A Historical Study of the British Women Movements Between the Wars Article

Joanne Workman Wading Through the Mire: An Historiographical Study of the British Women’s Movement Between the Wars University of Sussex Journal of Contemporary History, 2 (2001)

Wading Through the Mire: An Historiographical Study of the British Women’s Movement Between the Wars

Joanne Workman

The study of the British women’s movement between the Wars has suffered from a methodological framework that supports negative historical assessments. The imposition of rigid definitions of feminism and modern values maintains views of the movement as conservative and fractured. The reliance upon such narrow definitions ensures that attempts at more positive analyses succeed only in presenting a contradictory and generally unenthusiastic account of the inter-war movement. Recent historical interpretations that abandon the traditional framework avoid the confused analyses it gives rise to. They incorporate a broader definition of feminism that provides a more positive and persuasive perspective.

Framework 1 - ‘Rigid Definitions’ William O’Neill’s negative interpretation of the inter-war women’s movement arises

from a methodological framework that incorporates assumptions concerning the character of the movement before the war and what constitutes feminist behaviour. He represents an example of past historical analyses that have contrasted the inter-war movement with a vision of the pre-1918 suffrage movement as a radical, unified force which after the war suddenly diversified and in that diversification splintered and failed.1 The notion is that 1918 marks a dividing period in British political history. Influenced by the recorded memories of suffragists which emphasised the unity and achievements of the movement,2 and following the cultural disruption caused by World War One, these authors set the stage for enfranchised women to effect major social changes. The belief that feminists failed to do so is in part attributed to their perceived focus upon the vote as the instrument of their emancipation. Once partial enfranchisement was attained feminists are charged with abandoning activism, maintaining only a semblance of a movement until 1928 when, with the attainment of complete suffrage, the movement collapsed.3

The influence of second wave feminism is present in these accounts which charge feminists as failing to radically challenge the status quo. The women’s movement of the late 1960s placed a tremendous stigma on the domestic and upon viewing women in their predominant roles as wife and mother.4 The emphasis placed on welfare legislation by inter-war feminists is not valued for the challenge it posed to traditional structures and ideas pertaining to their sex. O’Neill dismisses the legislative successes of the 1920s as not effecting any reform of gender relations.5 Feminists are not appreciated for their struggle against conservative forces but rather held responsible for their own demise which O’Neill charges was ‘rooted in a failure of [their] intellectual nerve’.6 This image of inter-war feminism as conservative and ineffective was seemingly authenticated by the uncritical adoption by historians of the comments of leading inter-war feminists. Lady Rhondda and Dora Russell were critical of the emphasis upon social legislation and the tactics employed by its exponents during the inter-war years.7

Later historians such as Olive Banks, Martin Pugh and Brian Harrison appear to supply a more positive revision to this picture.8 The theme of Brian Harrisons’ Prudent Revolutionaries is that the tactics of inter-war feminists were sensibly formulated in line with the prevailing political culture. He believes it would be mistaken to suggest that those tactics compromised radicalism. Harrison concludes:


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their prudence does not signify mildness of feminist commitment; on the contrary, they envisaged a new society very different from the old - transformed not just in its political system, but in the details of family life. Their achievement was considerable and at no stage inevitable.9

Banks supports this view in her description of the social legislation passed during the 1920’s as an impressive program achieved during a period in which feminism was certainly not a spent force.10 Indeed Pugh states ‘any suggestion that the women’s movement failed after 1918 would be an oversimplification [and] it is difficult to argue that things would have developed very differently if an alternative strategy had been adopted after 1918’.11

Within the works of these "revisionist" historians there is an uneasy alliance between conclusions that the achievements of inter-war feminism were simultaneously notable and by no means assured, and the use of theoretical frameworks that do not support such arguments. A nostalgic view of the pre-1918 movement as more radical and effective may still be glimpsed constructed from very limited definitions of what constituted feminism, both in terms of women’s organisations and their aims and methods.12 In particular, a proclivity towards criticism effectively denies the opportunity of a more positive interpretation of the inter-war women's movement as progress in the face of tremendous opposition.

Pathological models of suffragism were favoured in contemporary histories that defined the pre-WWI movement as extremely radical, clearly set on the fringes of political debate.13 Both Pugh and Harrison reflect this view holding that militancy and its exponents had an extremely negative effect upon the movement.14 So much so that their ‘distracting and relatively sterile’ tactics were ‘counter-productive’.15 The fact that militancy was not a strategy continued by feminists after the war, and the belief that militants did not continue agitating on behalf of women during the inter-war years is considered sufficient evidence for Pugh to assert; ‘in spite of public protestations to the contrary, militants were not always convinced that their methods had worked’.16

Such a view does not make a serious attempt to define what is meant by militancy or militants. It ignores the complexity of the Edwardian movement, downplaying the importance of non-militant organisations such as the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). Militancy was a strategy developed towards the end of a long and frustrating campaign by a minority of supporters of women’s suffrage. Pugh suggests militancy may have been provoked by the widespread sacking of married women to make way for returned soldiers.17 However, it is unrealistic to expect women to have widely deemed militancy an appropriate tactic in the post-War era of reconstruction (with the emphasis on peace): this view fails to place women’s efforts within the wider cultural environment. Contemporary feminists were aware of the obstructions to women’s paid employment quoting the completion of special war work, the contraction of industry generally and the impossibility of challenging the view that men who had fought for their country should return to a job.18 Pugh’s more positive conclusatory remarks implying the judiciousness of the tactics employed do not detract from his earlier criticisms and smack of contradiction.19

"Revisionist" interpretations restrict their assessment of the women’s movement of this period to a very limited realm, that of formal politics. A strong emphasis is placed on the activity of movements wholly committed to gender equality and in particular the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (NUSEC).20 The activity of women outside the overtly political sphere, or concerned with issues other than gender equality is marginalized within this definition and severely criticised for its perceived anti-feminism. Tremendously large organisations such as The Townswomen’s Guilds, founded by the NUSEC to further the education of women in citizenship, and the Women’s Institutes, are both dismissed as


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‘traditionalist on women’s role’.21 Harrison believes that the Women’s Institutes, ‘if they have been feminist at all, they have been so only indirectly’22 and goes further to charge that along with the Townswomen’s Guilds they contributed to the unravelling of feminist commitment in inter-war Britain.23 Pugh hints at a broader definition of feminism when he states that The Townswomen’s Guild, along with Women’s Institutes, were not devoid of political awareness,24 but he concludes that although The Townswomen’s Guilds were founded by the NUSEC they ‘represented less an extension of the NUSEC…than a diversion and a departure from it’.25 Banks maintains Women’s Institutes and Townswomen’s Guilds deliberately avoided feminist programmes, arguing that the Townswomen’s Guilds were predominantly interested in arts and crafts.26 In the face of such criticism praise of "prudent revolutionaries" appears hollow, limited to a minority of women whose activism fits into carefully defined moulds.

In fact the ranks of “prudent revolutionaries” are constantly shrinking under the weight of the criteria set by “revisionist” historians to achieve the label of a feminist activist. The definition of feminism, presented here as relating to membership and public work on behalf of a recognised women’s organisation, is so rigid that even the political activity of women, when it was aligned with a group other than a women’s organisation, such as The Labour Party, was effectively excluded. Pugh assumes that if female MPs were feminist their allegiance to political parties who marginalised women’s issues precluded any real or effective agitation on behalf of women.27 Pamela Graves reasons that even in the Labour Party where ‘activists of both sexes professed their belief as socialists in sexual equality … [when considering women’s place in labour politics] … showed a deep-seated attachment to the idea of separate gender spheres’.28 The decision to retain separate meetings and a women-centred reform programme by Labour women is acknowledged by Graves as justified on the grounds that the male leaders who insisted on integration still expected women to confine their contribution to acceptably feminine concerns. However, she concludes Labour women were shut out of the deliberations and policy-making of the party and when they renounced their women’s focus in the 1930s to unite with Labour men in the fight against unemployment and fascism inadvertently made it easier for the men to ignore them. By the end of the 1930s she concludes Labour women had disappeared as a distinct group, leaving male trade unionists in undisputed control of party policy.29

Like Graves, both Pugh and Harrison acknowledge the tremendous opposition women faced upon entering formal politics but the emphasis continues to be on women’s failure in the face of such obstacles rather than women’s advancement in spite of it. Thus, instead of holding out longer, women MPs ‘soon accepted [the] values and … party priorities’ of parliament.30 The inability to establish a women’s political party which might have assisted a return to the perceived (and implied preferred) cohesion of the suffrage days, is presented as a lost opportunity.31 Banks similarly believes loyalty to the party would be prioritised over gender issues but presents this view in the context of women’s struggle, rather than their weakness.32

The emphasis upon a feminism very much concerned with formal politics results not only in the deletion from feminist ranks of the non-political but also the marginalisation of important political women’s groups. The Six Point Group (SPG), The Women’s Freedom League (WFL), The Open Door Council (ODC) and the Consultative Committee of Women’s Organisations (CCWO) for example are never discussed in anything like the detail devoted to the NUSEC. This imbalance derives from the tendency to divide feminists into two polemical camps. Those who are defined as supporting legislation that made no distinction based upon sex, the “equality” or “old” feminists, (campaigning for equal rights in the form of equal pay and equal opportunities in education and the workforce), are contrasted with their counterparts, “new” feminists, who sought improvements which would directly


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benefit contemporary women in their predominant roles as wife and mother, (fighting for legislation on such areas as divorce, family allowance, birth control, maintenance and child custody). “New” feminists are pictured as being solely contained within the main women’s organisation the NUSEC. They are attributed the agitation for the “welfare” legislation that was passed during this period and thus, within a framework assessing advancement in terms of political achievement, have a higher profile than “equality” feminists. Although Smith remarks that the two groups are not easily distinguished by their reform programme33 attempts to interpret the women’s movement of the inter-war years as a more complex social movement are not made. The rigidity of the “revisionists” notion of competing feminist camps disallows a consideration of the complexity of the goals of “new” and “old” feminists and the multifarious ways in which those goals overlapped.

Assumptions as to what constitutes feminism come to the fore as the “revisionist” historians account for the decline and/or ineffectiveness of inter-war feminism that they have mapped. In particular the association of political conservatism with a concern for any issue framed within the domestic sphere is evident. Banks argues that “new” feminists ‘held deeply conservative views with respect to women’34 arguing the emphasis upon women as wives and mothers was born out of a traditional view of women’s role rather than a pragmatic acknowledgement that this was, and probably would be, the predominant experience of most women.35 She believes the dissension of “equality” feminists within the NUSEC over the “new” feminist emphasis upon legislation acknowledging feminine characteristics seriously damaged the movement.36 Whilst Banks credits the movement as surviving in spite of factionalisation, she concludes it was deprived of the unity it needed to sustain pressure and thus declined in the 1930s.37 Pugh aligns himself to the notion that the domestic is not feminist by stating that the concentration on health, sanitation and maternity of “new” feminists did not challenge the status quo.38 The rigid demarcation of feminists into two, distinct groups, combined with a focus upon "new" feminists borne out of a "revisionist" preference for assessing "political" activism and hence the prioritisation of "new" feminists "welfare" legislation, sets the scene for the perceived failure of the inter-war women’s movement. Once "revisionist" historians denounce the activism of "new" feminists as traditionalist they may proceed, by definition, to charge the inter-war movement with failing to radically challenge the political context in which women found themselves.39

As the title of his book implies, Harrison describes the tactics of “new” feminists such as Eleanor Rathbone as shrewd. However his book is riddled with so many inconsistencies and negative assessments of women’s achievements during this period that the validity of his arguments, if not his sincerity, must be questioned. On the one hand, he presents the fact that by 1930 women numbered only 2,000 justices of the peace and 15 MPs as a failure,40 and yet sees no contradiction in concluding that: ‘the woman MP – however outnumbered by men, and whether feminist or anti-feminist in outlook – offered all women a new model; she made one more breach in male professional exclusiveness, struck one more blow at the philosophy of separated spheres’.41 Even his archetypal “prudent revolutionary”, Eleanor Rathbone, does not escape from Harrison’s misogynistic inconsistencies. Harrison argues that feminists made an elementary error in assuming that because the legislation affecting women passed after 1918 chronologically followed partial enfranchisement, it was as a direct result of women’s votes. He quotes Rathbone as an example of this simplistic argument and then, in a very problematic use of evidence, quotes her again as presenting a more sophisticated analysis. Indeed the second quote from Rathbone quite persuasively supports the notion that the women’s vote did indeed have a distinctive impact. Rathbone notes, ‘whereas during the twenty years up to 1918 only six laws specially affecting women were passed, the next seven years saw twenty such laws’.42 The inference by Harrison that his “prudent revolutionaries” weren’t shrewd enough to fully appreciate that, ‘in reality it is long-term social change, not


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franchise reform, that transforms parliamentary manners’43 is safely divorced in his book from a reference to Rathbone’s argument that desirable reforms such as equal pay and the equal opportunity to work would gain less from legislation than from general shifts in public opinion.44

The political definition of feminism employed ensures that the achievements and strength of feminism in the inter-war period will be significantly assessed in terms of the numbers supporting certain organisations. As the authors chart the dropping membership figures of the NUSEC and (in passing) the Six Point Group45 the implication is that feminists were unable to sustain serious political participation. Inter-war feminism is presented as failing to replicate the fervour or the impetus of the earlier movement46 or to ‘attract women on [a] pre-war scale’.47 Their inability to generate a single mass campaign similar to that of the vote has been interpreted as a sign of weakness.48 Banks even questions whether it can be accurately described as a movement at all.49 The achievements of inter-war feminism are thus obscured by a nostalgic view of the earlier movement and a failure to view and assess inter-war activism within the cultural context of the post-WWI environment.

The work of feminist Barbara Caine similarly suffers from a poor theoretical framework. She also imposes narrow definitions of feminism to support her view of the inherent conservatism of inter-war feminism.50 Whilst Caine refrains from drawing the positive conclusions of other authors, her work nevertheless contains inconsistencies which give rise to confusion and undermine the validity of her arguments. These inconsistencies spring from a failure to set clear definitions. Whilst on the one hand she describes the categorisation of feminists into two camps, as representing a ‘rather simplistic division within feminism’ she persists in using such a framework, referring to ‘sides’51 and suggesting that ‘differences amongst…feminist groups…became more and more marked’.52 Confusingly, it is never clear to whom Caine is referring. For example, Rathbone is contrasted with ‘those who opposed her most vociferously, and upheld what they saw as the true feminist goal of equality as against her emphasis on the importance of welfare and on improving the lot of wives and mothers’. Her concentration upon welfare issues which recognised ‘women’s interests and point of view’ are posed as involving ‘a relegation of working women and of women’s work to a secondary place’. It seems odd then that in the very next paragraph Eleanor Rathbone is quoted as representing the ‘number of feminists [for whom] the question of women’s work was the central issue still needing to be resolved’.53 Banks analysis fails to engage with the complexity of the inter-war movement, ignoring a consideration of individuals' multiple memberships and the converging goals and objectives of both feminists and the organisations to which they were aligned.

It is ironic that whilst the feminist movement of the inter-war years is predominantly defined in political terms by these authors it is not fairly assessed as working within a political context. Smith suggests feminists were less effective in influencing parliament than they perhaps could have been, succeeding more often than not only when other groups, for non-feminist reasons, joined in their demands for reform.54 Surely this is the nature of politics, especially considering that women, only recently enfranchised with a comparatively short tradition of political debate and participation, must necessarily have had the character of a pressure group. It seems perfectly reasonable that, without tremendous sympathy for their demands in government, they would require the support and influence of other political groups. Pugh notes, ‘workingmen won the vote in 1867 [but it took] 40 years before the Labour Party achieved even the modest total of 30 MPs’. Unfortunately he does not make the link that women, by comparison, had done amazingly well, allowing only that their efforts should be viewed totally in terms of failure.55

In fact both Pugh and Harrison invalidate earlier pronouncements of the prudence and effectiveness of inter-war feminism by their conception of 1918 as a “political watershed”.


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Vaulting over any consideration of politics as an arena of conflict and compromise they conclude that, ‘the advancement of women in British society since 1918 has in fact been very slow, even in the political sphere, where the vote might have been expected to produce the most striking results’.56 Pugh emphases the liberal political mood of 1918, stating it ‘positively invited further legislation’.57 He argues this was not simply because equal franchise remained at arms length until 1928 but also because ‘the doors of parliament suddenly yawned wide as politicians sought to know what the women were thinking’.58 Thus while women are acknowledged as progressing their feminist goals during this period the inference, contradicting earlier statements, is that some change may have indeed been inevitable.

Paradoxically both Pugh and Harrison allude to the tremendous opposition women faced. Harrison acknowledges that the conservative tradition in British politics was not destroyed by World War One. In fact he suggests that in some respects it renewed its dominance, citing the opposition by Conservative politicians to women’s enfranchisement in 1919, 1924 and 1928.59 Both men acknowledge the perceived strength of ex-servicemens’ moral claim on jobs, the entrenched character of trade unions, and the Depression as playing key roles in the government restriction of welfare expenditure and the holding back of economic equality for men and women.60 Banks also believes the political climate changed with women’s enfranchisement but maintains that the ideological climate did not. She argues legislative success for feminists was born more out of political considerations of the “women’s vote” than sympathetic support for their cause.61 Yet the derision aimed at activism related to domestic concerns ensures that acknowledgement of the constraints within which feminists were campaigning is but passing and all three historians conclude that inter-war feminism collapsed into home-centred welfarism.62

The “praise” of inter-war feminism offered within these perspectives, which seemingly provides a corrective to earlier, negative interpretations by authors such as O’Neill, is in direct conflict with the considerably more substantial objections raised. Attempts to place a positive veil over criticisms only results in confused and unpersuasive arguments. The imposition of modern values and narrow definitions ensures the analysis of inter-war feminism provided by “revisionist” historian’s retains the negativity of earlier works and fails to appreciate the movement in its contemporary, cultural environment.

Framework 2 - Broad Base The following authors offer a less “qualified” account of the merits of inter-war

feminism than those discussed so far.63 Their theoretical framework utilises a much broader definition of what constitutes feminism and avoids the imposition of modern values upon assessments of past activism. As a consequence the emphasis upon decline is replaced by an appreciation of inter-war feminism as a complex social movement, with the ‘ripples and ruptures’64 characteristic of all movements.

Cheryl Law challenges the preoccupation with categorising feminists into two camps, and the implication that conservative feminists dominated to such an extent that in practical terms they totally represented feminists of the inter-war years. She asserts that the ‘belief that the majority of the experienced suffrage workers gave up the struggle in 1918 is quickly dispelled by the most cursory reading of suffrage periodicals and annual reports’.65 She quotes the careers of: Caroline Haslett, an ex-Women’s Social and Political Union member who was a member of the Women’s Engineering Society, the Electrical Association for Women (EAW)66 and the Six Point Group; and Ellen Wilkinson, a National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies organiser, Labour MP and Vice-Principal of EAW to highlight not only the continuity of membership pre- and post-1918 but also the extensive networks which were developed between organisations as a consequence of the joint memberships of


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individuals. Maggie Andrews in her work on the Women’s Institute lists examples of suffragettes, such as the militant Edith Rigby, Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Robins who continued their feminist work in Women’s Institutes in the 1920s and 1930s.67

Pat Thane describes the career of Violet Markham to highlight the diversity of the beliefs of individuals which precludes the demarcation of individual women, let alone women’s organisations, into strict categories. Initially an anti-suffragist, Violet became pro-suffrage in 1916, influenced by women’s war effort. She was an early campaigner for “equal pay” for work of “equal value” rather than simply “equal work” as she felt it could too easily be claimed that women and men rarely actually did “equal work”.68 Deborah Gorham similarly depicts Vera Brittain as an example of how the principles of both “new” and “equality” feminism overlapped. A self-confessed “equality” feminist, her radical critique of domesticity attacked the cultural sentimentalization of housework and the failure to legitimise solutions that involved the sharing of household chores between men and women. Within this view Brittain was very conscious of the perceived waste of women’s labour which domesticity encouraged, especially for working class women who shouldered a greater burden, being without both servants and expensive time saving appliances. This acknowledgement of the comparatively greater oppression of working class women as opposed to middle class women was actually a platform of the “new” feminists who reproached “equality” feminists for being preoccupied with equal political rights and ignoring the more practical concerns which were especially important for working class women.69

The networks, multiple memberships and shifts in personnel between women’s organisations of the period undermines the notion of any clear-cut polemical divisions.70 Women such as Winifred Holtby and Vera Brittain had a variety of interests and memberships in a number of women’s organisations. Both were members of the Six Point Group and contributors to its’ feminist journal Time and Tide of which Holtby became a Director in 1926.71 Each was a member of The Labour Party and as “equality” feminists supported the birth control and family allowances campaigns.72 Women’s organisations which have not been previously characterised as feminist, such as the Women’s section of the Labour Party, the peace movement, or the very substantial membership of the Women’s Institutes and Townswomen’s Guilds, in fact had common goals with the more overtly feminist groups. The women of the Labour Party actively sought to increase women’s options outside the home campaigning against such measures as the marriage bar and the concept of the family wage as well as for welfare reforms.73 Indeed the Townswomen’s Guilds were initiated by the NUSEC in 1928 in an attempt to politicise as many women as possible.74 The Women’s Freedom League, founded as a radical suffragist organisation before World War One, continued to agitate on behalf of women, often joining forces with other women’s groups such as the NUSEC with whom its’ membership greatly overlapped.75 Andrews notes the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, which symbolically adopted the colours of the Women’s Social and Political Union for its banner,76 had on its agenda such feminist goals as women police, equal pay and improved maternity services.77 Whilst the peace movement cannot be described as exclusively feminist, Johanna Alberti found the female members she studied understood their commitment to peace to be firmly rooted in their feminism.78 Margery Corbett Ashby understood the demands of the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance (IWSA), which ranged from equal pay and equal opportunities for all women to a concern for the needs of widows and fatherless children, to be furthering the cause of world peace. Along with many other feminists she consequently became actively involved in the League of Nations.79

These interpretations do not attempt to disguise the fact that differences between women, whether they were based on class, age or political or religious affiliations did ‘put a


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considerable strain on feminist solidarity’.80 Law states that an ‘inherent danger lies in failing to take diversity into account, treating women as a single category [and] not appreciating that it was a movement which consisted of many types of women in reflected allegiances of class and religious belief’.81 Rather the authors seek to celebrate the simultaneous fragmentation and cohesion that is characteristic of all “movements”.82 Their broader definition of feminism allows them to view the women’s movement of this period as a changing but continuous process, avoiding the images of decline and disintegration that mark works which contain a far more rigid and polemical view of inter-war feminism. Law argues against Pugh’s dismissal of the period as definitely not the ' “Age of Women” '.83 She suggests the decade 1918-1928 ‘was the movement’s most democratic so far’, urging a consideration of the large numbers of women who entered local and national politics and the Co-operative Movement and the success of the national non-party Women Citizens’ Associations.84 Sandra Holton in her arguments against the imposition of “self-evident” categories of suffragists stresses that the diversity and subtlety of the movement before the war should be recognised and should not be removed from the context of the inter-war period.85

Andrews acknowledges that a movement which rejected the housewives’ position would not have gained much credence in the cultural environment of the inter-war years, particularly with women whose situation prevented them from capitalising on the increasing opportunities being won. However she argues that the feminism of the Women’s Institutes can be seen in their rejection, not of domesticity, but of the male capitalist value system’s perception of women’s labour as low status and low value.86 Women’s Institutes were founded in 1915 by suffragists as democratic bodies seeking to improve the lives of rural women.87 Andrews argues that these meetings of large numbers of women in rural villages in the 1920s precipitated a change in rural life and specifically a challenge to the notion of women being isolated within their homes.88 Women’s Institutes educated women generally to use their civil rights and offered an alternative value system that viewed the predominantly domestic role played by women as being different, but equal to, the public role played by the men in their lives. They also campaigned for overtly feminist causes. The unsuccessful attempt to include sick pay for housewives in the National Insurance Scheme indicates they did not view women’s domestic role as a secondary activity to the real world of work nor did they assume that women should be restricted to the domestic sphere.89 Thane concludes that although ‘it would be a mistake to assume that the mass of its membership was highly politicised, nor should we underestimate the Women’s Institutes contribution to the empowerment…of women…or interpret it as simply dissipating feminist energy and splitting a potentially effective women’s movement’.90 Ironically, towards the end of the 1920s, when women’s organisations have been identified as dwindling in size the main party organisations for women were reaching a peak.91 The National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI) was increasing its membership from a figure of 250,000 in 1925, and by 1939 the Townswomen’s Guilds could boast 54,000 members.92

Feminist interpretations of the social legislation sought and won by inter-war feminists negate the inference of traditional and “revisionist” views that such goals were achieved more in the name of welfare than of feminism. Carol Dyhouse and Jane Lewis stress not the conservatism of women’s demands but rather the potential for an uneasy alliance with the more traditional implementing forces.93 Historians argue that individual parliamentary bills generally fell short of feminist demands, despite feminists of this time considering the total legislation passed as exceeding expectations.94 For example the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919, theoretically opening the civil service, legal profession and other professional bodies to women, was drafted to avoid the more sweeping changes proposed in the Women’s Emancipation Bill. Its shortcomings were very obvious in the persistence of the marriage bar in the civil service, local government and teaching


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throughout the 1920s and the defeat of Lady Rhonddas’ petition in 1922 to be allowed to take her seat in the House of Lords. Similarly the 1925 Guardianship of Infants Act did not provide for equal guardianship until the case went to court and feminists of all affiliations regretted this exclusion.95

Inter-war feminists were well aware of the obstacles they faced. Ray Strachey commented that feminists fought for the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Bill knowing that even if passed, in practice it would be resisted and delayed in administration. Whilst feminists remained optimistic that once made law the legislation would eventually ‘bear fruit’ they did not naively assume, as Harrison has suggested, that legal advancement was the end in its self.96 Eleanor Rathbone noted that ‘progress has been rapid when it depended on political action and slow when it depended on changes in heart and habits’.97 Her campaign for family allowances was driven by the acknowledgement that legal equality was ‘but a fleshless bone’ if a woman ‘has no income of her own and is prevented by the burden of family cares or the jealousy of male competitors from earning one’.98

Traditionally viewed as a conservative demand of “new” feminists, the family allowances campaign embodied a very real attack upon the concept of the family wage and the assumption that women’s place was in the home. The issue of to whom the allowance should be paid was therefore one of principle for if it was paid to the husband it served to support the tradition of the male wage provider.99 Rathbone maintained the principle of making the allowance conditional, payable only if the woman was judged as being a good mother. Whilst what constituted the “proper performance” of motherhood remained a contentious issue, Rathbone never subscribed to the view that “proper” mothers gave up paid employment. On the contrary she recognised that the allowance might be usefully employed to cover childcare expenses if the mother wished to work.100 Family allowances thus had the potential of shifting or equalising the balance of power in a marriage by giving the wife a level of financial independence.

The revolutionary implications of the welfare legislation sought by inter-war feminists have not been valued within “revisionist” accounts of the movement. Feminists sought to make improvements for women within the family structure out of a pragmatic recognition that this was the experience of the majority of women. Improvements in divorce, maintenance, child custody laws and demands for family allowances and access to birth control constituted the first step towards questioning the primacy of the family and were direct attacks on the patriarchal nature of the family unit.101 The feminist authors discussed here maintain the ‘concentration on such goals in the 1920s was no dereliction of the feminist credo but a fulfilment of its manifesto’.102 The Maternity and Child Welfare Act of 1918 for example was the result of long years of work originating with the infant mortality movement at the end of the Nineteenth century designed to improve conditions of childbirth and child-rearing.103

Conclusion This discussion has highlighted the fundamental importance of definitions to the

study of history. The problem is one of particular significance for the highly politicised histories of minority or oppressed groups. Rigid definitions, or the imposition of modern values upon the assessment of past achievements, can have serious implications upon the identity of such groups. Indeed such a practice may be politically motivated to maintain the control of one group over another.

Analyses based upon the imposition of modern values and narrow definitions serve to hide the complexity of inter-war feminism and trivialise the skills and achievements of the women who set out in earnest to challenge and reformulate their society. Indeed such a methodological framework precludes an acknowledgement of the very real evidence that


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exists of women’s advancement during this period. Attempts to place a positive veil over criticisms only results in confused and unpersuasive arguments. The inter-war women’s movement presents a picture of tremendous pluralism, evident not simply within organisations but within their individual members also. Contradictions and complexities were contained within this pluralism, but, as recent feminist interpretations have successfully argued, the women’s movement of this period should not be judged negatively for displaying the characteristics common to all social movements. As Winifred Holtby realised, ‘the march of the women is never regular, consistent nor universal … it advances in one place while it retreats in others. One individual looks forward, another backward, and the notions of which is “forward” and which is “backward” differ as widely as the directions followed’.104 Or indeed as the historical interpretations which follow. 1. William O'Neill, The Woman Movement: Feminism in the United States and England (London, 1969). 2. See the works of: Millicent Garrett Fawcett, The Women's Victory - and After: Personal Reminiscences,

1911-1918 (London, 1920); E Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette Movement. An Intimate account of persons and ideals (London, 1932); Ray Strachey, The Cause. A Short History of the Women's Movement in Great Britain (London, 1928); and Ray Strachey (ed.), Our Freedom and its Results by Five Women (London, 1936).

3. William O'Neill, The Woman Movement, p.96. 4. For example, A. Oakley, Housewife (London, 1974). 5. William O'Neill, The Woman Movement, p.96. 6. idem. 7. Pat Thane, 'Women, liberalism and citizenship, 1918-1930', in Eugenio F Biagini (ed.), Citizenship and

community. Liberals, radicals and collective identities in The British Isles, 1865-1931 (Cambridge, 1996), pp.66-67.

8. See the works of: Olive Banks, Faces of Feminism. A study of Feminism as a Social Movement (Oxford, 1986); Olive Banks, The Politics of British Feminism, 1918-1970 (Aldershot, 1993); Brian Harrison, Separate Spheres. The Opposition to Women's Suffrage in Britain (London, 1978); Brian Harrison, Prudent Revolutionaries. Portraits of British Feminists between the Wars (Oxford, 1987); Martin Pugh, Women and the Women's Movement in Britain 1914-59 (London, 1992); Les Garner, Stepping Stones to Women's Liberty. Feminist ideas in the women's suffrage movement 1900-1918 (London, 1984); Sandra M Gilbert, 'Soldier's Heart: Literary men, Literary Women, and the Great War' in Margaret Higonnet et al (eds.), Behind the Lines. Gender and the Two World Wars (London, 1987); and Pamela Graves, Labour Women. Women in British Working-Class Politics 1918-1939 (Cambridge, 1994).

9. Brian Harrison, Prudent Revolutionaries, p.322. 10. Olive Banks, Faces of Feminism, p.164. 11. Martin Pugh, Women and the Women's Movement, p.312. 12. Maggie Andrews, The Acceptable Face of Feminism. The Women's Institute as a Social Movement (London,

1997). 13. Sandra Stanley Holton, Suffrage Days. Stories from the women's suffrage movement (London, 1996), p.237. 14. Martin Pugh, Women and the Women's Movement, p.47. 15. Brian Harrison, Prudent Revolutionaries, pp.318-319. 16. Martin Pugh, Women and the Women's Movement, p.50. 17. idem. 18. Ray Strachey, The Cause, p.370. 19. Martin Pugh, Women and the Women's Movement, p.312. 20. Olive Banks, The Politics of British Feminism, p.11. 21. Brian Harrison, Prudent Revolutionaries, p. 318. 22. Brian Harrison, Separate Spheres, p.244. 23. Brian Harrison, Prudent Revolutionaries, pp.7-8. 24. Martin Pugh, Women and the Women's Movement, p.241. 25. ibid., p.242. 26. Olive Banks, The Politics of British Feminism, p17. 27. Martin Pugh, Women and the Women's Movement, p.60. 28. Pamela Graves, Labour Women, p.220.


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29. ibid., p.222. 30. Brian Harrison, Prudent Revolutionaries, p.308. 31. Martin Pugh, Women and the Women's Movement, pp.66-71. 32. Olive Banks, The Politics of British Feminism, p.128. 33. Harold Smith, 'British feminism in the 1920s', in Harold Smith (ed.), British Feminism in the Twentieth

Century (London, 1990), p.48. 34. ibid., p.5. 35. ibid., p.128. 36. ibid., p.14. 37. ibid., p.137. 38. Martin Pugh, Women and the Women's Movement, p.60. 39. Barbara Caine, English Feminism 1780-1980 (New York, 1997), p.197. 40. Brian Harrison, Prudent Revolutionaries, p.303. 41. ibid., p.323. 42. ibid., pp.301-302. 43. ibid., p.303. 44. ibid., p.310. 45. Martin Pugh, Women and the Women's Movement, pp.242-243. 46. Olive Banks, Faces of Feminism, p.164. Martin Pugh, Women and the Women's Movement, p.47. 47. Brian Harrison, Separate Spheres, p.238. 48. Les Garner, Stepping Stones to Women's Liberty, p.111. 49. Olive Banks, The Politics of British Feminism, p.2. 50. Barbara Caine, English Feminism, p.174. 51. ibid., p.189. 52. ibid., p.186. 53. ibid., pp.191-192. 54. Harold Smith, 'British feminism in the 1920s', pp.55-56. 55. Martin Pugh, Women and the Women's Movement, p.312. 56. Brian Harrison, Separate Spheres, p.229. 57. Martin Pugh, Women and the Women's Movement, p.43. 58. ibid., p.51. 59. Brian Harrison, Separate Spheres, pp.231-232. 60. See Brian Harrison, Prudent Revolutionaries, pp.313-314 and Martin Pugh, Women and the Women's

Movement, p.312. 61. Olive Banks, The Politics of British Feminism, p.5. 62. Olive Banks, Faces of Feminism, p.172. 63. See the works of: Johanna Alberti, Beyond Suffrage. Feminists in War and Peace 1914-28 (London, 1989);

Maggie Andrews, The Acceptable Face of Feminism; Carol Dyhouse, Feminism and the Family in England 1880-1939 (Oxford, 1989); Sandra Stanley Holton, Feminism and Democracy: Women's Suffrage and Reform Politics in Britain 1900-1918 (Cambridge, 1986); Sandra Stanley Holton, Suffrage Days. Stories from the women's suffrage movement (London, 1996); Cheryl Law, Suffrage and Power. The Women's Movement, 1918-1928 (London, 1997); Jane Lewis, 'Feminism and Welfare', in Juliet Mitchell & Ann Oakley (eds.), What is feminism?, (Blackwell Publishers, 1986); Pat Thane, Foundations of the Welfare State, 2nd Edition (London, 1996); Pat Thane, 'The History of the Gender Division of Labour in Britain: Reflections on 'Herstory' in Accounting: "The First Eighty Years", Accounting, Organizations and Society, Volume 17, Number 3/4, 1992, pp.299-312; Pat Thane, 'Women, liberalism and citizenship, 1918-1930'.

64. Maggie Andrews, The Acceptable Face of Feminism, p.xii. 65. Cheryl Law, Suffrage and Power, p.228. 66. ibid., p.6. 67. Maggie Andrews, The Acceptable Face of Feminism, pp.ix-x. 68. Pat Thane, 'Women, liberalism and citizenship, 1918-1930', pp.73-74. 69. Deborah Gorham, '"Have We Really Rounded Seraglio Point?"' Vera Brittain and Inter-War Feminism', in

Harold Smith (ed.), British Feminism in the Twentieth Century, pp.85-88. 70. Maggie Andrews, The Acceptable Face of Feminism, p.6. 71. Harold Smith, 'British feminism in the 1920s', p.50. 72. Olive Banks, The Politics of British Feminism, p.15. 73. Pat Thane, 'The Women of the British Labour Party and Feminism,' pp.127-129. 74. Pat Thane, 'Women, liberalism and citizenship', p.69. 75. idem. 76. Maggie Andrews, The Acceptable Face of Feminism, p.27.


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77. ibid., p.8. 78. Johanna Alberti, Beyond Suffrage, p.218. 79. Pat Thane, 'Women, liberalism and citizenship', p.69. 80. Johanna Alberti, Beyond Suffrage, p.219. 81. Cheryl Law, Suffrage and Power, p.9. 82. Maggie Andrews, The Acceptable Face of Feminism, p.4. 83. Martin Pugh, Women and the Women's Movement, preface. 84. Cheryl Law, Suffrage and Power, p.226. 85. Sandra Stanley Holton, Feminism and Democracy, p.153. 86. Maggie Andrews, The Acceptable Face of Feminism, p.9. 87. Pat Thane, 'Women, liberalism and citizenship', p.70. 88. Maggie Andrews, The Acceptable Face of Feminism, p.xi. 89. ibid., p.166. 90. Pat Thane, 'Women, liberalism and citizenship', p.70. 91. Martin Pugh, Women and the Women's Movement, p.61. 92. ibid., pp.69-70. 93. Carol Dyhouse, Feminism and the Family in England, p.193. Jane Lewis, 'Feminism and Welfare', in Juliet

Mitchell & Ann Oakley (eds.), What is feminism? (Blackwell Publishers, 1986), p.97. 94. Ray Strachey (ed.), Our Freedom and its Results by Five Women, p.20. 95. Harold Smith, 'British feminism in the 1920s', pp.52-55. 96. Ray Strachey (ed.), Our Freedom and its Results by Five Women, pp.376-377. 97. ibid., p.16. 98. Hilary Land, 'Eleanor Rathbone and the Economy of the Family', in Harold Smith (ed.), British Feminism in

the Twentieth Century, p.104. 99. ibid., p.105. 100. ibid., pp.110-111. 101. Pat Thane, 'Women, liberalism and citizenship', p.85. 102. Cheryl Law, Suffrage and Power, p.229. 103. ibid., p.93. 104. Winifred Holtby, Women and a Changing Civilisation (Chicago, 1935), p.182; quoted in Carol Dyhouse,

Feminism and the Family in England, p.196.

A Historical Study of the British Women Movements Between the Wars Article

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