Socialist Women

Introduction

“…62 For an understanding of how left-wing women formed their political opinions in the early years of the socialist movement, June Hannam's and Karen Hunt's path-breaking book Socialist Women demonstrates how socialist women's identities were influenced by gender and how this in turn led to a re-appraisal of socialism. 63 A number of books have examined women's role in parliamentary politics: Pamela Brookes', Women at Westminster, 64 Krista Cowman's, Women in British Politics, C1689-1979, 65 Melville Currell, Political Woman, 66 Joni Lovenduski and Pippa Norris' Women in Politics, 67 Jean Mann Women in Parliament, 68 Melanie Phillips, The Divided House, 69 and Elizabeth Vallance's Women in the House 70 remain vital sources for understanding the possibilities and problems faced by any woman who wanted a political career, not just those who reached the heights of their profession. More recently, Iain Dale's and Jacqui Smith's The Honorable Ladies, Profiles of Women MPs 1918-1996 which contains short biographies of every woman MP during this period makes a most useful contribution to political history.…”

‘The Victory of Ideals Must Be Organized’: Labour Party Women Organizers in the Inter-War Years

“…From their inception socialist groups such as the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and the Social Democratic Federation opened their doors to both sexes on an equal basis, and women were office holders, representatives on committees and paid propagandists. 12 Before 1918 men and women could only belong to the Labour Party if they were members of affiliated socialist groups or trade unions. There was a separate women's organization, the Women's Labour League, formed in 1906 to harness the energies of women for the cause of the Labour Party.…”

‘A new kind of patriotism’?

“…MacDonald was a NUWW member, but as Hannam and Hunt note, divisions within socialist politics between the ILP and SDF strongly influenced the involvement of socialist women at this time. 33 While women from a wide range of political organisations attended the 1899 Congress, they did not become involved in the ICW or NCWGBI's work in the longer term. Instead, the NCWGBI continued the NUWW's focus on philanthropy and social, rather than political, reform.…”

“…Yet socialist women rarely engaged with questions of pacifism and internationalism in the 1890s, and even in the years leading up to the First World War, there were few attempts to consider the implications of internationalism for socialist feminist politics. 38 Non-socialist feminist organisations such as the ICW assumed a connection between women and peace that drew on maternalist ideas as well as constructions of innate sexual difference, but there was a stronger emphasis in the ICW on relational feminism, or women's relationships to others, than on equal rights feminism or abstract ideas of equality.…”