[1] The act enabled women to join the professions and professional bodies, to sit on juries and be awarded degrees.

[2] The basic purpose of the act was, as stated in its long title, "to amend the Law with respect to disqualification on account of sex", which it achieved in four short sections and one schedule.

Its broad aim was achieved by section 1, which stated that: A person shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage from the exercise of any public function, or from being appointed to or holding any civil or judicial office or post, or from entering or assuming or carrying on any civil profession or vocation, or for admission to any incorporated society (whether incorporated by Royal Charter or otherwise), [and a person shall not be exempted by sex or marriage from the liability to serve as a juror] ...[3]The Crown was given the power to regulate the admission of women to the civil service by Orders in Council, and judges were permitted to control the gender composition of juries.

By section 4, any orders in council, royal charters, or statutory provisions which were inconsistent with this Act were to cease to have effect.

In effect, this act lifted most of the existing common-law restrictions on women; they were now able, for example to serve as magistrates or jurors, or enter the professions.

[9] The one significant ruling as to the extent of the Act was not in a court of law, but rather in the House of Lords, where the Committee for Privileges was asked by Margaret Mackworth, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda to rule if the Act's provisions for exercising "any public function" extended to permitting a woman to sit in the House as a peeress in her own right.

[13]A 2017 study looking at female jurors outside London during the first decade after the 1919 Act found that the picture was highly localised, but that one common feature throughout England and Wales was a decline in the number of women serving on juries.

When this change was proposed, Parliamentary counsel noted that "In the case ... of (e.g.) a daughter who resides with her father in a house occupied by him and owns a small estate somewhere in the country, the position is that she is at present qualified as a juror, but in future she will not be.