesters were being jailed for smashing windows: they protested further by refusing to eat and were force-fed, metal tools holding their mouths open so tubes could be pushed down their throats and liquid food poured into their stomachs.
A hundred-odd years after Mary Humphrey Ward, her words sound ridiculous. Our norms have shifted so that the situation of women back then seems outrageous. But there is a continuity - voices still debate whether women's liberation has any further to go, and whether it needs support.
Today, all I have are questions. Last century, we did well - what is our ambition for the next one? Where would we like the norm to be in a hundred years' time? Can we eradicate gender inequality worldwide? Are any of the differences between men and women so fundamental they do, finally, cause the "emancipating process" to reach its limits?
References
Anti -Suffrage Society - Spartacus
First International Women's Day
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