The Women's Cause : Feminist Campaigns 1918-1928
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1 THE WOMEN'S CAUSE: FEMINIST CAMPAIGNS 1918-1928 Ph.D Thesis / 6r, Vivien Cheryl Law UNIVERSITY OF LONDON INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION 2 Abstract This thesis shows that the first wave Women's Movement continued the struggle for the franchise during the Great War and throughout the 1920s until its success in 1928. It also details the campaigns for the social and economic emancipation of women in the period from 1918 to 1928. It provides a first step in recovering this history of political activity carried out through a network of women's organizations which expanded to embrace all aspects of women's lives. Chapter 1 acts an introduction and clarifies some questions of treatment and perspective. Chapter 2 describes the Movement's membership and details the suffragists' activities throughout the War and their contribution to the success of the franchise in 1918. In Chapter 3, the consequences for the women's organizations of re-ordering agendas and constitutions because of the vote, is followed in the next three chapters by a detailed examination of the post-War period of reconstruction. This includes the progress of women's political participation, the scale of the reforms it pursued and the economic problems of demobilisation and political opposition. The documentation•of the growth of political confidence and skill in the three General Elections from 1922 to 1924 in 3 Chapter 7, also serves to illustrate the diversity of approach enshrined in the non-party and party organizations. The reappraisal of feminist ideology is set within the context of the development of the equalitarian and welfare theories in Chapter 8. Chapter 9 deals with the campaign which united the Movement in a concerted effort to win the vote for all women. The thesis concludes in Chapter 10, with a brief description of the Movement's response to its franchise success and its remit for future activity in. 4 Table of Contents Abstract Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Setting the Scene Chapter 3 Setting the Agenda Chapter 4 Reconstruction 1: The State of the Movement 1918-22 Chapter 5 Reconstruction 2: Demobilisation 1918-22 Chapter 6 Reconstruction 3: The Franchise Extension and Allied Campaigns Chapter 7 The General Elections 1922-24 Chapter 8 Old and New Feminism Chapter 9 Victory! The End of the Equal Franchise Struggle Chapter 10 Conclusion Appendix 1: Research Method Appendix 2: Bibliographical Note Appendix 3: List of Organizations with Abbreviations Bibliography 5 Chapter 1. Introduction "Feminism's impulse is often, not surprisingly, to make a celebratory identification with a rush of Women onto the historical stage. But such 'emergences' have particular passages into life; they are the tips of an iceberg. The more engaging questions for feminism is then what lies beneath." (1) The 'celebratory identification' of the pre-First World War Suffrage Movement, has operated detrimentally towards a satisfactory appreciation of the development and achievements of the post-War Women's Movement. This masking of the post-War period has, in turn, undermined an effective assessment of the Movement's continuation from its pre-War origins. This research traces the Movement's development from the end of the First World War in November 1918 to the winning of equal franchise in July 1928. The organizational network through which women campaigned to address all existing inequalities which persisted after the success of the partial franchise in February 1918 are outlined; how they resisted the post-War backlash to confine them to a domestic role; and the ways in which they extended their participation in all spheres of society in order to work to achieve full political, economic and social emancipation are also dealt with. The questions it poses relate to the nature of those organizations; the issues and campaigns they dealt with; the women in the network; and the 6 way in which the Women's Movement related to the Government and Parliament while in pursuit of its goals. All this demonstrates how women in the Movement used their new political power in their transition from outsiders to participators in the legislative process. Definitions are important, as both the concept of a Women's Movement, and the feminism which moulds and informs that Movement, are liable to wide interpretations. But the first point concerns the use of language within this research. "Language is a powerful determinant of reality" (2); there is, therefore, a danger for contemporary feminists when investigating the activities of their predecessors, of distorting historical events and ideas by overlaying them with contemporary feminist analysis. Whilst it is absolutely necessary in historical research to attempt to empathise with one's subject, it is essential to bear in mind the change in concepts which the passage of time has effected. Empathising cannot ever result in an exact duplication of experience between periods. This temptation to create parallels points up the linguistic problem which results from the assumption that shared terms carry the same meaning. As language plays a part in creating the necessary empathy with the subject under investigation, the feminist vocabulary of the period has been used, as it appeared in the primary sources which have been consulted.• So the terms used will express the values and ideas current during the period, not those of the modern 7 phase of the Movement. It is important that the reader bears this point in mind should they come across a term whose usage may carry very different connotations for women today, than it did seventy years ago. For example, the use of the term 'chairman' does not denote an oversight in using the latest form of 'chairwoman' or 'chairperson'; but is a faithful reproduction of the use of the word during the 1918-28 period. Similarly, the concept of a Women's Movement duplicates that found in the literature of the women's organizations, as a catholic tern which embraced a wide variety of activity. The Women's Movement was an inclusive term which dealt with the work of party and non-party groups engaged in changing the status of women's lives. It will be used throughout this research to include not only the work of these political groups, but also the activities of professional, industrial, welfare and religious women's organizations engaged in the movement for women's emancipation. Whilst it is not the business of this work to analyse closely the nature of feminism as a philosophical concept, a precise definition is a necessary pre-requisite for understanding the perspective from which this research is presented. It has been assumed that the reader already has some understanding of the philosophical terrain that this complex concept inhabits. Definitions have, however,•varied over time. The definition used 8 here follows Olive Banks' interpretation of the term, and her analysis of its origins. Banks interprets feminism as: "Any groups that have tried to change the position of women, or the ideas about women." (3) That is changes which have made a positive contribution to the development of women's lives, in line with emancipation and liberation. And in a later work: "At its simplest level it represents a criticism of the position of women in relation to men and a desire to change that position." (4) This research would also want to consider from Alberti's findings in her study of this period, that: "The definition of feminist has been that their actvities were informed by an understanding of the role and position of women in society which saw them as oppressed." (5> The aspects of women's lives which such groups choose to change will depend on the women involved and their circumstances: "How," asks Riley, "is it that they ever come to rank themselves together? What are the conditions for any Joint consciousness of women, which is more than the mutual amity or commiseration of friends or relations?" (6) How did women identify themselves as feminists and then take the next step to create the collective identity of a Movement? Banks delineates three 'intellectual traditions' which gave rise to feminist activity: firstly, that of Evangelical 9 Christianity which led to philanthropic and social welfare concern emanating from the notion of the moral superiority of women. Secondly, the Liberal or Enlightenment school which resulted in the equalitarian mode of feminism; and thirdly, the Owenite or communitarian socialist mode (7). When ideological disputes within the Movement are discussed during the course of this work, it will be useful to reflect on these separate origins which informed the differing branches of feminism. For such separate interpretations can nevertheless all be accommodated within the framework of a Movement; that is what distinguishes a Movement from, for example, a sect. But it is also these three traditions which can lead to such a disparity of perceptions as to the identification of feminism and the problem of self-designation as a feminist. What may be the most visible construction of, or current practice of 'feminism', may well lead women who actually follow feminist ideals, to deny such an affiliation. For example, in 1926, the trade union organizer, Gertrude Tuckwell, asked by a Journalist whether she was a feminist, replied: "No, I am not a Feminist in the sense of believing that all legislation for both sexes can at this moment be identical. I am, however, deeply interested in helping forward everything that makes for the improvement of women's industrial and social conditions." (8) Tuckwell, within the context of the protective/restrictive legislation debate of that time (see Chapter 9), was denying that 10 she was an equalitarian feminist; but her work and political sympathies might be considered to have given her some affiliations with the communitarian socialist mode of feminism.