Ninety years since women got equal voting rights, these are the milestones we still need to aim for
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By Sophie Walker
Today marks 90 years since women got equal voting rights to men. Given that this year we have focused on celebrating 100 years of suffrage to a first group of largely white and educated women, this alternative commemoration is a chance to remember that equal rights are not equal if some women must wait longer – and redouble our efforts on behalf of all.
The gap between partial and universal suffrage is an echo from the past that activists of today must heed. Because that gap is one into which too many women are still falling: working-class women, women of colour, disabled women, lesbian women, migrant women, refugee women.
I recently asked two women of colour what they thought of the women’s movement today. One looked at me consideringly and said: ‘Nothing. It’s a Western concept for white women.’ The other said: ‘It makes me think of a rolling snow boulder – never going in a straight line but picking up bits and bobs along the way. Expanding, but never uniformly.’
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