British Government In Crisis Book

I like the Seminar series but this episode was quite a difficult read despite the main text being only 85 pages long. This is due largely to the over-abundance of disparate womens' groups and organisations usually mentioned by their initials throughout ( although there is a glossary of these and main persons).

The opening chapter shows how little was achieved from 1866 and, although not covered in the book, it is easy to form a view that not much changed for women's equality for very many years after the 1928 Act to widen the franchise.

It seems that, on balance, the militant elements in the campaign were as much a hindrance as a help. The main point (to me) that emerges from the book is that both Labour and Conservative parties begrudgingly saw the issue of widening the electorate from the 1918 position, which allowed votes for women over 30 with property interests, in terms of the assumed impact of voting intentions of the new voters. If you do not act the other party will. Hence, political expediency contributed more to the change rather than any commitment to the principle of gender equality.