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Period: to
evolution of women's rights in the English Speaking Countries
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1961 - Introduction of the contraceptive pill
4 December 1961 The contraceptive pill was launched in 1961. The pill suppresses women's fertility using the hormones progestogen or oestrogen (or both). In 1961 it was available to married women only, but availability was extended in 1967. The impact was revolutionary for women and men but also revealed that sexual liberation did not always mean women's liberation, as Beatrix Campbell describes. -
Married Women's Property Act revision
The Married Women's Property Act was first introduced in 1870. It allowed women to be the legal owners of money they earned, and to inherit property. Prior to this Act, everything a woman owned or earned became her husband's property when she married. Revisions in 1882 and 1893 extended married women's rights. The 1964 revision allowed married women to keep half of any savings they'd made from the allowance paid to them by their husbands. -
Period: to
Abortion Act
The 1967 Act legalised abortion in the UK, for women who were up to 24 weeks pregnant. Two consenting doctors had to agree that continuing the pregnancy would be harmful either to the woman's physical or mental health, or to the child's physical or mental health when it was born. -
National WLM conference, Oxford
- Equal pay
- Equal educational and job opportunities
- Free contraception and abortion on demand
- Free 24-hour nurseries
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Greater London Council's Women's Committee formed
The Greater London Council (GLC) was the local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. In 1982 Valerie Wise became the chair of the newly formed GLC Women's Committee.