Women in the 20th century

• • In the 20th century, women in Ireland faced significant legal and social restrictions: they could not vote, had limited property and education rights, and workplace discrimination was legal.
• Voting Rights

  • Suffrage: The campaign for women's voting rights. Women who campaigned for this were known as suffragettes.
• Education

  • The number of girls attending school increased in the 1800s due to Catholic religious orders. However, it wasn't until 1908 that all Irish universities opened to women.
  • By the early 20th century, women made up about 10% of university students, mainly from wealthy and middle-class backgrounds.
• Employment

  • Women were expected to marry and have children, with middle-class women often having (civil servants. Women who had jobs, such as national school teachers, had to leave them upon marriage.
  • Poorer women worked as domestic servants, street traders, or in the Belfast mills, earning lower wages than men. Rural women worked on farms and managed households.
• • The influence of feminism led to the formation of the Irish Women's Liberation movement in 1971 to campaign for women's rights.
  • By the end of the century, more women were involved in politics, e.g., Mary Robinson was elected

  President in 1990.
• '1932 marriage bar' was introduced:

  this meant that women automatically lost

  their jobs in the public service (for example

  as teachers or government officials)

  when they got married.
• (1936 )Conditions of Employment Act, which

  limited the number of women in any industry.
• • The Anti-Discrimination Act of 1974 banned paying men more for the same work.
  • Employment Equality Act of 1977 outlawed discrimination on the basis of sex

  or marital status.

  • The ban on contraception was lifted gradually in then abolished altogether in 1993.

  • Divorce was introduced in 1996.