100 Years of Women's Rights - The Race for Equality Continues

ALL Women and Girls: A 100 year legacy of Rights, Equality and Empowerment

By Alma Sheren, Greenacre Group

100 years ago, empowerment meant something very different for a woman or girl.

100 years ago women were finally allowed to vote – but only if over 30 years old and possessing specific property rights. 100 years ago women and girls fought hard against a coal-choked society attempting to push them back-in-a box, irreversibly prised open by a large, gnarly shard of shrapnel left over from the first world war.

Epsom salts replaced by the consuming fumes of the Epsom Derby, the horse had bolted. They could no longer stop the movement nor wipe away the warpaint of cemented, industrial strength suffrage blood smeared across their faces.

100 years ago women and girls were writing the first chapter of a sexual revolution that would go on to occupy and define their story through the 60s and 70s. 100 years ago women and girls were wielding their batons as they led the first leg of the race for equality, their offensively short skirts flapping confrontationally in the prevailing wind. Deep red lipstick and thin, sharp pencilled eyebrows like spears, they thundered forward.

50 years ago empowerment meant something very different for a woman or girl.

50 years ago a woman could finally walk into a bank and open an account in her own name, or apply for a mortgage, without being asked for a male guarantor – in theory. 50 years ago, women and girls stabbed back at the patriarchy with pins pulled from their daughters’ cloth nappies, and wore them as trophies across ripped fishnets, catching shoals of dropped jaws and floundering haddock – the antidote to mother’s little helper and sweet Fanny Cradock.

50 years ago was declared ‘International Women's Year’, and thousands of feminists awakened with a roar, to take the second leg. Grasping the magic wand, alit with the fuel-soaked tapers of burning bras, and thrusting forward, they declared gender based entitlement a phallic-y.

25 years ago empowerment meant something not so different for a woman or girl.

25 years ago women and girls were still fighting against workplace discrimination, gender-based violence, and sexual harassment. 25 years ago women who identified as LGBTQ+ faced additional challenges, including discrimination and violence based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.

25 years ago women and girls were too burnt out to burn their bras, exhausted by the relentless marathon of continuous suff-RAGE. Riding the millennium wheel like hamsters in a cage, they raced the rats towards a disappearing finish line - juggling all the balls as they ran.

25 years ago ALL women, ALL girls were a melting pot of bravery and resilience, fluid in their audacity, global in their momentum, falling back to scoop and catch those too tired to continue, never leaving anyone behind. 25 years ago ALL women, ALL girls shouted louder for those who could no longer be seen or heard, and thrust the baton high as they ran, shouting the war cry so that ALL women ALL girls could see they were not alone.

In 2025 empowerment means something not so different for a woman or girl.

In 2025 the gallery of Tate spits crayons of hate towards women and girls who dare to reject their advances at the invisible auction. In 2025 sisters in veils look towards the Western front in sadness, as they survey a familiar scene. In 2025, the thinly masked, thin lipped, sand-swept desert is eroding the road where the race ends, encasing it in a dangerous orange glow as the sun sets low.

In 2025 ALL women's and girls' rights are once again being threatened. In every corner of the world, from the Far East to the Far West, how Far will our Rights be eroded before we see the gravity of what’s ahead? In 2025 the baton is still being carried, it should have been a finished race. But in 2025, the anchor leg. The anchor leg. Is becoming further and further away instead.