A TIMELINE OF WOMEN
By Tim Lambert
1479-1458 Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh rules Egypt
1200 BC In Egypt women have a lot for freedom. They can own property and sign contracts but most work in the home.
c 600 BC Sappho a female poet lives
400 BC Women in Greece are very much second class citizens. It is felt in Greece that a woman's place is in they are ruled by their fathers, husbands of if widowed their sons. Marriages are arranged.
69-30 BC Cleopatra lives lives in Egypt
61 AD Boudicca, a Celtic queen leads a rebellion against the Romans in Britain
120 AD In Rome the father rules his family and he can divorce his wife for trivial reasons. However some women run their own businesses and there are female gladiators.
355-415 AD Hypatia, a female philosopher, mathematician and astronomer lives
700 AD In Saxon England upper class women have considerable freedom but poor women are sometimes slaves
1098-1179 The writer Hildegard lives
1200 After the Norman Conquest women in England have less freedom than in the Saxon era. However ordinary women have to work very hard and often help on farms as well as spinning wool and brewing beer.
1342-1416 The mystic Julian of Norwich lives
1364-1431 The writer Christine de Pisan lives
1412-1431 Joan of Arc lives
1527-1608 Bess of Hardwick lives. She becomes the richest woman in England after Elizabeth I
1527-1542 The poet Veronica Franco lives
1590 The position of women changes little during the 16th century. In the early 16th century some women are highly educated. Poor women work as spinners, dyers, washerwomen and tailoresses. However most are housewives who bake the families bread and brew their beer. They also make pickles, jellies and preserves. Rich women organise their husbands estates if he is on business and often merchants widows inherit his business. Except for the poor marriages are arranged.
1680 Rich girls go to boarding schools where they learn music and embroidery
1693 The first womens magazine The Ladies Mercury is published
1750-1848 The female astronomer Caroline Herschel lives
1775-1817 Jane Austen lives
1792 The position of women changes little during the 18th century but in this year Mary Wollstonecraft publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Women
c 1800 women first begin to wear knickers
1847 Chloroform is first used on a woman giving birth
1865 In Britain women are allowed to become doctors for the first time
1869 James Stuart Mill publishes The Subjection of Women. In Britain women are allowed to vote in local elections.
1884 Women first play at Wimbledon
1893 New Zealand is the first country in the world to allow women to vote in national elections
1895 Lilian Murray becomes the first woman in Britain to qualify as a dentist
1898 Ethel Charles becomes the first woman in Britain to qualify as an architect
1907 Women in Finland are the first in the world to become MPs
1908 Aldburgh becomes the first town in Britain to have a female mayor
1917 The Women's Royal Naval Service is formed
1918 In Britain women over 30 are allowed to vote
1919 In Britain the Sex Disqualification Act allows women to become lawyers, vets and civil servants. Britain gets its first female MP.
1930 Amy Johnson flies from Britain to Australia
1963 Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space
1973 In Britain women are allowed to join the stock exchange for the first time
1975 The Sex Discrimination Act makes it illegal to discriminate against women in employment, education and training.
1976 Mary Langdon becomes the first female fire fighter in Britain
1979 Margaret Thatcher becomes the first prime minister of Britain
1981 Gro Harlem Bruntland becomes the first prime minister of Norway
1984 Lichtenstein is the last European state to allow women to vote
1995 Pauline Clare becomes the first female chief constable in Britain