The Role of Activist Agences in Shaping the course of Women’s History

There is no doubt that militants and activist agencies baffle vie a role in shaping the history of wo custody, and a spectacular amount of the historiography of womens history has given excessive attention to the role of activists. normal history tends to lead a Rankeian gain of til nowts, focussing instead on the role of the individual, alternatively than the deeper to a lower placelying social, political and economic causes of history.The traditional full(a) put one across of the struggle to obtain the franchise is that the suffragettes, via their militant tactics and under the leadership of the Pankhursts ensured that women were granted the vote, and that this solved all(a) the injustices surrounded by the sexes. This simplistic view of events heretofore ignores the wider changes that were taking place in the economy and society, as well up as placing a spaciousr emphasis on certain activists, rather than looking at the broader picture.The militant activities of the suffragettes were never sufficient enough to stimulate the goernment or the wider public into extending the franchise to women, their acts of violence towards property were practically small scale and petty. It also ignores the role of the suffragists led by Millicent Fawcett, who were farther more significant in obtaining the vote for women, for they were the ones who reasoned rather than fought with men and showed that women could deal with political matters.Activists continued to use similar tactics in the 1970s to demand changes in the law, such as free babys room places (as removed from local councils responsibilities under the 1980 Education Act) and better maternity benefits. The unfeigned changes came about however, non delinquent to the prominent high profile activists, moreover to the grass roots campaign where women won seats on townspeople and city councils. Historians can often look for the big story to indite about, some quantify however the big story is made up of separate of little ones. Womens position in the economy changed prior to the war as well.Industrialisation brought about the end of small scale family run maneuvershops and on that point has been a transition to braggart(a) workshops. The sexual division of labour in mills and factories was seen as a ingrained occurrence and women did not object lens to existence stipendiary less and exploited more than male workers. mountain unions did not favour equal roles in attention for women out of the idolatry that it would take mens hypothesises from them. The benefits in industry that women gained during WWI were temporary, and as soon as men returned from the war women were forced back out of their jobs.One view of the effects of WWI is that giving the vote to women was a reward for their hard work during the war, in the munitions and armaments factories. At the same period as activists had allegedly gained a better position for women via the vote, laws such as the Rest oration of Pre-war Practices Act (1919) which enacted the agreements between the government and trade unions that womens war work was only temporary. Various activist agencies organised resistance to this, however they proved futile.The changing role of women economically in the latter part of the c20 was not due to activists but due to the wider structural changes the war effected on the country by humanity War 2. Following the Second reality War the changing reputation of commerce in the UK made it uneconomical to prevent women from working and by 1947 there were more women workers than in 1939 (Bruley). The deindustrialisation of the UK between 1979-1990 saw a large increase in the numbers of women in employment. Marg art Thatchers economic reforms created huge unemployment, although when employment levels started to recede, women were back into employment quicker than men.This was due to skilled secondary industry jobs being replaced with low skilled tertiary jobs which coul d get away with salaried women less and reducing employees rights due to the reforms Thatcher introduced. In 1990 60% of low paid full time workers were women and Carole Buswell found that in the same year large attributes of women were earning less than the EU recommended minimum wage in tertiary industries, even in jobs such as banking and insurance 40% of the workers fitted this category.This is because even in well paid jobs, such as banking and insuarance, women were restricted from progressing high up the life history ladder by having to take maternity leave to convey up children, if they were even considered for promotion in the first place as many of these companies were strongly male dominated. The Womens self image has changed a grand deal since the beginning of the c20, when women saw themselves primarily as mothers and wives, though in working build environments this spot persisted for a lot longer than in wealthier and better educated social free radicals.Sue Sh arpe found in her 1976 hold up Just the like a girl that working class girls in Ealing in the 70s salvage expected to marry a husband who would take care of them financially and that they would be responsible for childrearing. Womens level of deference has decrease greatly from the beginning of the century when they were almost voiceless, to the present day where girls feel become at least as vocal as men, if not more.Deep running social trends such as this cannot be changed over night by activists and this lack of change in the working classes could be interpreted as evidence that womens liberation movements have largely been for and by the white middle classes Many women in the 1970s though who had started to delimitate their own roles started to live in new ways, such as communally with other women. A large amount of feminist activists adopted bolshie ideology and blamed the subjection of women on the capitalist exploitation of women as a labour force as well as for the i nexpert labour they do domestically.In the 1980s, with its ethos of the individual, women started to appear slowly in positions of power, however their high profile was due to their unusualness. However many women were shocked and against this attitude and the 80s saw many women reject the materialist society and take up campaigns against issues like nuclear disarmament such as the women at Greenham Common. Activists continued to head for the hills a role through the 70s and 80s although as in previous times they were often the central figureheads of larger movements based on mass upheavals.As the UK became an increasingly egalitarian society into the 1960s due to the increasing levels of discipline and the secularisation of society, women started to realise that the restrictions on career options were chiefly the traditional roles of women and a lack of education. Large amounts of feminists were students and so they had the opportunities to study the past and see the oppression t hat women had faced and also how little women appeared in history. The Crowther Report (1959) released middle class grammar school girls from the domestic curriculum, opening the door to many more job opportunities.However women were notwithstanding restricted in the workplace by having to be responsible for rearing children as well as attempting to have a career. Viola Klien urged in Womens two roles (1956) that modern societies were unable to afford to not have women working, this capitalised on fears that the UK would fall economically behind the USSR where nearly all women worked. Although activists led the womens liberation movement and campaigned against articles such as Miss World and unequal pay, mainly the reforms came from elsewhere.Equal pay was finally made a reality when the Fawcett Society (a group of feminists) took the government to the EU court to administer the Equal Value Amendment. How much has changed for women in the last 100 eld is debateable. Certainly th ere have been many legal improvements and women are no longer the second class citizens they were at the beginning of the century. However jibe to some feminists, women are still oppressed by society as whole, being expected to take care of children and do housework as well as to have a job.Opponents to this argue that women are the natural carers of children and that there are no real obstacles in the way for women to have both a job and family if the women works hard enough and balances her time. This group of opponents is not exclusively male. Both Thatcher and Queen Victoria were against womens rights, Thatchers attitude being that well I made it so why cant they? and latter accept in the traditional division of the sexes based upon religion and tradition. Men still continue to run the top side jobs, with Angela Coyle finding in 1988 that at the real top of companies women made up only 5%.Until 1997 the maximum proportion of women MPs had been approximately 10%. This number was only increased in the 1997 election when Tony Blair supported positive discrimination by adopting an Emilys List policy. This meant that in safe seats women be put forward as candidates, the core was >100 women MPs, however this policy was later declared illegal. As women are still expected to take care of children, maternity leave and career breaks for the bringing up of children harm their promotion prospects, resulting in a folderol ceiling that often needs the sacrifice of family life in roam to break through.Although women appeared to become visible in the media, this is often because the ones who did make it to the top were so unusual that they were worthy of media interest. Solutions to the problem are hard, some feminists argue that the only way the position of women will change is if men prize differently too, however this is idealistic to say the least. Bruley reaches the conclusion that women are still disadvantaged because although women now have the franchise and careers, they still have to pack the brunt of childbearing, caring and networking.