IN 1928 the franchise was extended to all women over 21. In 1970 the Equal Pay Act was ushered in by Barbara Castle. For me these are the two most notable parliamentary actions to pave the way for equal rights for women.
I feel utterly privileged to be living in 2018. But then I was also part of the post-war baby boom that saw the introduction of the NHS; that was given a grant to study at university; that saw the post-war building programme that gave us a council house with indoor toilets.
The NHS is still valued but do we value it enough? Surely we must aim to bring back student grants, and be more ambitious in council house building. Even our language has changed for the worse. To me “council housing”’ is much more egalitarian than “social housing”. We’ve gone backwards not forward.
The best way we can honour the memory of the suffragettes is by working together to make Scotland a place where equality is taken for granted, where it has become the norm. There’s still a long way to go and, dare I say it, perhaps we women can teach our children what is and what is not acceptable behaviour. Perhaps we can also accept that we’ll need to work to change things – and the best place to start is by making sure we play our part in working towards independence, since that’s the only way we’ll be able to take control of what our future will be.
Catriona Grigg
Embo
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