Throughout history, women’s rights activists have made significant steps forward in ensuring the safety and protection of women's bodies and legal rights. In 1928, women were officially given the right to vote over the age of 21. In 1970, the Equal Pay Act followed by the Sex Discrimination Act in 1975, allowed women more independence and equality in their careers. By 1991, marital rape was made an illegal offence. However, in any society there are always dark pockets of oppression and discrimination, but just how many are there? In this article, I am going to look at sexism over the last three centuries, and answer the question: have opinions on women really changed, or is our oppression just exercised differently?
Women's roles in the 1800s were defined, quite simply, as servants, meant to fit the role of mother and housewife. Girls could not access higher education, almost all schools for women teaching courses in domestic tasks such as sewing or music. Education was thought unnecessary for women, who needed to focus solely on honouring and obeying her husband. Even with marriage as women's primary goal, it was still heavily centred around the man. A women's property became her husband's the second they married, and this only changed with the Married Women’s Property Act in 1870. Perhaps most objectifying is that in a case where a married women had been raped; it was seen as a property violation against her husband, not a violation of basic human decency. In 1875, the age of consent was just 13 before it increased to 16 ten years later. Rape was already a difficult conviction to pass, but it was particularly difficult for working class women, who were defined by their class, and were therefore disregarded in the Victorian era. Overall, women's roles in this era were defined by their need to serve their husbands. Defining them as property and limiting their education isolated and controlled them, allowing men to oppress and exercise power over them.
The 1900s saw big steps forward for women's rights. A well-known women's rights movements was the Suffragettes. Using hunger strikes and chaining themselves to the House of Commons, the Suffragettes were loud and determined advocates for their own rights. Founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst it was originally called the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), before it split after the Second World War. One of the most famous cases was when a WSPU member, Emily Davison, threw herself in front of the King's horse at the Epson derby in 1913, killing herself in the process. Even with the Suffragettes' sacrifices and the reforms made for gender equality, sexism was still rife. Many working-class women were servants for the rich, and men often turned to them for a sexual partnership. By the 1950s having a submissive housewife was still the ideal for most men. However there was change. In 1928 women over 21 were given the right to vote in the UK, and by 1975 women could open bank accounts in their own name. The Sex Discrimination Act and Equal Pay Act in the 1970s gave women further independence and allowed more freedom in their careers, a massive change from the Victorian era's views on women's education. While the Edwardian era was a significant period of change for women's rights, discrimination against women was still evident in the workplace and in the family. Even if the maltreatment of women was illegal, evidence suggests that opinions on women and their role in society still hadn't evolved much from the passive servants they were always defined as.
Nowadays, attacks on women have taken a more violent nature, and cases of femicide have gone largely unnoticed by society and the media. Online movements, like the Incel movement, promote the removal of women's human rights by accusing women of being responsible for men's apparent oppression in society. Men are encouraged to take the ‘red pill’, which will open their eyes to the cruel, matriarchy that they live in. The way these groups see it, their unhappiness is caused by women's freedom, and the logical solution is to remove independence from this group. This ideology is spread across hundreds of forums, including YouTube, Facebook and Reddit. What's worrying is that they don't seem to be policed in any way. With thousands of subscribers to preach to, Incel advocates for the sexual assault of women and girls because they are guilty of depriving men of their God given right to sex. By developing their own slang, such as ‘foids’ (female humanoids), Incel are slowly dismantling years of progress on women's equality in society. With the development of technology, it is easier to post your thoughts online as it's become easier to switch between real life and online life. This means that beliefs like those of Incels are not only easily accessible, but also easier to voice.
This begs the question: with thousands of men preaching about their shared hatred of women, have opinions on women's role and purpose in society really changed? Of course they have. Women would not have been able to make as much progress without the support of men, who believe us as equals. However, now with tech, Incels and those alike have a new, safer platform to spread their hatred, and there is an alarming rise in men who attack women online and in real life. By victimising men, the manosphere draws in young boys using fear to convince them women are a threat that they probably weren't even aware of. And it would be a grave mistake to disregard this online movement as a joke. In fact, many cases of femicide have been linked to Incel forums, where the perpetrator has already stated how he wants to violently harm women. Despite progress, these views continue to exist and through the emergence of new technology they are more easily spread.