Feminism like modern socialism emerged as a critique and corrective to Enlightenment Liberalism that began in England in the eighteenth century, subsequently spreading to continental Europe and the US.

Enlightenment Liberalism placed the rational individual, “created equal and endowed with inalienable rights”, as articulated by Jefferson, at the centre of the political discourse which, however, meant a miniscule number of white propertied males. Since then, (1) removal of property restrictions and extension of suffrage to all men, (2) abolition of slavery and (3) extending elementary rights of custody, property, inheritance and suffrage to women became foremost concerns in the nineteenth century, described as a century of struggle.

The demand for equality included both class and gender for most radical political activists. The women’s struggle to secure the right to vote along with other elementary rights was protracted. The incompleteness of the natural rights doctrine was brilliantly uncovered by Mary Wollstonecraft, hailed as the mother of modern feminism. She questioned the male bias inherent in notions of rationality and citizenship and demanded equal opportunity, economic independence, and personal autonomy for women in general and for middle class women in particular.

Asserting that women are persons first and women later, she criticized severely the views of Rousseau, Burke and the like for their sexual view of women. Wollstonecraft considered education, employment, and enfranchisement as crucial for women’s emancipation thus establishing a close link between liberal individualism and feminism. The 1832 Reform Act in Britain gave propertied men suffrage. Married women by virtue of the Coverture laws were denied property and other legal rights.

It was only by 1870 after an intense campaign that led to amendment of the Coverture laws, that women acquired rights of custody, property, inheritance, earning and divorce. Unmarried women who were allowed property did not secure the right to vote. There were additional campaigns for equal educational and employment opportunities, ending double standards with, equality,  regard to sexual morality and repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act. But securing the right to vote was the single and overarching aim of the women’s movement since the 1850s in Britain and the US and subsequently in other parts of Western Europe.

Universal manhood suffrage became a reality in 1919 in Britain when property restrictions were removed. Till then only 58 per cent of men had the right to vote. Men above 21 years of age but women above 30 years of age secured the right to vote. It was only in 1928 that women above 21 years of age were granted suffrage putting them on par with men. In the US women were granted the right to vote in 1920. In the US, African American men were granted the right to vote with the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments in 1868 and 1870 respectively.

Slavery was abolished after the Civil War in 1865 while in Britain it was abolished in 1833. However, African American men were able to exercise their right fully and properly only after 1965, after the Civil Rights Movement, with easing of restrictions through Jim Crow legislations from the later 1870s that were imposed by many southern states. Even today there are stray attempts to restrict their franchise in some southern states in the US. The initial struggle for suffrage was strictly constitutional but frustrated by the failure to achieve the vote in 1903.

Emmeline Pankhurst and her two daughters, Christabel and Sylvia and many others, dubbed as Suffragettes resorted to techniques of passive resistance which included hunger strikes within the prison, courting arrest, refusal to pay fines and willingly endure suffering. These techniques were incorporated by Mahatma Gandhi in his doctrine of satyagraha. The efforts of the suffragists, their sacrifices, women’s contribution to war efforts in 1914-18 and the right to vote to Soviet women in 1917 made limited women’s suffrage possible in 1919.

Suffrage gave women a political voice and made them visible in the public domain. From being “mere onlookers, women became participants”, according to Abrams “in the political and economic upheavals of the age”. In the course of the women’s suffrage movement there were debates about women’s role and status in society, marriage and femininity. The women’s suffrage movement unified women and projected a collective identity, that of ‘women’ cutting across party lines and ideological positions with supporters and opponents among both genders.

The industrial revolution and urbanization began to separate work from home and women’s work from men. Wealthy women were confined to a life of idleness while poor women were forced to take up low-paid jobs – tailoring, dyeing, embroidery, laundry, cleaning, retailing and most importantly domestic work. Until World War II, trade unions stressed on ‘family wage’ which they did not want to be undercut by women claiming male skilled jobs and equal pay. Middle class women’s best chance of securing a good income was by way of getting married to a man who earned well.

The invention of a typewriter by the 1890s saw a surge in the numbers of clerical women workers. From the 1850s to 1870s women’s employment reached new heights due to urbanization and universal compulsory education which was introduced in 1870. Women’s employment in Britain rose to 23.6 per cent in 1914. By 1918 it touched 46.7 per cent; 40 per cent of the workforce consisted of married women.

Women took up jobs traditionally performed by men for a much lower wage which fomented agitations. In principle equal pay for equal work was accepted in 1919 but was legally granted in 1970 with the passage of the Equal Pay Act in response to the Ford Dagenham strike in 1968. British women between the ages of 20 and 30 conscripted for war services for the first time in 1941. They also accounted for one-third of total workforce in heavy industries, railways and canals. Their dress became functional as they started wearing trousers or a one-piece siren suit.

Women benefitted considerably from the service sector expansion with the establishment of the welfare state in 1945. Women in most parts of advanced capitalist countries began to receive maternity leave with pay, adequate childcare facilities and day nurseries, holidays, pension, perks and bonus from the late 1970s. In Scandinavian countries there are state financed nurseries, paternity leave for fathers and they have the highest levels of women in the workforce. In India, women in the organized sector receive equal pay for equal work and, since 2008, two years of childcare leave.

Since 2016, single male parents too can avail of the same. However, pay parity remains elusive for the majority of working women. A study in 2017 noted that women in Britain face a 57 year wait to achieve pay parity. This is the case in the US, France and Japan too. Since the 1990s, women’s representation in decision making positions has seen a steady increase but remains insignificant and uneven.

Women legislators globally increased from 11.7 per cent in 1997 to 24.9 per cent in 2020. Only four countries have half or more women in parliament in single or lower houses. In 19 countries it is more than 40 per cent; nine in Europe, 5 in Latin America and the Caribbean, four in Africa and one in the Pacific. At the current rate gender parity in national legislatures would be attained only by 2063. As on 1 September 2021, there were 26 women who were Heads of State and/or Government in 24 countries.

At the current rate it is estimated that it would take another 130 years to attain gender equality in the highest positions of power. Women constitute 21 per cent of ministers with portfolios such as family, children, youth, elderly, social affairs, environment, and the like. However, some women have been part of what Cronin calls the inner cabinet which consists of state, defence, treasury. At this rate it is estimated that by 2077 gender parity in ministerial positions is likely. Women CEOs were 0.2 per cent in 1994. In 2019 this figure is 6.6 per cent. India has 14 per cent of women legislators in the 17th Lok Sabha elected in 2019. This is the highest since independence.

Women’s empowerment along with human rights, safety nets for all, environmental protection are on the political agenda of most countries made possible by the shift from political and security concerns to humanitarian, social and economic with the end of the Cold War. Women have achieved substantial progress towards equality and recognition. Occupations once considered exclusively male have opened up for women.

Gender segregation in jobs has been significantly reduced and so have pay gaps narrowed. Women are visible in corridors of power and decision making. This impressive progress led many to believe that feminism has become irrelevant with women having achieved their major demands. Faludi pointed out that in the late 1980s, roughly 63 per cent of American women did not consider themselves feminists not because they were free and equal but because of the fear of a backlash, particularly the stereotyping of career women in a negative manner.

It is also a fact that many fundamental problems raised by the early feminists have been resolved only partially and the attainment of gender equality is still unfinished business. New challenges have surfaced due to quick technological changes, rise of neoliberalism. and the Covid 19 pandemic. Women still face discrimination, exploitation, bias, and stereotyping, continuing violence, unequal pay for equal work, gross inequalities in domestic and child-care responsibilities.

Taking a cue from the petition of the Italian women submitted in the wake of the pandemic in 2020 to give them their rightful place, the need is to address gender inequalities along with other inequalities within a common notion of citizenship. This is a substantial challenge. Social reform, as pointed out by Eduard Bernstein is like the job of a housewife which is never-ending.

(The writer is Professor in Political Science, Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi)