Living in Suffrage

By marriage, the personal identity of the woman is lost. Her person is completely sunk in that of her husband, and he acquires an absolute mastery over her person and effects. Hence her complete disability to contract legal obligations; and except in the event of separation by divorce, or other causes, a married woman in the United Kingdom cannot engage in trade.

- Leone Levi, International Commercial Law, 1863

Back in High School we eventually got round to studying 20th Century history. I say eventually, because South African history lessons seemed to consist of one topic which we studied every damn year: the Great Trek, which involved the long journey by ox wagon of Dutch settlers from the Cape to the Transvaal and beyond. How exciting! Oh, and when they'd run out of Great Trek things to talk about, they would teach us about the Anglo-Boer War (known simply as the Boer War here in the UK). Which, according to our Afrikaner teachers, the Boers won. The British have a slightly different opinion on that matter, but I digress.

But finally, in Standard 7 (age 14), we were taught some history that seemed relevant; events that had happened within living memory. World War II was recent enough that my grandparents had lived through it. But we had a brief foray into the Suffrage Movement which occurred around World War I, and in doing so our history teacher painted a picture of life for women before Suffrage.

And what an awful existence it must have been. At least, for people like me.

Our history teacher explained that in most societies, and certainly in ours, women had practically no rights before Suffrage. Whilst women in most Western societies gained the right to vote around World War I, the emancipation of women was actually a slow process spanning most of the 19th and 20th Centuries, and in my opinion there is still a long way to go before women are truly considered equal to men.

With very few exceptions, a 19th-Century woman could not choose to have a career as a professional. Heck, up to 1870, women in the UK had no right to own property; even if they inherited property from their father, it would automatically belong to her husband. Up until relatively recently women had no individual rights: they were not entitled to the same education as men; they could not work in most professions; they could not vote; they couldn't even instigate a divorce.

A woman's place was squarely in the home and she was expected to cook, clean and raise the children. There were no other prospects for most women. Women were considered intellectually inferior to men and this was used as an excuse for treating them so shabbily. And if someone was unfortunate enough to be born female, that was the fate that awaited you, whether you wanted it or not.

When I learned these unpalatable facts I hadn't yet figured out that I'm transgender - that would take about another five years - but I knew I was desperately uncomfortable with the idea of being female. I listened to these lessons on pre-World-War-I society and I thought about what life must have been like for those women back then. What a nightmare, I thought. Imagine being unable to choose your own destiny. Imagine being forced into marriage and childbearing (with the enormous risks associated with that before the 20th Century) because that's the only way you can survive. Well, that or prostitution. How else could you have a roof over your head or food in your stomach?

And I thought: with my discomfort at being female-bodied, how would I have coped back then? Could I have found a way to be happy or satisfied with my life under such circumstances?

The answer was: I would've fucking killed myself. There was no way in hell I could possibly live such a life. I wouldn't be able to cope at all with being forced to be subservient and obedient to some guy who would have complete control over my person, my finances and my future. The thought of being a housewife is an absolute nightmare to me.

Luckily I was born in the 1970s, so the very idea of such a society seemed ridiculously archaic to me. That having been said, my parents were rather old-fashioned in their expectations for their kids. My father made it perfectly clear that he expected my brother to go to university and then go on to a professional career; but he made it equally clear that he wouldn't bother sending me to university because he expected me to just marry and pop out kids whilst being supported by a husband who'd have a professional career. Uh, Dad... what fucking century were you born in again? And do you actually know me?

Anyway, my brother dropped out of university but became a successful computer programmer instead, thanks to my mother paying for a programming course when he passed out of the Army. And as for me? I've done some university studies in my spare time, and have become a respected IT Manager at a multi-million-pound company. All without the help of my parents, but particularly without the help of my father.

Oh, and I wound up getting married and popping out a couple of babies anyway, whilst being the chief breadwinner for our household. But not because I had to. I'm so grateful that I wasn't born 100 years earlier when my prospects would've been so very different.