The Story of Women and Power

In 1649, when a group of women march on Parliament to petition the government, they are told to stay home and wash dishes. Mary Wollstonecraft argues for equality among the sexes, and Hannah More gets women out of the house to teach Sunday school. Working-class Manchester women are viciously attacked during a massive peaceful demonstration.

When Queen Victoria takes the throne, not one of her female subjects can vote. She declares women’s rights a “mad, wicked folly.” A prime minister’s spurned mistress wins child-custody rights for mothers, and a Cambridge undergraduate proves that girls can be better than boys at math. Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters start the suffragette movement.

Frustrated Edwardian suffragettes resort to violence. Backroom deals grant the vote to some women, but not all. A woman launches the Women’s National Anti-Suffrage League. The first female MP takes her place in the House of Commons, and Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female prime minister. Equal rights for women are the law, but equal power and status remain elusive.