1918-39

Britain – Women's Social Change and Political Advancement, 1918-79

In this course, Professor Adrian Bingham (University of Sheffield) explores the political and social advancement of women from 1918-79. In the first lecture, we think about the changing political and social position of women from 1918-39. In the second lecture, we think about women’s changing political and social position from 1939-59. Next, we think about women’s political advancement and social changes during the 1960s. In the fourth and final lecture, we think about how the political and social position of women changed during the 1970s, in the run up to Margaret Thatcher’s election in 1979.

1918-39

In this lecture, we think about the changing political and social position of women in the interwar period, focusing in particular on: (i) the progress in women’s political advancement from 1918-79, demonstrated by the first women being able to vote in 1918 to Margaret Thatcher being elected as prime minister in 1979; (ii) suffragette activity during the late 19th and early 20th centuries serving as a precursor to women’s partial enfranchisement in 1918; (iii) the end of the First World War as a key opportunity for politicians to concede their prior objections to women’s enfranchisement without losing face, by offering it as a reward for women’s wartime service; (iv) women’s voting behaviour after their partial enfranchisement being unexpectedly consistent with men’s voting behaviour; (v) the equal enfranchisement of women, on the same terms as men, in 1928; (vi) Nancy Astor as the first women to take her seat in Parliament in 1919; (vii) the election of eight female MPs in 1923 and fourteen in 1929; (viii) Margaret Bondfield, who was elected as the first female cabinet minister in 1929 as Minister of Labour in Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour government; (ix) the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919, which allowed women to join professional bodies, sit on some juries and be awarded degrees; (x) the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1923, which established the principle of equality in divorce; (xi) the assumption at this time that women in politics would be interested only in causes around welfare and education; (xii) the formal marriage bar present in many interwar workplaces, which mandated that women give up their jobs once they got married; (xiii) the barring of women’s football from Football Association (FA) grounds in 1921; (xiv) the assumption at this time that women were destined for the roles of wife and mother; (xv) the flapper as a symbol of 1920s women’s newfound social freedom through previously unseen dress styles, hairstyles and behaviours; (xvi) the falling birthrate after the First World War changing women’s social lives; (xvii) the opening of the first birth control clinic by Marie Stopes in 1921.