MNers who were woman-ing the barricades and burning bras to enable us to win the right to have oral contraceptives, rights at work and the rest - come and tell me about Feminism in the 70s and 80s!

The key date in this period was 1976 when the first workplace equality legislation was brought in. Before that it was legal to pay different rates for exactly the same job. Also employers could before that require you to resign or downgrade you on marriage.

I think it was also in the 70s that they stopped routinely requiring single women to find a third party guarantor (usually her father) as part of a mortgage application.

I was a bit young for those campaigns, but was around for the change of sexual attitudes with the discovery of AIDS, when men first were faced with deadly serious consequences.

I managed not to fall pregnant before I wanted to, but a friend had two terminations in the late 70's. It seemed quite easy for her to get them, though she had her mother onside, which I guess helped.

I'm not particularly inspirational, but I was around in the '70's and '80's. We already had the right to contraception when I was a teenager, though it wasn't always easy to access; the first GP I asked (and I girded my loins to do so, he played golf with my dad every week!) said he didn't believe in giving the Pill to girls under 17 (I was 16), so I had to repeat the entire experience with his partner, a known sleaze. Then I had to travel to my nearest big city to get the prescription filled, because my dad was the local pharmacist - but that was a personal issue, not a common one, obviously.

Rights at work... we didn't really have many. I recall my dad opening a new shop about 1975, and going through letters of application for jobs at the dining room table. Any applications from "Mrs" anyone were binned right away, (probable childcare issues) are were applications from women in their early twenties "because they'll just get married and go off and have babies". This from a father of three daughters! One of the many things I regret about his early death is that I never really got to discuss those issues with him as an adult. :(

Even as late as 1987, when I gave birth to DS1, I had virtually no maternity rights. You had to have been employed for two years by so many weeks before your expected date of delivery, and I missed it by a day or so. (An inaccurate scan, as it annoyingly turned out later, but hey ho!) As for help with childcare expenses, flexible working etc, nope, none of that.