Services for Love: Forwards or Backwards was made by the Autonomous Women’s Movement in Vorarlberg and is a DIY board game you could cut out of Orgon magazine printed in 1985. The game aims to create greater awareness of gender roles by presenting bold and ironic depictions of typical gender roles.

This game is from the Second Wave of the Women’s Movement.

In the mid-19th century, the First Wave of the Women’s Movement began to fight for women’s fundamental political and civil rights, such as the right to vote. For a very long time, however, many of their demands remained unfulfilled.

In the late 1960s, the Second Women’s Movement emerged, criticizing the discrimination women experienced in their everyday lives, in the family and at work.

“The personal is political” was a central slogan of the movement. They sought to create awareness for the injustices women suffered due to inequality, also those that they experienced “behind closed doors”, and to show that such treatment of women is harmful for the society as a whole.

More and more individuals and groups have stood up against oppression and different types of discrimination since the late 1960s. Thus, the rules of the game of democracy have also changed. Often through taking direct action, activists have reached out to the public through demonstrations, sit-ins, street theatre, flyering, vigils and picketing in public spaces.

Such actions have often forced the government, or even the Parliament, to respond to their demands. As a result, several discriminatory laws have been successfully abolished and new state legislation proposed to provide better protection for discriminated groups.

Such examples clearly show that human rights and fundamental rights are not simply given, but that they are hard won—and time and time again it is important to make use of democratic means to fight discrimination and inequality.