Women Cheat Sheet

Women Cheat Sheet

Women in Employment

• In 1951:

• Women made up 31% of the labour force.
• 36% of adult women were working.
• 26% of married women worked

• 1955-6 Britain’s economy improved resulting in:

• Increased employment opportunities.
• Wages increased faster than money – more spending money.

• In 1971:

• Women made up 38% of the labour force.
• 52% of adult women were working.
• 49% of married women worked.

• In the 1950s 80% of women were secretaries, factory workers or shop workers.

• 1955-61 – Equal Pay in the public sector was phased in over the next six years.

• 1970 – Equal Pay Act – Equal Pay for all sectors, however:

• It was not enforced until 1975.
• Men could still be paid more on the grounds of greater experience and training.
• The act could not prevent women from being passed up for promotion.

Home Life

• Peak year for births in the 1950s and 60s was 1965.
• Average number of minutes per day spent on housework (impact of machines):

• 1950 – 500 minutes.
• 1960 – 440 minutes.
• 1975 – 345 minutes.

• 1960s – Sociologist Hannah Garvon interviewed a number of North London housewives alone at home:

• 35% of working-class and 21% of middle-class women felt they had married too young.
• 62% did not know what their husband earned.

The women’s movement

• 1956 – Sociologists Alva Myrdal and Viola Klein published a book called Woman’s Two Roles: Home and Work – argued for a fairer distribution of work and leisure between the two sexes.
• Important women’s organisations:

• Fawcett Society
• Six Point Group
• Local women’s liberation groups (across the country)

• National Conference of Women’s Groups 1970 (agreed that there should be):

• Equal Pay
• Equal Education and Opportunity
• Twenty-Four Hour Nurseries
• Free Contraception and Abortion on demand.

• Germanine Greer – The Female Eunuch(1970)

Contraception

• First birth control pill available in Britain in 1957.
• The Pill available on NHS with prescription in 1961.
• By 1968 there were two million women in Britain on the pill.
• After the peak year of 1965 the birth year fell dramtically.

Abortion

• Estimated 200,000 illegal abortions performed each year in Britain in the early 1960s.
• 1967 – Abortion Act. Abortion became law in 1968. Abortion available if two doctors considered it necessary, it was carried out no a registered premises and the baby could not survive independently.

Divorce

• Divorce Reform Act 1969 –Allowed divorce on grounds of relationship breakdown (no longer necessary to have a matrimonial offence).
• Matrimonial Property Act 1970 – Women got a share of the family assets during divorce.
• The divorce rate rose by 3.5 times with over 100,000 divorces per year by the early 1970s.