Women’s Liberation 50 Years On: Demanding Legal and Financial Independence

This is one of a series of three posts written to mark the 50th anniversary of the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) Conference in Edinburgh, and to connect the history of feminist activism with campaigning now. This is part of a larger project in which GENDER.ED and the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), at the University of Edinburgh, are partnering with Women’s History Scotland (WHS) and James Gillespie’s High School, where the conference was held 28-30 June 1974. In this post Louise Jackson examines the broad context that underpinned and informed the conference demand for women’s legal and financial independence.

In 1974 the UK Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) held its national conference in Edinburgh, with a key outcome the adoption of two ‘new’ demands for:

• legal and financial independence for all women;
• the right to a self-defined sexuality, including an end to discrimination against lesbians.

These 5th and 6th demands were added to four existing ones (set out at the first national conference at Ruskin College, Oxford in 1970) for:

• equal pay;
• equal educational and job opportunities;
• free contraception and abortion on demand;
• free 24-hour nurseries for children.

This post focuses on the 5th WLM demand for legal and financial independence, addressing three questions. To what extent was it ‘new’? Why was it considered so pressing in 1974? And what was the legacy of the 5th demand and thus the Edinburgh conference? It shows that, for much of the twentieth century, married women in the UK lacked legal and financial autonomy because of the persistence of the presumption that their identity was subsumed with that of husbands (to whom they were subordinate). This presumption had very real consequences. The ‘right to a self-defined sexuality’ – whilst a 6th demand in its own right – was also intrinsically connected to the demand for legal and financial independence: because it challenged the policy model, long maintained by the British state, which assumed an idealised family economy based on successful heterosexual marriage, childrearing and sex-determined roles. 

The WLM in historical context

The WLM was a grassroots movement which sought to end women’s oppression or ‘patriarchy’ (the unequal system of gender relations). Spreading from the USA by 1968, it was grounded in small, local, consciousness raising groups and direct-action methods of protest. Whilst it is always problematic to generalise, in the UK it was mostly a movement of younger women in their 20s and early-30s who had experienced the benefits of the immediate postwar welfare state as children, had become university students in the revolutionary atmosphere of the 1960s, and had been drawn to leftist politics but become aware of its sexism. Seeking very different lives to their mothers, they were impatient with the pace of change (Jolly 2019; Browne 2014). Most, but not all, of the women who were involved in consciousness raising groups were white, and a distinct Black Women’s movement emerged in London, Manchester and Liverpool from 1973 onwards (Thomlinson 2016).

Whilst it is common (and often useful) to identify separate ‘waves’ of feminism with distinctive characteristics – Edwardian suffrage campaigns as the ‘first’ and the 1970s WLM as the ‘second’ – this distorts the ways in which activism around gender equality has continued across time and traversed generations. The winning of women’s rights has been a very long, gradual and protected process spanning several centuries. Throughout, rights have been hard-won, requiring constant vigilance and defending, with set-backs and reversals along the way. Campaigns for legal and financial independence were at the heart from the very beginning. 

In 1800 married women’s legal and financial identity was almost entirely subsumed with that of a husband. Victorian activists began to erode this, through campaigning that led to landmark legislation such as the Infant Custody Acts of 1839 and 1873 and the Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870 and 1882 (Fredman 1997; Rackley and Achmuty 2020). At the same time, women were disqualified from voting on grounds of sex/gender and also - depending on context – marital status, a situation that was only remedied through the Equal Franchise Act of 1928 (which gave women votes on the same terms as men).

The marriage bar, which required women working as civil servants or teachers to resign on marriage was gradually lifted (as a result of campaigning) in the years after the Second World War, when professional women in these jobs also won equal pay with their male colleagues. Within industry, however, working-class women continued to be paid a female rate that was less than the rate for male employees.

In the 1950s dominant social attitudes still assumed that women’s aspirations in life, as well as their duties as citizens, were shaped by heterosexual marriage and motherhood. Women’s paid work was seen as useful when there were (male) labour shortages (as, for example, in wartime) and for single women. Upon marriage, however, women’s priority shifted to supporting husbands, rearing children, and domestic responsibilities. Famously the Beveridge Report of 1942, on which post-war welfare provision was modelled, had asserted: ‘During marriage most women will not be gainfully employed’ (Cmd.6404). If women worked part-time after marriage, it was assumed this would be for ‘pin money’ to supplement household expenses. In contrast married men were expected to be the main ‘breadwinner’ for families, with full-time employment a norm through which masculinity was defined. These ideals were not necessarily reflected in the actualities of men and women’s lives, but they acted as a powerful set of influences – and the idea of the male ‘breadwinner’ was used to justify differential rates of pay for men and women. In 1951 – and still, similarly, in 1971 – women in Great Britain earned, on average, 60% of what men earned in terms of the mean hourly rate.

This was the context in which those who became involved in the UK WLM were born and grew up. Women’s position was viewed, to a large degree, through marital status and dependency (legal and financially) on a husband. Indeed, heteronormativity was the foundation on which gender difference had been constructed.

Why 1974?

The Equal Pay Act 1970 – undoubtedly a pathbreaking piece of legislation for working-class women - had introduced the principle that men and women should have the same terms, conditions and rates of pay for ‘like work’ or ‘work rated as equivalent’. But this was not yet a requirement - since the Equal Pay Act was only due to come into operation on 29 December 1975 (after a five-year ‘implementation’ window). The Equal Pay Act was also extremely limited since it did not tackle discrimination at point of recruitment or in relation to training and promotions. Women’s organisations – across a very wide political spectrum – pressed for an anti-discrimination bill to accompany it. In June 1974 what was to become the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 was still at the earliest stages of being drafted, and it was unclear when a bill would be brought to Parliament.  

In 1974, therefore, employers could still legally pay men and women differently simply because of their sex. They could also indicate preference for male or female employees – and even specify marital status – in job adverts. Some only employed married women with their husbands’ written approval. Loans for household purchases, mortgages, tenancies, and other services required a male guarantor, with married women unable to make these contracts independently of husbands.  When the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 finally came into effect it prohibited these types of discrimination on grounds of sex and marriage in relation to education and training, employment and services – all important areas but far from all-encompassing. 

In June 1974, the WLM felt that women had been waiting far too long for legal change. Even if sex discrimination legislation was brought in by government, it would not be sufficient. The subsumption of married women’s legal and financial identity with that of their husbands was manifest across a range of state policy areas – including taxation, welfare (including access to council housing), family law and criminal justice. For example, married women’s earnings were incorporated into their husbands’ tax liability through the married man’s tax allowance (and continued to be so until 1990). More crucially, when it came to welfare benefits – which affected those least well off – any woman married to or cohabiting with a man was presumed to be financially dependent on him unless the man was incapable of self-support. Most controversially, rape in marriage (of a wife by a husband) was not recognised in law and thus not prosecutable, condoning sexual violence within marriage (until 1982 in Scotland and 1992 in England and Wales). These circumstances, together, limited women’s options and choices very profoundly, making it extremely difficult if not impossible to leave abusive relationships. It is unsurprising, therefore, that a further demand – for freedom from ‘violence or sexual coercion regardless of marital status’ – was added at the WLM conference in Birmingham in 1978.

As Mary McIntosh, who played an important role in formulating the 5th demand, explained:

‘Demands should represent long-terms goals and should serve to crystallise an understanding of the fundamental root of our oppression rather than its most immediately experienced form. This demand is one that not only expresses the indignity and servitude implied in women’s dependence on men, it also highlights the role of the state in creating and recreating this dependence.’ (Red Rag, Issue No 7, 1974, p.5)

For working-class women, the problem of legal and financial dependency was exacerbated by low pay (which has little to do with the Equal Pay Act), given that women’s labour was concentrated in lower paid industries. This was particularly acute for women of colour, who were often employed in the lowest paid jobs and worst conditions, facing discrimination on grounds of both race and sex; this was highlighted by South Asian women at the Imperial Typewriters factory in Leicester who were on strike across the summer of 1974.

Impact and legacy of the 5th demand

In England, the direct legacy of the adoption of the 5th demand was the creation of the organisation Rights Of Women (ROW) in 1975 – a powerful campaigning voice and advice service ever since, whose role has evolved across time. Jenny Earle, Project Officer and Coordinator in the early days (1977-1979), has said: 

‘Many women just didn’t know what their rights were or how to enforce them, how to challenge discrimination, and oppressive family law and child maintenance systems. That’s why our advice service was so important’ (Rights Of Women 2015). 

In 1982 ROW set up a Lesbian Custody Group to provide strategic advice to women who were experiencing discrimination in the family courts, where their sexual identity was used as grounds to judge them unfit parents following divorce or separation. Alongside other campaigning groups, ROW’s advocacy led to longer-term changes in case law on lesbian motherhood. Under the Directorship of Ranjit Kaur (2000-2007), ROW went on to develop a distinct role in providing specialist legal advice to women and girls affected by violence (where its focus now lies), and in supporting the specific needs of Black and Minority Ethnic women. 

In Scotland the 5th demand led to the creation of two Women’s Legal and Financial Independence Campaign Groups (in Edinburgh and Glasgow). Both educated women about their rights and advocated to change the taxation and welfare systems that made married/cohabiting women ‘second class citizens in the eyes of the state’ (Glasgow Women’s Legal and Financial Independence Group, 1976). In 1978 the groups came together to publish Scottish Women’s Charter, proposing a list of demands for any new Scottish Assembly should the referendum of that year result in devolution. Whilst devolved government had insufficient support in 1978, the charter was used as a campaigning tool to lobby local government, including around women’s housing needs and gender-based violence (Women’s Legal and Financial Independence Campaign Group for Scotland, 1978). More generally, a very significant legacy of the WLM in Scotland was the creation of Scottish Women's Aid in 1976, which continues to work across Scotland to end domestic violence by campaigning for rights, autonomy, and resources for women. 

Back to the future

Legal and financial independence – articulated as the 5th demand of the WLM in 1974 – remains central to feminist campaigning today. As we have seen, its origins go back much further to the work of Victorian and Edwardian pioneers – a thread that links past, present and feminist futures. 

Clearly, the specific meaning and interpretation of legal and financial independence has evolved and shifted across time, as law and policy has changed in response to the very considerable collaborative efforts of activists. In 1974 the 5th demand was framed as a direct critique of the marriage contract, which subsumed a woman’s identity with a husband’s and upheld the heterosexual patriarchal family as social norm. Since then, the law regarding marriage (and civil partnership) has been very significantly transformed. There have been notable shifts, too, in the criminal law on sexual violence and coercive control, although attrition rates for rape cases are alarmingly high.  

As in the 1970s, violence against women and girls in domestic and public spaces remains a pressing issue, as does access to housing (and to safe spaces) in the context of a cost-of-living crisis. 

Whilst the context has changed, knowledge of legal and financial rights and how to mobilise them are as crucial to women’s autonomy today as they were in 1974.   

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to Esther Breitenbach for sharing her vast knowledge of the women’s movement (and especially of the impact of the 5th demand in Scotland), and to Amy Life for her excellent research skills.

About the Author

Louise Jackson teaches social history at the University of Edinburgh and is the lead for the  Gender Equalities At Work project, funded by the AHRC.

Further Reading

Browne, Sarah (2014). The Women’s Liberation Movement in Scotland (Manchester University Press, 2014).

Campaign for Women’s Legal and Financial Independence in Scotland (1976). Scottish Women’s Charter (The Campaign)

Glasgow Women’s Legal and Financial Independence Group (1976). Women and Housing (The Group).

Jolly, Margaretta (2019). Sisterhood and After. An Oral History of the UK Women’s Liberation Movement, 1968 – Present (Oxford University Press).

Rackley, Erika, and Auchmuty, Rosemary (2020). The Case for Feminist Legal History. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 40(4), 878-904.

Thomlinson, Natalie (2016). Race, Ethnicity and the Women’s Movement, 1968-1993. Palgrave.

Fredman, Sandra (1994). Women and the Law. Oxford University Press.

Rights of Women (2015) Celebrating 40 Years, 1975-2015.   http://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.rightsofwomen.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/row-anniversary-timeline-final.pdf [accessed 27 May 2024]