Women's rights
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| During discussions in Parliament on electoral
reform in May 1867, it was proposed by the liberal philosopher
and economist John Stuart Mill that women should be given the
vote. Mill received predictably little support from his contemporaries
for this idea. His support of voting rights for women (he also
co-founded the first women's suffrage society in the same year)
was a minority position. Women remained beyond the constitutional
pale for another 51 years. |
'Mill's logic' (Punch cartoon)
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The dangers of pit-brow work, 1911
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Nevertheless, the position of women in late-Victorian
Britain improved in a number of important areas: divorce law
reform (1857), the right to vote in local government elections
(1869), improved rights over the custody of children (1873),
and the raising of the age of consent to 16 (1885). Despite
the many remaining barriers to advancement, such improvements
illustrate that the successes of late-Victorian feminism have
often been overlooked. |
Women's suffrage movement
Conversely, the achievements of the Women's Social and Political
Union (WSPU), the most radical branch of the women's movement
during the early years of the 20th century, have often been
overstated - not least by the WSPU's founders and chief supporters,
the Pankhursts. Much attention has been focused on the militant
campaigns of the WSPU between 1910 and 1914, which included
attacks on property and politicians, as well as hunger strikes
during imprisonment.
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Women's Freedom League banner, 1908
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Suffragette petition, 1911
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These actions required courage and self-sacrifice.
However, their historical importance is questionable. The violent
tactics of the WSPU alienated not only the political elite in
Edwardian Britain (many of whom already supported the principle
of female suffrage) but also many working-class women. Historians
now emphasise the important role played by the moderate National
Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) in building up legal
and constitutional support for the enfranchisement of women
before the First World War. |
Women and the First World War
The First World War strongly influenced the development of
women's rights in 20th-century Britain. It opened up new employment
opportunities for many women, who replaced the millions of
men sent to fight on the Western Front and elsewhere. Jobs
in munitions factories, transport and other key areas that
had been dominated by men now became increasingly feminised,
and under the Representation of the People Act (1918) the
franchise was for the first time extended to women.
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Forced-feeding protest, 1912
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Suffragette in prison
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To equate the First World War with the 'liberation'
of women in Britain, however, is far too simplistic. The 'democratic'
franchise of 1918 in fact gave the vote only to women over the
age of 30. More important in this regard was the Equal Franchise
Act of 1928, which finally gave women the vote on the same terms
and at the same age (21) as men. The apparent advances made
in the workplace were often illusory. Many women lost their
jobs when demobilised soldiers returned to Britain in late 1918
and in 1919. Women continued to face barriers to equal pay and
to equal access to certain professions, despite the Sex Disqualification
Removal Act of 1919 - which, in theory at least, made it illegal
to exclude women from jobs because of their gender. |
1930s and 1940s
The interwar period was marked by an increase in the amount
of 'women's legislation' passed by Parliament. It also saw
Britain's first female MPs. A huge number of organisations
now represented women's interests. These included the National
Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (the new name given
to the NUWSS in 1919), women's trade unions and the Women's
Institute.
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Leeds Women Citizens' League
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Lowering the voting age for women
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Yet on the eve of the Second World
War the women's movement seemed to be in decline. Both economic
depression and the achievement of equal franchise in 1928 contributed
to this development. A revived 'cult of domesticity', associated
with mass circulation magazines such as Woman, emerged
during the 1930s. Marriage rates rose rapidly. The number of
local branches of NUSEC dropped from 220 in 1920 to just 48
in 1935. |
| As was the case during the First World War, women's
experiences during the Second World War (1939-45) were mixed.
In many ways they played a more direct and active role in Britain's
war effort - both its sufferings and its successes - than women
had done during the Great War. Women constituted 63,000 of the
130,000 civilians killed during the Blitz. They also contributed
in far greater numbers to wartime labour, particularly after
the introduction of industrial conscription in 1941. By 1943
there were 7.25 million women employed in industry, agriculture,
the armed forces and civil defence organisations. Many more
of these women survived the postwar return of men to the workplace
than had been the case after the First World War. |
Land girls in action
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The postwar world
In political terms, the war helped to revive the women's
movement. In particular, the growing consensus in favour of
social and welfare reform - as proposed by the Beveridge
Report (1942)
and the Education Bill (1944) - allowed organisations such
as the Equal Pay Campaign Committee to remind the public of
ongoing inequalities in the treatment of men and women.
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| However, no great reforms were enacted between
1939 and 1945 to give an institutional basis to the idea of
equality in the workplace. Politicians used delaying tactics
to sink the equal pay campaign. Old prejudices about women's
working capabilities were alive and well, particularly in the
armed forces - home to 470,000 servicewomen during the war.
Even progressive measures such as the Beveridge Report were
by no means feminist in their outlook. Beveridge himself believed
that welfare reform would encourage motherhood, thereby increasing
the size of Britain's population. |
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As Mass Observation reports and other wartime
surveys illustrate, women generally found the Second World War
a more dispiriting experience than men did. Women workers often
viewed their jobs in a negative light, particularly after the
introduction of conscription. Full-time housewives, of whom
there were almost 9 million in wartime Britain, were troubled
by the disruption to family life caused by the war, as well
as everyday inconveniences such as food queues and the blackout. |
1960s and after
As the experiences of women in Britain during the first half
of the 20th century illustrated, there was no inevitable or
easy path to the establishment of improved women's rights.
This point was re-emphasised by the fact that after the Second
World War the feminist movement went into a decline, before
emerging once more in the 'new feminism' of the 1960s. Despite
the substantial achievements of the women's movement in the
20th century, few people would deny that equality of the sexes
is still some way from being accomplished in 21st-century
Britain.
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