Even if you don’t count childcare and domestic duties, many women throughout history have worked in some capacity and particularly those among the working classes. However there certainly were not the equal opportunities in the workplace that we might expect today – and even in countries that we would now consider socially liberal, women were prevented outright from holding certain positions.

In particular, it was considered improper for a woman to continue working in certain professions once she was married. This was called a marriage bar, and it was common in many western countries from the late 19th century to as recently as the 1970s. In the UK, marriage bars meant that married women couldn’t work for Foreign Service until 1973 and the British Geographical Survey until 1975. Teaching and working for the BBC were also professions that prohibited married women, although these bars were removed earlier – in 1944.

According to a 1946 article in The Spectator, arguments in favour of marriage bars at the time included the idea that “the employment of married women takes employment from those who need it more” and “married women are less reliable and less ‘mobile’ than unmarried”.

In accordance with the Employment of Women, Young Persons, and Children Act 1920, working overnight was once illegal for women in Britain.

That women were barred from the night shift might seem surprising today, but in the early to mid-20th century people considered the ban to be progressive. According to Maurice Edelman, MP for Coventry North, the act was “designed to protect women, among others, from the gross exploitation which so many of them had had to endure during the Industrial Revolution”.

• Read more | Women’s lives during the Industrial Revolution

Edelman was speaking in a debate about Factory Night Work held in December 1969, in which the question of women working overnight was raised. “I hope nobody will imagine that to protect women from exploitation by limiting their right to work in inferior conditions in any way impinges on the principle of equal pay or equality of opportunity,” he explained. “No civilised person would want women to work underground in pits.”

The Trade Union Congress – who were also strongly against the idea of women working at night – suggested that women should be shielded from the perceived evils of night work because many of them were married and effectively working a multitude of jobs (keeping a house and husband as well as looking after children). Nowadays, both genders can partake in the night shift, although those between the ages of 16 and 17 are not allowed to work between midnight and 4am.

Until 1982, it was legal for the proprietor of a British pub to refuse service to a woman – and not because she’d had enough alcohol already, but simply because of her sex. Some pubs were entirely ‘men-only’, but even those that were not exclusively male generally wouldn’t allow female customers to go in alone. Instead, they would sit in a dedicated snug – a separate room with frosted windows – to wait to be served or for drinks to be brought to them by their male companions.

It was the Industrial Revolution that changed the dynamic of pubs, which historically had been more inclusive. With multitudes of working men pouring out of the factories, mills and mines, it was deemed necessary for them to have their own watering holes. This established such an unwelcoming precedent that the sight of a woman standing at a bar usually came to mean she was a prostitute.

The landmark change wouldn’t come until the early 1980s. A solicitor named Tess Gill and journalist, Anna Coote, were banned from El Vino on Fleet Street, London, just for standing up alongside their male colleagues, rather than sitting at the back. They decided enough was enough, took their case to the Court of Appeal and won, calling time on the sexist practice.

The original Olympic Games in ancient Greece were all-male affairs and the introduction of the modern Games in 1896, held in Athens, saw no difference. Its organiser, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, had previously declared that the participation of women would be “impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic and incorrect” – although fortunately this was an attitude that did not prevail.

Perhaps Coubertin had a change of heart, as women were permitted to take part at the very next games in Paris four years later – albeit in a limited capacity. Of the 997 athletes present at the 1900 Olympics, just 22 were women. They competed in five sports: tennis, sailing, croquet, equestrian and golf.

Women’s involvement in the Olympics has steadily increased throughout the 20th century, although there are still a handful of sports in which there are still no female athletes (decathlon, Greco-Roman wrestling, and one-person dinghy (heavyweight). Since 1991, all new sports joining the programme are obliged to include women’s events, but it wasn’t until London 2012 that every participating country fielded female athletes for the first time.

In 1967, Kathrine Switzer officially entered the Boston Marathon, one of the most significant events in the long-distance running calendar (and the oldest annual marathon in the world). This would be an unremarkable incident today, but at the time women were banned from running the race. Even Switzer’s coach, Arnie Briggs, thought the distance too far for a “fragile woman” to complete, although he did concede that she would be a decent candidate for the task.

To circumvent the archaic ban, Switzer used her initials rather than her first name on her entry race form to appear ambiguous about her sex. She was entered into the race under the number 261 and finished the marathon in four hours and 20 minutes. This would be considered a respectable time for many runners – but is perhaps even more impressive considering the race’s manager, Jock Semple, at one point attempted to physically remove Switzer’s race number during the run. Women continued to be banned from running the Boston marathon for a further five years.