12 moments that changed women’s history forever

We probably think of women’s history in terms of several major milestones, but the truth is that these milestones have all been hard-won by years of back-breaking, often unrecognised labour by scores of activists and ordinary women. While these major moments, from the Australia to India to Saudi Arabia and beyond, are incredible and should be celebrated, they’re all steps along the path to equality, and we have a long way to go.

This Australian state was an early adopter in allowing women to cast their ballots in national elections. The South Australian Parliament passed a constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote in December of 1894, which meant women could vote in the following year’s elections. The battle was hard-won. Women had reportedly fought for a decade to make this historical event happen. Although New Zealand was the first self-governing country in the world to allow all women to vote in parliamentary elections (in 1893), women were not allowed to stand for election there until 1919. As the South Australian amendment allowed women to stand for election from 1895, South Australia became the first electorate in the world to grant equal political rights to men and women.

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Former President John F. Kennedy backed amending the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act in the US so that women could be paid the same wages as men performing the same job. This act aimed to put a stop to sex-based wage discrimination, although we haven’t seen that happen yet. US women on average are paid $0.82 cents to every $1 earned by white, non-Hispanic men (the largest demographic), and women of colour earn even less: on average, Latina women earn $0.55 and Black women earn $0.63 to every $1 earned by a white, non-Hispanic man. Globally, women earn on average just 68% of what men are paid for the same work, and just 40% on average in countries with the least gender parity, according to the World Economic Forum notes. Even when earners in similar demographics, such as ethnicity and level of education are compared, the gender wage gap persists, consistently showing that women earn less money than men, retire with less money than men, and have more student debt than men (it’s a lot harder to pay off your loans when you’re earning less money!) Clearly, there is a lot of work left to do.

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Probably one of the most contentious court rulings regarding women’s rights over the last 75 years, Roe v. Wade handed the difficult decision of whether to end a pregnancy over to the woman who is pregnant. Courts, doctors, politicians and other individuals could no longer make that decision for them, according to this US Supreme Court ruling. This law has been contested ever since, with many individual states seeking to make it more difficult for women to make this choice despite the federal ruling.

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China’s New Marriage Law in 1980 granted certain rights to women during the legal contract of marriage: Women needed to be 18 years or older to marry, both parties had to consent, and the courts could reject marriages with ulterior motives (such as human trafficking and arranged marriages). Under the New Marriage Law, divorce proceedings started to consider women’s rights, including child custody and division of property.

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In 2003, Japan declared the ambitious goal of aiming to have 30 percent of senior-level government jobs in the country held by women by 2020. Apparently, it was too ambitious, because it was later revised to seven percent, taking into account the lack of an uptick a few years into the new initiative. Government officials blamed the slow pace of cultural shifts. Hopefully, one day Japan will be in the same position as Paris, France: In 2020, the city was fined 90,000 euros for appointing too many women (11, or 69%) to senior government positions. Only five men were appointed, and the imbalance violated a rule that at least 40% of positions should go to people of each gender. The city paid the fine, and the rule has since been amended.

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The terror – and unfortunate reality – of young girls up to the age of 15 having their genitals mutilated came to a halt in 2012 (at least on paper) when the United Nations called on citizens worldwide to stop the practice, which has been most common in countries throughout Asia, the Middle East and Africa, affecting as many as 200 million girls and women. Thanks to increased awareness of this physically and emotionally scarring practice, February 6 was named International Day of Zero Tolerance.

Imagine being a woman in this Middle Eastern country and needing a man to give you a lift for simple errands like picking up groceries at the market or visiting a friend. In fall 2017, the Saudi Arabian government lifted the ban on female drivers; it took effect in June 2018.

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Another sign of the modernisation of India was a Supreme Court ruling in October 2017 that deemed rape of a female under the age of 18 (even if the minor is a child bride) illegal. Further, being charged with this crime can result in a ten-year prison sentence. This ruling helps discourage the tradition of child brides and speaks to the country’s attempt to create more equal marriages (age-wise, at the very least).

It’s hard to believe, but up until the summer of 2017, a male rapist in Lebanon could be exonerated if he married his rape victim. In August, Lebanon’s Parliament finally repealed this ancient and horrific law at the urging of Lebanese and international women’s rights activists.