This period sees many legislative gains for women, and the rise of neoliberalism and free market economies (helping the rich get richer). Women's Studies become entrenched in the academy (before dropping off in the turn of the millenium), and many services provided by the Women's Liberation Movement move into the voluntary sector in order to stabilise (thus becoming precariously reliant on government funding, as in the case of Rape Crisis Centres).

The pace of globalization is accelerated through the rise of multi-national corporations, consumer capitalism, and increased Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). Our economy shifts from manual to service work, and the off-shore use of cheap labour abroad compounds unethical work conditions for a global workforce (such as Primark's cheap clothing, produced illegally by child labourers in India).

Young girls become increasingly sexualised and targeted as a new consumer market - such as Playboy's expansion into single duvets, pencil-cases, keyrings and mini bags -- all aimed at young women and girls as a fashion brand (somehow managing to side-step public outrage that a pornography company is selling pink, glittery products to young girls and normalising the sex industry as fashion accessory).

Women make many social gains and move into more positions of power from the 1980s onwards (although not always championing women's rights or a feminist cause or attacking power structures from within, unfortunately). In their tenth year anniversary issue, feminist magazine Everywoman produces a chronology of women's achievements from 1985-1995. Ten years after that, The Fawcett Society - a liberal campaigning group seeking gender parity in the public sphere - publishes a thirty year report  on women's socio-economic gains from 1975. The sense of feminist dis-identification by the public at large is captured in a Equal Opportunities Commission report, Talking Equality. Women's subordination in many areas of daily life continues.

 
Chronology (please note this is under construction)

 1979
[May] Conservatives win the General Election with an overall UK majority of 43. Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain's first woman Prime Minister.

 1980
* The Government agrees to site American Cruise missiles at Greenham Common and Molesworth.

 1981
* Ronald Reagan inaugurated as President of the United States of America
* British Nationality Act passed, making all who cannot prove 'close connection' to Britain subject to immigration control. Negatively affects black and Asian immigrants and families already in Britain.
* [January] 'New Cross fire' in which 14 fourteen young black people were killed in a suspected racist arson attack
* Confrontations between police and young black people in Brixton, Moss Side, Handsworth, Wolverhampton, Smethwick, Birmingham and Toxteth in the headlines, following years of racist policing in these areas.

 1982
[2 April- 14 June] Britain and Argentina at war after Argentina tried to re-occupy the Falkland Islands/Malvinas.
* 20,000 women 'Embrace the Base' at Greenham Common in an anti-Cruise protest.
* The Matrimonial Homes (Family Protection) (Scotland) Act 1981 comes into effect, giving women who experience domestic violence the right for the first time to exclude an abusive partner from the home. 

 1983
* Conservatives elected for a second term of office with an overall majority of 144 seats.

1984
* [March 1984- 3 March 85] The Miners' Strike starts with the threatened closure of  20 coal mines - coal being a nationalized industry - and the loss of 20,000 jobs (particularly in Wales and North England). Regional strikes turn into a national strike (without ballot), under the leadership of Arthur Scargill of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). This is deemed illegal. Miners receive no state benefits and survive on hand-outs and collective aid (including the strong support networks of the Miners' Wives). Other unions work in tandem with the Government to topple the strike; brutality exists on both sides - police violence and the man-slaughter of a taxi-driver escorting a working (so-called 'scab') miner. Due to poverty, miners returned to work. The coal industry was privatised in December 1994.

1985
* Mikhail Gorbackev becomes Soviet leader.
* Balwant Kaur murdered by her husband at Brent Asian Women's Refuge, police accused of not providing adequate protection.

1986
* Fire breaks out in a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power station, causing the world's worst nuclear disaster. 

1987

* Diane Abbott first black woman MP (Labour) to be elected to the House of Commons
* Conservatives elected for a third term of office.
* On 'Black Monday' the stock market crashes with 10% wiped off the value of shares. 

1988
* Immigration Act passed, which removed the right of wives and children of Commonwealth citizens settled in the UK before 1 January 1973 to enter the UK (repeal of Section 1 (5) of the 1971 Act)
* George Bush is elected 41st President of the United States of America.

1989
* In China, students are shot by troops in Tiananmen Square, Peking.
* East Germany allows its citizens to cross the Berlin Wall.