Briefing [02/04/1984]
From the collection of
From the collection of
In a desert of unemployment, women are hardest hit. But are they fighting against themselves?
Nearly a decade after the Sex Discrimination Act was passed, women were still struggling to secure well-paid, skilled work. Half of women with children had jobs, but for the vast majority it was low-grade factory piece work with no hope of advancement. The marriage bar - a rule which allowed employers to sack any female employee as soon as she married, or refuse employment to any married female applicant - had been lifted incrementally through the 1960s and early 1970s, but its legacy of discrimination lingered.
Emma Nicholson, now Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, was a Conservative member of parliament who switched to the Liberal Democrats and served as an MEP. She returned to the Conservative party in 2016.
An edition of the Tyne Tees Television current affairs programme Briefing, which primarily consists of an in-studio discussion on women's rights and opportunities in the workplace.