2. 1865 – John Stuart Mill MP argues for
women to get the vote
1818 – Jeremy Bentham in favour of women
voting
1894 – Local Government Act (women who
owned property could vote in local
elections.
1908 – the first woman to serve as mayor of a
town
PUBLIC AND POLITICAL LIFE
3. Key dates in the struggle for the vote
•1903 – Women's Social and Political Union
WSPU is formed (led by Emmeline Pankhurst
•1909 The Women's Tax Resistance League
founded
•September 1909 – Force feeding introduced
to hunger strikers in English prisons
•1905, 1908, 1913 – 3 phases of WSPU
militancy (Civil Disobedience – Destruction of
Public Property – Arson/Bombings)
•1905 – First Hunger Strike
•November 1918 – the Eligibility of
Women Act was passed, allowing women
to be elected into Parliament.[3]
•1928 – Women received the vote on the
same terms as men (over the age of 21)
as a result of the Representation of the
People Act 1928.[4]
•1918 The Representation of the People
Act
•The vote was given to women over 30
who were either a member or married
to member of the local GovernmenT
Register
4. HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
House of Commons 504 Men
(Elected) 146 Women
House of Lords 642 Men
(Nominated or Hereditary) 181 Women
• Britain’s First Woman Prime
Minister
Margaret Thatcher 1979-92
5. Women “missing” in Public
and Political Life
• Just 22.5 percent of MPs are women,
21.7 percent of peers and 17.4
percent of the Cabinet. Women make
up 13.3 percent of elected mayors
and 14.6 percent of Police and Crime
Commissioners.
• Britain is falling down the global
league table when it comes to the
representation of women in politics,
as other countries move forward
faster: in 2001 we were ranked 33
out of 190 countries, but by the end
of 2012 we had fallen to 60th place.
• Women are similarly ‘missing’ in
many other spheres of public life:
just 36.4 percent of public
appointments are women, 13.6
percent of the senior judiciary and 5
percent of Editors of national daily
newspapers.
• Women’s absence is particularly
marked in finance and economy:
there are no women at all on the
Bank of England Monetary Policy
Committee; women hold just 11.1
percent of UK Bank Chief Executive
positions, 17.3 percent of FTSE 100
Director positions and make up just
15.1 percent of members of Local
Economic Partnerships.
10. • Current Government’s view
There is legislation in place (section 78, Equality Act 2010),
which would force companies to report their gender pay gap.
However, the government is not minded to commence these
provisions. It believes that a voluntary, business-led initiative will
be better at driving the culture change we want to see on this
issue, where reporting on a range of workforce information - not
just the gender pay gap - becomes the norm.
Think, Act, Report encourages companies to publish as much
information as possible - including their gender pay gap, if they
feel comfortable doing so - but it's a voluntary initiative, and it's
for companies themselves to choose what they make public, and
where.
11. Of the 23.4 million households in
England and Wales in 2011, 1.7
million (7.2%) consisted of lone
parents with dependent children; this
increased from 2001 when the
comparable figure was 1.4 million
(6.5%).
Around 9 in every 10 lone-parent
households were headed by a
woman, both nationally and across
English regions and Wales
Family Responsibilities
Table 7.6 Number of violent incidents against men and
Women by violence category 2011/12
Number of incidents (thousands)
Men Women All
All
violence1 1,265 786 2,051
Wounding 321 177 498
Assault with
minor injury 255 186 441
Assault
without injury 503 355 857
Robbery 186 68 254
12. • Equality Legislation
•Unlike most of the E.U., the first laws
addressing discrimination in Britain
concerned race and ethnicity rather than
gender. 1965 Race Relations Act.
•A Women’s National Commission was
established in 1969, but cut by the Coalition
Government in 2010.
•The first major law on sex discrimination
was 1970 Equal Pay Act which came into
force in 1975. It focused on employment.
•Tribunals and courts looked at Class relationships,
between employers and employees e.g. Low Pay
Commission 1997; National Minimum Wage 1998.
•Developments in Europe influenced the U.K. E.g.
Treaty of Amsterdam 1999 & Human Rights Act
1998.
•Equality laws have become more concerned with
the sale and distribution of goods and services.
•Equality policy was established around Ethnicity,
Gender and then Disability. Other issues of Age,
Religion/Belief and Sexual Orientation were built on
this legacy.
13. •Since 2006, new laws on equality dealt with
all forms rather than treating each separately.
This new model sees all inequalities as having
similar origins and as structurally generated.
•In 2007 the Equality and Human Rights
Commission was established.
•There have been contests between the
different strands e.g. Religion clashing with the
rights of Women and the rights of Sexual
Minorities.
•Currently the policy is not merely about
justice but attempts to be transformative. E.g.
Not just equal pay but looking at how child
care may enable a woman to go to work.
•Crime Policy: Over the last 30 years
there has been improvements in the
policies and prosecution of ‘Hate
Crime’, particularly violence against
women and minorities.
•There have been intersections (or
overlap) between these groupings
E.g. Forced marriage and Female
Genital Mutilation
