Tuesday 15 April 2014

Reasons to Be Cheerful 11

No legal existence
“A married woman in England has no legal existence.” (Caroline Norton, divorce campaigner, 1855)

“In the early 80s you needed to be married and have a doctor’s prescription to buy a condom [in Ireland].” (Mick Nugent)


1834 Six farm labourers from Tolpuddle are sentenced to be transported to Australia for forming a trade union
1871 Trade unions legalised

1916 British Summer Time Act

In 1900, Native Americans were not considered citizens.
In the 20s Nome, Alaska was racially segregated.
1924 US Indian Citizenship Act grants full citizenship to Native Americans (and schools in Alaska are desegregated)
1950s Schools are desegregated in the US

1968 Dawn Langley Simmons, born Gordon Langley Hall, weds in the first legal interracial marriage in South Carolina.

1976 A women’s cricket match at Lords’ is televised for the first time

1982 El Vino’s wine bar in Fleet Street lifts its ban on women ordering and drinking at the bar

Early 90s divorce was still illegal in Ireland.
1993 Homosexuality legalised in Ireland

In 2010… the NHS funded... five homeopathic hospitals; today all have either closed or faced a serious threat to their existence… Prescriptions [fell] from a high of 170,000 per annum in 1996 to just over 10,000 last year. (Guardian April 2014)

2014 MPs call for prostitution to be legalised, but demand tough new penalties on pimps.
2014 China may opt for two-child policy in future, says senior official.
2014 It’s suggested that psychological abuse should be made a crime.
2014 Anne Hidalgo is elected as first female mayor of Paris.
2014 Nuts magazine is to close as sales drop from 300,000 to 50,000 in 10 years.

And we no longer think it's OK to keep zoo animals in tiny concrete enclosures.


LESS THAN CHEERFUL
2010 Ireland passes blasphemy law (punishable by fine of up to E25,000) The 1936 constitution extends the protection of belief to Christians only.
And schools are still segregated by religion in Northern Ireland.
There are still subsidised bars in the Houses of Parliament.

More here, and links to the rest.

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