Women and Politics

Women and Politics
Women and Politics
Vicky Randall
Macmillan Education
© Vicky Randalll982
All rights reserved. For information, write:
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1982
ISBN 978-0-333-30713-7 ISBN 978-1-349-16880-4 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-16880-4
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Randall, Vicky.
Women and politics.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
l. Women in politics- United States.
2. Feminism-United States. I. Title
HQ1236.R26 1982 305.4 '2 '0973 82-10657
ISBN 978-0-312-88729-2
ISBN 978-0-312-88728-5 (pbk.)
Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
What is feminism? 4
What is politics? 7
1. Women's Place in Society 12

Male dominance or patriarchy? 15
The inevitability of male dominance? 34
2. Women's Political Behaviour 35

The extent of women's participation in grass-roots politics 35
Women's political attitudes 47
Determinants of women's political behaviour 59
3. Women in Political Elites 69

A minority presence 69
Why so few? 84
Strategies for women? 99
A distinctive contribution? 102
4. How Politics Affects Women 107

Politics and women's status in Britain 108
Explaining policy towards women: a comparative approach 115
5. The Politics of the Women's Movement 138
The 'first wave' of feminism 139
The origins of contemporary feminism 144
Women's liberation in the United States 148
Women's liberation in Britain 152
The movement elsewhere 154
A crisis in the women's movement? 159
Finding the right strategy - with the Left? 166
vi Contents
6. Feminism and PoUcy-Making 169

Abortion rights 169
Equal rights policy-making 180
Conclusion 199
Notes for Further Reading 206

Bibliography 208
Index 221
To my mother
Preface
At one time convention tended to define women and politics as mutually

exclusive, occupying different spheres. Politics was understood as a public
activity dominated by men and requiring typically masculine characteristics.
Women were identified above all with the private world of the family and
domestic life.
Two generations of feminists dating from the mid-nineteenth century and
the early 1960s have challenged this view. Both have contributed to
important changes in attitudes and have, in their turn, moved issues such as
women's suffrage, and abortion, rape and equal pay into the arena of
public debate and conflict.
Feminism has shed new light on the relationship between women and
politics both by pointing to the structural features of political life which
have tended to exclude women from positions of power, and by recovering
from oblivion a hidden history of women's involvement in political action.
(Political action is broadly defined here to include indirect influence and
informal or 'anti-system' activities.) Most important of all, feminism has
helped us to see that politics and policies have always, directly or indirectly,
affected women's life options through, for instance, prohibitions on birth
control, confirmation of fathers' and husbands' authority, or the absence
of effective protection or redress for women against rape.
Women's involvement in politics, the impact of politics on women, the
politics of women's social position, and the politics of feminism have
become widely debated issues and given rise to an extensive and rapidly
growing but disparate literature. Much of this lies unambiguously inside the
boundaries of political science, centring on women's political participation
and, less frequently, on the politics of feminist issues. Some is historical or
anthropological; some is less easily classified but sits loosely within other
academic disciplines. Last but by no means least are the relevant writings
issuing directly from the women's movement.
The primary objective of this book is to familiarise readers with the broad
character and concerns of this literature, and to point to sources for further
reading. But this is not simply an extended review. In the first place the
ix
x Preface
literature is too vast for such an enterprise to be comprehensively and fairly

undertaken. In the second, it would not be particularly useful.
Instead, I have identified a number of themes that are, or should be,
central upon which to organise the discussion. This means I have not
attempted to reproduce each author's argument, although I hope I have not
misrepresented them either, but have concentrated on analysis, whether
empirical or theoretical, that helps to clarify and explain these themes.
Finally, in so far as I am offering an interpretation, I should declare my
own political sympathies. This book is written from a feminist perspective.
The various meanings of the term 'feminist' are discussed in the
introduction; here it simply connotes, first, the belief that women share a
common oppression, and, second, a commitment to its eradication.
Although the approach of this book is academic rather than polemical, I
hope that the kinds of questions it asks will be of relevance to debate and
strategy within the feminist movement as well as to students of politics.
Many people have helped in the writing of this book, either directly
through their information or advice or indirectly through their moral
support. But specifically I should like to thank the following: Joanna
Chambers, Judith Evans, David Ewens, Jane Hall, Jill Hills, Joni
Lovenduski, my father (Charles Madge), Elizabeth Meehan, June Wyer
and Robin Theobald. Thanks are especially due to Jill Hills and Elizabeth
Meehan for letting me read the drafts of their respective manuscripts, to
Chris Fowler for his typing, George Osborn for his assistance with the
index, and Steven Kennedy for his patient and extremely helpful editing. As
is customary to say, any faults of fact or interpretation remain my sole
responsibility.
Londonl982 VICKY RANDALL

Introduction
Political science and feminism have a lot to learn from each other. Not only
has feminism encouraged political science to pay greater and more careful
attention to the rather more than half of the world's population who are
women. It can also contribute to a fuller understanding both of individual
political systems and of politics itself. On the other hand, feminists can
learn from political science the importance, for women, of public politics
and the state, and the ways in which women and feminists can more
effectively influence policy-making.
Up to the 1960s, at least, and the resurgence of feminism, political science
had very little to say about women. One obvious reason for this neglect is
that the profession of political science was, as it still is, overwhelmingly
male-dominated, whether the criterion is numbers, positions in the
hierarchy or output. As Lovenduski suggests, a further reason was the
intellectual character of the discipline. A harmful split developed, and
became particularly pronounced in the immediate post-war years, between
'scientific' empiricism on the one hand and overtly normative political
theory on the other. Worse still, from women's point of view, assisted by
the expansion of American political science empiricism emerged as the
dominant paradigm. Given the limited observable role of women in the
political arena, they were unlikely to be selected for study, except in the area
of voting behaviour (Lovenduski, 1981). Two further features of this
dominant approach help to explain its neglect of women: concentration
upon conventional, even constitutional, political behaviour and emphasis
on the 'input' rather than the 'output' or policy side of the political
process.
When political scientists did discuss women, as feminist critics have
pointed out, their interpretation was often sexist. Sexism in political
science, as in other social sciences, has mainly taken the following forms:
first, omission of women as subject matter, although they may be subsumed
under such generalities as 'humanity', 'mankind' or 'man'; second,
discussion of women, when they are mentioned, in terms of their
significance for men rather than in their own right; finally, the assumption
1
2 Introduction
that the male and female nature differ and that 'male nature is superior, or
at least 'normal'.
Neglect of women is obviously more a failure of those political scientists
who did not refer to women at all. However, even when male political
scientists confidently generalised about women's political behaviour, it was
on the basis of surprisingly limited discussion and evidence. A solitary but
honourable exception must be Maurice Duverger, who wrote his sympathetic
study of The Political Role of Women as early as 1955. Illustrations of the
other two aspects of sexism are not hard to find. The most often quoted and
blatantly sexist passage occurs in Lane's Political Life, where he writes:
It is too seldom remembered in the American society that working girls

and career women, and women who insistently serve the community in
volunteer capacities, and women with extracurricular interests of an
absorbing kind are often borrowing their time and attention and capacity
for relaxed play and love from their children to whom it rightfully
belongs. As Kardiner points out, the rise in juvenile delinquency (and, he
says, homosexuality) is partly to be attributed to the feminist movement
and what it did to the American mother. (Lane, 1959, p. 355.)
Today we can consult a number of feminist critiques of the treatment of

women in the major political science textbooks of the 1950s and 1960s.
These will be discussed more fully in subsequent chapters, but it is still
worth underlining at this point just how extensive, but also insidious,
sexism in political science has been. Sometimes it is unmistakable, as in the
passage from Lane. At other times it is less easy to detect. Sexist
assumptions lead to interpretations of evidence that only seem unwarranted
upon reflection, for instance the suggestion that women as voters are fickle
and personalise politics. Such assumptions may be unconscious, but when
authors, in the words of Bourque and Grossholtz, 'fudge the footnotes',
citing other authors out of context or occasionally with no basis at all, their
innocence is in doubt (Bourque and Grossholtz, 1974, p. 227). Perhaps
more serious is the intrusion of sexist assumptions into the research
methods, where 'facts' about female political attitudes or behaviour are
elicited, and thus into the very evidence itself. A survey question may
prompt a sexist reply, as in the notorious 1936 Gallup Poll question,
'Would you vote for a woman for President, if she was qualified in every
other respect?' (Wells and Smeal, 1974, p. 56). Or a question may be
inappropriate for the attitude it purports to measure, as when Greenstein
took the answers to questions about war as evidence that boys are more
interested than girls in politics (Greenstein, 1965). Still more insidious is the
subtle cueing that emerges from questionnaires in which 'Politics is
portrayed as a male only world, by the use of the male gender, the pictures
Introduction 3
chosen and the limited and stereotyped choices of answers provided'

(Iglitzin, 1974, p. 33).
Since the late 1960s, much has been done to rectify the sexist bias of
political science, not least because of the growth of studies by female
political scientists, influenced by reviving feminism. Although there is still a
tendency to compartmentalise discussion of women in politics - the guest
lecture, the separate conference panel, a section in the chapter on
minorities, the token article, and specialised studies by women political
scientists- we can no longer complain that women's political behaviour is
being ignored. Almost the reverse. Chapters 2 and 3 will explore this
flourishing literature. While its coverage still leaves major questions
unanswered it undoubtedly represents a tremendous advance.
This literature has not, however, been integrated into mainstream
political science, and so its implications for our general understanding of
political institutions and processes go largely unrecognised. In Chapter 3,
for instance, I discuss the main factors which have been found to determine
women's participation in political elites. As Lovenduski and Hills suggest,
such findings, especially when they take account of cross-cultural
variations, could make a valuable contribution to a more general theory of
participation (Lovenduski and Hills, 1981, pp. 4-5). Similarly, though
analysis of the process and results of policy-making for women is less well
developed, it has interesting implications for the determination of policy in
general, as Chapters 4 and 6 will show.
Still more fundamentally, it has been argued that feminism, at least
radical feminism, requires a reconceptualisation of politics itself. Later in
this chapter I shall consider the meaning, or meanings, of politics, including
those offered by feminists. I shall point out that radical feminists were not
the first to claim that 'the personal is political', and shall suggest that this
perception should be used to supplement rather than replace prevailing
notions of politics. None the less, the particular experience of women who
become feminists enables them to ask searching questions which, at the
least, must deepen our present understanding of what politics is.
If political science needs the lens of feminism to correct for sexist
distortion, then feminists should not be too chary of the wisdom of
'bourgeois, male chauvinist' political science. In the nineteenth century,
many feminists condemned the ruthlessness and corruption of public
politics, though this was partly in order to argue the need for their own
edifying participation. More recently radical feminists have regarded the
public political sphere with, at best, extreme ambivalence. Although
they have implicitly through their campaigns and latterly more explicitly
recognised the possibility of influencing state policies, they have
simultaneously mistrusted conventional participation, fearing, with some
justification, both 'co-option' into male-dominated elites and the contagion
of male patterns of organisational hierarchy. The radical feminists' critique
4 Introduction
of 'power politics' is not only telling, it is also probably a major reason for
the continuing appeal of radical feminist ideas to younger or less
'established' women.
Even so, I shall argue here that feminists have to involve themselves in
conventional politics, as well as campaigns of protest. Chapter 4 will trace
the ways in which public policies have subordinated women's interests to
those of men and the state, so long as feminists were unable to modify
them. Chapter 6 will show what feminists have been able to achieve through
co-ordinated action to influence public policy. Lest this sound too
complacent, let me emphasise that it will not be enough for more women to
acquire political office, since, as we shall see, female politicians are not
necessarily feminist. Nor am I suggesting that legislation, judicial decisions
and administrative measures can on their own improve women's status. On
the contrary, constant feminist pressure and vigilance is needed to ensure
their effective implementation. I am simply arguing that public politics is a
tool, however imperfect, for modifying relationships within society, and
feminists cannot afford to ignore it. Political science can help them to put
that tool to the best use.
What is feminism?
There are two rather different ways to look at feminism. One is simply to
define it, as it has defined itself, historically. The other, more controversial,
approach is to identify what are or should be its guiding principles.
Taking the first approach, feminism can be seen as a wide and changing
movement, seeking in various ways to raise women's social status. Though
there have probably always been individual feminists in this sense, and
feminist writings are found at least as far back as medieval France and
seventeenth-century England, feminism as a self-conscious movement with
some elements of organisation emerged in the 1840s in the United States and
Britain. Its history during the remainder of the nineteenth century was
complex, as Chapter 5 will describe, and it certainly did not focus
exclusively on the suffrage question. However, it is generally agreed that
winning the vote (in 1918 in Britain and 1920 in the United States)
paradoxically weakened and divided the movement. Though militant
feminism never went under completely, this was the heyday of 'reasonable
feminism', based on the premise that the main battle had been won and
women could now enjoy their new rights and equal status (Wilson, 1980).
Women's growing uneasiness, what Friedan called 'the problem that has no
name', was apparent by the 1950s (Friedan, 1963, p. 13). But it was the
1960s that witnessed a dramatic revival of more militant feminism which
has been dubbed feminism's 'second wave'. Chronologically this began in
America in the mid-1960s, with the organisation of a feminist lobby to
Introduction S
exploit the new possibilities of legislation favourable to women. The real

impetus, though, and the distinctive character of this second wave, stems
from the emergence of radical feminism in the late 1960s. It was out of
radical feminism that the new slogan of 'women's liberation' came, with its
emphasis on women uniting to liberate themselves, and which was then
adopted by much of the wider movement. It was the radical feminists who
posed the questions and established the new practices against which other
feminist groupings examined and redefined their own positions. This does
not mean, however, that radical feminism has dominated the movement.
On the contrary, feminism defined in this historical fashion is now a vast
collection of individuals and groups, with the most varied of social
backgrounds, practical interests and theoretical orientations.
Which is why the question arises: should they all be seen as feminist, or
must we adopt an alternative definition of feminism which includes only
those who adhere to certain basic principles? Feminists themselves answer
this question rather differently, depending on their own analysis of
women's oppression and the way to overcome it. So before attempting an
answer it is helpful to review the main tendencies of the contemporary
women's movement. (It should be stressed that I shall normally be using in
this book the terms 'radical feminist' and 'Marxist feminist' to describe how
people situate themselves.)
The defining feature of radical feminism is its insistence that sex is the
fundamental division in society to which all other differences, such as social
class or race, are merely secondary. Radical feminists argue that, apart
perhaps from an ancient era of 'matriarchy', there has always been a sexual
division of labour underpinning and reinforced by systematic male
dominance or, as it is often termed, 'patriarchy'. Although the reasons
offered for this male dominance vary, most stress men's ability and desire
to exploit biological differences between the sexes. From this analysis
follow certain crucial implications for strategy. On the one hand, since men
are the enemy who will not willingly surrender their power over women,
there must be no compromise with them. The system of male dominance
must be overthrown by some kind of revolution; it cannot be reformed.
Men cannot be accepted as allies. Indeed, the insistence on 'separatism' has
been extended by some radical feminists, the political lesbians, to apply to
sexual relationships themselves. On the other hand, since all women share a
basic oppression, all women are potentially 'sisters'. Radical feminists, by
focusing on the physical basis of male dominance as revealed in such issues
as abortion, contraception, rape, wife-battering and pornography, appeal
to those experiences that unite rather than divide women.
Radical feminism itself contains conflicting tendencies. Some of those
who describe themselves as radical feminists not only identify men as the
universal oppressors but also assume women's intrinsic superiority to men.
They are sometimes characterised as 'pro-woman'. This position is often
6 Introduction
allied with an emphasis on women living together, exploring their own

relationships, feelings and potential. Others, in reaction, have called
themselves 'revolutionary' to distinguish their approach from what they
take to be retreat into a cul-de-sac of 'cultural feminism', which claims to be
revolutionary but which they claim is ultimately reformist.
The second main tendency is Marxist feminism. This was from the outset
a strong element within women's liberation, especially in Britain where
women in socialist parties and groups were among the first to respond to
and shape feminism's revival. Marxist feminists, typically, have started
from Marxist premises and sought to reconcile these theoretically and in
their political activities with the insights of radical feminism. Initially it was
often these insights that had to do the adapting to a somewhat rigid and
traditional Marxist framework. Increasingly, as Marxist political theory has
itself diversified and become less deterministic and as Marxist feminists
have recognised its inadequacies for analysing women's oppression, they
have broken new ground searching for a more satisfactory fusion of the two
perspectives. Though they still insist on the primacy of the class struggle,
they accept that the struggle between the sexes cannot be reduced to its
parameters, but has a history of its own and will not automatically
disappear with the overthrow of capitalism. In seeking to explain women's
oppression, they are currently exploring the notion of reproduction and the
role and autonomy of ideology. At the same time, while Marxist feminists
still believe that feminist groups should work together with left-wing and
trade union organisations, most also insist on the need for autonomous
women's organisations.
Radical feminists and Marxist feminists have repeatedly clashed, though
the current economic recession may be encouraging a rapprochement, but
they have in common a 'revolutionary' platform. Although they do not
entirely discount, and indeed have often campaigned for, reforms within
the existing 'system', they generally regard these as palliatives, at best as
providing women with greater leverage for an eventual revolution. By
contrast, both tendencies are inclined to lump together the feminists who do
not fall into either camp as 'reformists' or 'liberals'. This is not altogether
helpful, since it fails to distinguish major differences between such
feminists. Some come close to the revolutionary position in their
recognition of the need for radical social change before women can be
'liberated', and in their emphasis on women organising separately. At an
opposite extreme, others see women as suffering only a minor and
temporary handicap and look for the remedy to equal rights legislation,
achieved through low-profile lobbying on a largely individual basis. But this
is not the only dimension of variation. Reformist feminists are divided by
the same questions which divide radical and Marxist feminists. Like Marxist
feminists, some emphasise economic aspects of women's oppression, while
others share the radical feminist stress on its physical basis. Some of those
Introduction 7
adhering to the latter position also follow the tendency of radical feminists
to see women as different from but superior to men. In the absence of a
revolutionary perspective this can produce the rather conservative argument
that women bring special 'maternal' qualities of caring and sympathy to
public life.
There are therefore, at least two main dimensions along which feminists
are ranged, with any number of positions possible between their four poles.
This takes us back to the initial question: whether all these strands can be
called feminist. Many radical feminists either claim exclusive right to the
label or at least deny it to reformist feminists. They argue that without a
correct analysis of women's oppression, women cannot effectively oppose
it. A great number of present-day women feminists also insist that men
cannot be feminists. This reflects the emphasis of women's liberation on
women liberating themselves (see, for instance, Delmar, 1972).
The meaning of feminism must ultimately depend on the context in which
it is being discussed. Since this book is concerned with women as a whole,
feminism will be understood in its widest, historical sense, though I shall
have little to say about the men who have described themselves as feminists
and supported feminist goals. At the same time we must not lose sight of the
profound divisions within contemporary feminism. Their implications for
the coherence of feminism as a doctrine and its success as a movement will
be examined in the chapters to follow.
What is politics?
As with feminism, so with politics, there is no overall agreement on

definitions. In different eras and different societies and even from one
political thinker to another, the nature and scope of politics have been
viewed very differently. In this sense, as Wolin writes, politics is 'created'
not given (Wolin, 1960, p. 5). Conceptions of politics reflect the values of
those who hold them. In other words, definitions of politics are themselves
inevitably political.
However, most seem to share certain common assumptions about the
kind of situation that gives rise to politics. Politics is recognised to be social;
it has little meaning for the solitary inhabitant of a desert island. It arises in
situations where resources, in the broadest sense of the term, are limited and
there is, at least potentially, conflict of interest or opinion as to how they
should be distributed. At a minimum, politics is about how people influence
the distribution of resources.
But beyond this point of fairly widespread agreement, interpretations
diverge. First of all, they differ on what politics essentially is. Simplifying,
we may say that there are at present two main and contrasting views. One,
the more traditional, sees politics as an activity. It is conscious, deliberate
8 Introduction
participation in the process by which resources are allocated amongst

people. The alternative view, which has become influential more recently,
tends to equate politics with the articulation, or working out of
relationships within an already given 'power structure'. In so far as Marxist
theory provides a consistent conception of politics, it takes this form,
though with an emphasis on class struggle (Miliband, 1977, pp. 6-7). But
this approach is not confined to Marxism. If politics is the dynamic of
power relationships within society, it does not need to be either conscious or
deliberate. It embraces the slave's 'conditioned' and unthinking acceptance
of his bondage and the drunken driver who accidentally runs over the
President. So our first question must be whether pqlitics is to be understood
as a distinctive and deliberate activity or more broadly as the working out of
social power relationships.
The second question is: 'Where does politics occur?' Those who see
politics as the articulation of power relations in theory recognise no
boundary separating it from social life as a whole. Those who perceive
politics as an activity, however, are more divided. Traditionally this view
has implied that there is a distinctive 'public' political arena. Politics has
been seen as the process by which members of a community - in the sense of
a relatively self-sufficient group of people- decide on matters deemed to be
of common, or public concern. This public political sphere has been
contrasted with a private realm, in which and about which, by definition,
there is no politics. Of course, the scope of the public arena has varied and,
with the recent growth of government intervention and the state's direct
responsibilities, it has expanded enormously. But according to this view an
apolitical private sphere remains. Most crucially for feminism, this private
sphere centres upon family life which still defines and limits most women's
wider social role. Some political scientists, while still understanding politics
as activity, have questioned its confinement to a specific public arena,
arguing that it can be found in ostensibly private institutions, such as
business corporations, universities and even the family.
In theory, therefore, many political scientists, including some who define
politics as an activity, see it as virtually ubiquitous. Yet this apparent open-
mindedness is misleading. For in practice political science, of whatever
theoretical disposition, tends to concentrate on community-level politics. In
the context of modern societies, this means the processes surrounding the
operations of government or the state. Even those political scientists who
reject the concept of a distinct public arena for politics have so little to say
about family relationships that they seem tacitly to condone their relegation
to a private apolitical sphere.
This is the context of theoretical approaches and of emphasis in practice
within which we should next examine what feminism has had to say about
politics. In fact, nineteenth-century feminists and many contemporary
feminists have not really questioned prevailing notions of politics. It is the
Introduction 9
radical feminists who have recognised it as an important issue for feminism

and stimulated new thinking about it within the wider women's movement.
Firstly, radical feminism rejects the definition of politics as an activity.
The pioneer, in this respect, was Kate Millett. In Sexual Politics, she refers
to politics as 'power-structured relationships, arrangements whereby one
group of persons is controlled by another' (Millett, 1972, p. 23). Subsequent
radical feminist writers have implicitly followed this approach, though with
little explicit discussion, because it accords with their experience of male
dominance as systematic, reliant on conditioning and the diffuse threat of
violence, as well as on conscious actions. Some feminist political theorists
have been unhappy with this conception of politics, however. Both
McWilliams, and Boals, have warned lest, in depicting politics exclusively
as power relationships, its more deliberate and potentially creative aspect is
lost sight of (McWilliams, 1974; Boals, 1975).
There is a second feature of radical feminism's approach to politics which
is more important and, in the way it has been applied, much more original.
Radical feminism has attacked the notion of a distinctive political arena,
and the public-private split that goes with it. The reasons for such an attack
are easy to see. It reflects the lessons women learned as student radicals in
the 1960s and then applied to their own situation. Many American radical
feminists owed their political education in particular to the civil rights
campaign. It was here that they learned 'the personal is political'. As
McWilliams wrote:
The 'We Shall Overcome' era saw the most striking conversion of private
to political issues: where one sat on a bus, whom one married, in whose
company one ate, where one swam, slept and urinated became questions
of public policy. Women in . . . radical organisations were expected to
see the political nature of private things in relation to blacks but not in
relation to themselves. Not surprisingly, they soon made the transfer.
(McWilliams, 1974, p. 160.)
If the convention of a private sphere had obscured the extent to which

blacks as a group were oppressed and capable through concerted political
action of changing their situation, how much more had it mystified the
subordination of women. Accordingly radical feminists spoke not only
of 'personal politics' but also of 'sexual politics', 'the politics of
housework' and so on, challenging the orthodox assignment of these issues
to the realm of private choice.
Influenced by radical feminism, many women political scientists have
elaborated this critique of the public-private divide, condemning it both on
ideological and on factual grounds. Elshtain, for instance, traces the way in
which it has been used in successive eras to legitimise women's exclusion
from public politics. Thus Aristotle upheld the public political sphere as
10 Introduction
that in which the highest good was or should be realised. Since he believed
that women, along with slaves and children, possessed only limited capacity
for good and reason, he concluded that they were unfit to participate in
politics. Much later, political thinkers came to contrast the immorality of
the public political sphere with the purity of the private. But again, they
insisted that this domestic haven of morality could only be preserved if
women were protected from the corrupting world of public politics.
Whether politics was viewed as moral or as immoral, an argument was
always at hand to support women's confinement to a private world that
kept them from it (Elshtain, 1981). At the same time, governments have
cited the privacy of the family as grounds for not interfering with a man's
treatment of his wife, even when he beats or rapes her. Dahl and Snare
describe this as the 'coercion of privacy' (Dahl and Snare, 1978). Not only
has the public-private dichotomy been used to legitimise practices
oppressive to women, but it has not necessarily fitted the 'facts' of social
life. Feminist anthropologists have rightly stressed that in many primitive
societies such a division is scarcely in evidence, while others have shown
how in advanced industrial societies public and private spheres are
increasingly fused. Even in societies where the convention is strongly
established it need not prevent governments from outlawing contraception
and abortion and so denying women's most intimate 'right to choose'.
So, given these differing conceptions of politics and feminists' criticisms
of them, what is the approach to be adopted in this book? It is constrained
by its intentions. On the one hand, it is directed to political scientists and is
also attempting to show feminists that they can learn from mainstream
political science. To that extent it must follow political science's present
emphasis upon public policy-making and government. On the other hand,
since this book is concerned to point up the theoretical and practical
shortcomings of the treatment of women by political science, it must also
encompass a broader notion of what politics is, or could be.
Accordingly, the emphasis will be upon politics as an activity, both
women's participation in public politics and the impact of policy-making
upon women. But in order to explain how women influence and are
affected by the social allocation of resources, we shall also need to consider
politics in its broader sense of social power relationships. The following
chapter in particular will examine the system of male dominance that shapes
women's relationships with politics, as a deliberate activity.
Secondly, and despite the cogency of feminist criticism, I shall not
completely discard the public-private distinction. This is because it refers to
a convention that, however regrettably, does influence political practice and
in particular the relationship between women and politics. I shall try to
show the negative implications for women of this conception of politics:
how it has been used to reinforce and justify male dominance and women's
exclusion from public power, and the inconsistencies in its application. I
Introduction 11
shall also stress the complex interdependence in practice of public and

private spheres, as well as the wide variation in the rigidity of the distinction
and in the relative scope of the two domains through time and between
societies. Used in this manner, the dichotomy provides a useful analytical
tool, as Stacey and Price have shown in their account of the changes in
British women's political participation (Stacey and Price, 1981). At the
same time a focus upon public politics is insufficient. We need to know
about the politics of sexuality, the family, 'culture' and economic life. This
'politics of everyday life' indeed must be our starting-point, and is the
subject of Chapter 1.
1
Women's Place in Society
Is male dominance universal? Have men exercised disproportionate power

over women in all known societies to date? Many feminists say that they
have. Their grounds are partly intuitive; they have discovered their own
oppression by looking inwards, and particularly by reflecting together on
their personal experience in 'consciousness-raising' sessions. This has
enabled them to detect male dominance in other contexts. They have also
arrived at this position through deductive reasoning. For instance,
Firestone's identification of the causes of patriarchy in relations of
reproduction implies that patriarchy will prevail until there are radical
changes in reproductive 'technology' (Firestone, 1970). Some of feminism's
opponents have similarly argued that male dominance is universal. Indeed,
Goldberg maintains cheerfully that patriarchy is not only universal, but
inevitable (Goldberg, 1979).
The thesis of universal male dominance, whether upheld by feminists or
by anti-feminists, is supported by a substantial body of scholarship. Much
of this is anthropological. Rosaldo and Lamphere, for instance, summarise
the findings of a range of contemporary anthropological studies. They
conclude that 'all contemporary societies are to some extent male-
dominated, and, although the degree and expression of female
subordination vary greatly, sexual asymmetry is presently a universal fact of
human life' (Rosaldo and Lamphere, 1974, p. 3). Historical evidence, in the
form of the surviving records of earlier societies, tends also to indicate the
universality of some form of male dominance. For example, Dobash and
Dobash summarise the history of women's status in Britain. It is sometimes
implied that before the onset of industrial capitalism, a 'golden age' of sex
equality prevailed, but this was in fact the era when the emerging state
sought to reinforce patriarchal authority within the immediate family. In
the authors' words, 'the position of married women was at its lowest ebb
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries' (Dobash and Dobash, 1980,
p. 52). The position of most women was only a little better in feudal
England, when society mainly consisted of large fortified households ruled
by their feudal lord. Though women's status may have been somewhat
12
Women 's Place in Society 13
higher in Saxon times, this was preceded by the rule of the Romans for
whom the family 'was the cornerstone of society and . . . one of the
strongest patriarchies known' (ibid., p. 34).
The 'evidence' for the virtual universality of male dominance is at first
sight overwhelming, but should not be accepted too uncritically. Counter-
arguments have been of two main kinds: the citation of apparent exceptions
to the rule and a more telling critique of the way male dominance has been
conceptualised and investigated.
Some writers have argued that in prehistoric times societies existed in
which women were not only free of male domination but were themselves
the rulers. These were the so-called 'matriarchies'. The earliest systematic
exponent of this view was Bachofen, writing in the mid-nineteenth century.
Basing his analysis on surviving mythology, he suggested that matriarchy
developed out of 'mother right', the mother's right in her own children (see
Bamberger, 1974). Much more recently, this theme has attracted several
feminist writers. Davis, for instance, drawing again on mythological
evidence, elaborates an account of matriarchal civilisation in ancient
Sumer, Crete and Egypt (Davis, 1971 ).
We may agree with Webster that just to entertain the possibility of ancient
matriarchies is intellectually liberating (Webster, 1975). But though the
possibility cannot be dismissed, data to support it are unsatisfactory,
consisting primarily of accounts of matriarchy in myth and archaeological
evidence of goddess worship. It is widely accepted by now that myths do not
necessarily have a basis in history. Bamberger draws on her research into
the primitive peoples of the Amazon basin and Tierra del Fuego to suggest
that myths about a former matriarchal system, which women somehow
abused, may help to legitimise existing systems of male dominance
(Bamberger, 1974). Similarly, Merck argues that in Greek mythology the
Amazons appeared not 'as an independent force, but as the vanquished
opponents of heroes credited with the establishment and protection of the
Athenian State' and may have been used 'as a justification of that culture's
radical subordination of women' (Merck, 1978, p. 96). Though there is
considerable archaeological evidence of goddess-based religions in
prehistoric societies, this cannot be taken as proof of matriarchy.
Alternatively, it is suggested that in some primitive societies, past and
even present, women have been the social equals of men. Oakley, for
instance, tells us that amongst the Mbuti pygmies 'the role of biological sex
as a determinant of social role and status seems to be negligible' (Oakley,
1972, p. 149). Draper describes the 'relaxed and egalitarian relationship
between men and women' in the bush-living !Kung (Draper, 1975).
According to Brown, 'Iroquois matrons enjoyed unusual authority in their
society, perhaps more than women have enjoyed anywhere at any time'
(Brown, 1975, p. 243). Proponents of this view often go on to attribute male
dominance in other societies to specific causes such as the emergence of
14 Women and Politics
private property or new farming methods. It is obviously difficult to prove

or disprove such an interpretation. Some of the more recent examples
offered, however, have been challenged. For instance, it has been pointed
out that although women of the Iroquois enjoyed real economic and
political power, only men could be chiefs. This raises the more fundamental
problem with the thesis of universal male dominance: how male dominance
is defined and identified.
These epistemological problems have not only been cited to refute
feminists' insistence that women are oppressed. They are also raised by
many feminists themselves who recognise that the thesis of universal male
dominance can become self-confirming, creating expectations that then
modify perceptions and, at worst, lending fuel to those who argue that male
dominance is inevitable and right.
Firstly, doubts have been shed on the 'objectivity' of cross-cultural and
historical evidence. For instance, the majority of anthropological studies,
including those contributing to Murdock's much-cited Human Relations
Area Files, have been undertaken by men. These male anthropologists
brought with them assumptions about women's role and status derived
from their experience of modern Western society. Their assumptions
shaped and were often reinforced by the way they went about their research,
most of all the fact that they talked mainly to other men. In reaction,
several feminist anthropologists who describe themselves as revisionists
have consciously resisted assumptions of male dominance and have focused
their research on women's attitudes and experience. As a result, they argue
that women's power in pre-industrial societies has been underestimated: in
particular, women's power within the domestic domain is often
considerable and important not only intrinsically but for the indirect
influence it gives them over public affairs (see, for instance, Friedl, 1967).
This leads on to the second criticism, that male dominance has been
conceptualised too crudely. There are any number of ways in which
individuals or groups can exercise power over one another, ranging from
the most tangible use of force or control over material resources to
intangible psychological and even 'magical' influence. There is little doubt
that some of these, and perhaps the most important, are the special
prerogative of men. Rosaldo points out that in contemporary societies
'culturally legitimated authority' is attributed to men rather than women
(Rosaldo, 1974, p. 21). Similarly it is difficult to argue with Goldberg's
assertion that patriarchy is universal when patriarchy is defined as 'any
system of organisation (political, economic, industrial, financial, religious
or social) in which the overwhelming number of upper positions in the
hierarchy are occupied by males' (Goldberg, 1979, p. 25). Partly as a
consequence of male authority, 'prestige value always attaches to the
activities of men' (Mead, 1935, p. 302). Whether this means that women
have internalised this evaluation of themselves or that authoritative males
Women's Place in Society 15
discount women's higher self-evaluation is not so easy to say. Radical

feminists are probably right also to argue that men largely monopolise both
the legitimate and the illicit use of physical force in society, including the
family.
For all that, women are not powerless. They have their own means of
exercising power, for instance their sexuality, their essential role in
reproduction, their influence over their children and their various domestic
skills, sometimes including magic. In many contexts they can also use their
kinship ties, mutual solidarity or economic contribution. Likewise there are
many different aspects of women's status, such as their control over their
economic product, their say in household decisions, the extent of their
property rights, sexual autonomy, public esteem and public authority. As
Whyte reminds us, these do not necessarily all vary together. His own cross-
cultural analysis indicates that, in a given society, women can be dominant
in some respects at the same time as they are subordinate in others (Whyte,
1978, pp. 168-9).
All these qualifications do not invalidate the thesis of male dominance.
They do imply that it should be used with care. In particular we should
avoid too ahistorical or transhistorical a concept of male dominance and
seek instead to specify the form it takes in each society.
Male dominance or patriarchy?
It is this concern with precision that has led some to question the use of the
term 'patriarchy' as if it were exchangeable with 'male dominance'. This is
not entirely a matter of semantics. Given patriarchy's centrality to
contemporary feminist analysis, it is worth looking briefly at its origins and
the meaning it has been given.
The word patriarchy is derived from the Greek 'patriarches' meaning
'head of the tribe'. The original patriarchs were the tribal heads referred to
in the Old Testament. Later the term described certain of the most eminent
bishops within the Christian Church, including the Pope. In seventeenth-
century England, Robert Filmer, the conservative political theorist,
advocated patriarchalism, meaning by this the system of rule in which the
king's supreme authority was mirrored and reinforced by the father's
authority within his household. McDonagh and Harrison suggest that Marx
similarly took patriarchy to connote 'a specific relation of domestic
production, in which the head of the household owned or controlled the
means of production and organised the labour of its members' (McDonagh
and Harrison, 1978, pp. 28-9). Weber also took up the term 'to describe a
particular form of household organisation in which the father dominated
other members of an extended kinship network, and controlled the
economic production of the household' (Barrett, 1980, p. 10).
While these usages are not identical, they have in common a focus on the
authority of the male head of the family, whether in its extended or in its
nuclear form. Feminists, particularly radical feminists, in the late 1960s
picked up the term, making it central to their analysis and greatly expanding
its coverage. It has come to mean something like 'rule by men', although the
precise definitions vary with differing theoretical approaches. One of the
earliest exponents of this new usage, Millett, writes 'the principles of
patriarchy appear to be two-fold: male shall dominate female, elder male
shall dominate younger' (Millett, 1972, p. 25). Firestone, though she does
not define patriarchy, implies that it is a system of social organisation in
which men's control of women is based on their power over wives and
children within the family. Eisenstein, writing later, places even less
emphasis on the authority of fathers, largely equating patriarchy with male
supremacy in all its forms (Eisenstein, 1979). Lack of agreement on the
precise definition of the term is hardly grounds for abandoning it. On the
contrary it shows, as Beechey argues in her review of theories of patriarchy,
that the concept has been used 'in an attempt to think through real political
and theoretical problems' (Beechey, 1979, p. 68).
What has been questioned is the necessity of using the term in this generic
sense, when 'male dominance' or 'male supremacy' would do instead. As
Rubin suggests, if we define patriarchy more narrowly, and in keeping with
its traditional meaning of one form of male dominance based on the
authority of the head of the household, it helps to distinguish between the
different forms that male dominance can take (Rubin, 1975). Accordingly,
in this book, 'male dominance' refers to male power over women, as a
whole and 'patriarchy' is reserved for forms of male power stemming from
the authority of the father or male household head.
Whatever term we use - male dominance, male supremacy or patriarchy
- it stands for a far-reaching social subordination of women. How has this
come about? As Rubin writes, 'The question is not a trivial one, since the
answer given it determines our vision of the future, and our evaluation of
whether it is realistic to hope for a sexually egalitarian society' (ibid.,
p. 157). Upon the answer also depends the strategy that feminists adopt to
achieve such a society.
There are three main themes in explanations of women's oppression:
those that attribute it to biology, to culture and to the economic system. The
theories of individual feminists and non-feminists often draw on all three.
The debate is most intelligible if we look at each of these three themes in
turn.
Anatomy as destiny
The oldest, and most obvious, explanation for women's oppression is the
biological differences between men and women. Non-feminists who take

this line tend to argue that male dominance is natural and inevitable, a
conclusion recently challenged by a number of feminist social scientists. At
the same time other feminists, in particular many radical feminists, stress
the physical basis of male dominance, while seeking ways to render it
irrelevant.
The natural physical differences between the sexes have been used to
explain and justify women's inferior social position since before Aristotle.
Until very recently such arguments emphasised woman's distinctive
reproductive role, but also her physical vulnerability as a consequence of
this reproductive function and man's greater bodily strength, and, less
frequently, the smaller size of woman's brain. These physical features were
supposed, even by some nineteenth-century feminists, to limit women's
personality and potential, rendering them inevitably socially inferior.
From the late 1930s to the mid-1960s, a number of research findings were
used to challenge these assumptions. They are usefully summarised by
Oakley. First, she points out that woman's reproductive role does not
necessarily determine her social role. In many primitive societies child birth
itself barely interrupts women's arduous working life. In some, the practice
of communal breastfeeding has even been institutionalised, freeing the
woman to work much of the time outside the home. Again, in several such
societies, child-rearing is considered as much a male as a female
responsibility. Second, Oakley questions the assumption that men are
stronger than women. Within each sex, size and strength vary markedly,
and the extent to which physical strength is a feature of either sex itself
changes with the culture. 'In Bali, where males do little heavy work, males
and females resemble each other in body size and shape. But Balinese men
who work as deck coolies under European supervision develop the heavy
musculature we think of as a male characteristic' (Oakley, 1972, p. 143).
Lastly, research indicates that it is not so much absolute brain size as the
relationship of brain to body size which may be associated with intelligence,
and in this respect women are slightly superior to men.
The 'science' of psychoanalysis has also been invoked to show, in the
phrase which Freud borrowed from Napoleon, that 'Anatomy is destiny'.
As Sayers (1982) emphasises, Freud was not a crude biological reductionist,
unlike many of his followers in the USA. He identified the source of
femininity in the little girl's psychological reaction to the discovery that she
lacked a penis.
This kind of reasoning is criticised by feminists on two principal and
rather contradictory grounds. Some suggest that Freud got it all wrong; he
exaggerated the importance of penis envy, and underestimated the extent to
which women's possession of a womb is a source of pride to them and of
envy to men (Moulton, 1974). Others maintain that Freud read the female
subconscious aright but failed to realise that, rather than the cause, it was
the reflection and instrument of male dominance (see, for instance,

Mitchell, 1974).
In the face of challenges to these more traditional or psychoanalytical
versions of the biological reductionist case for male dominance, the
justification has re-emerged in a more subtle and scholarly guise. It has
'acquired a statistical framework, an evolutionary rationale and
sophisticated physiological models of perception and behaviour'
(Leibowitz, 1975, p. 22). One influential variant is the 'Man the Hunter'
thesis. Tiger, for instance, argues that in primitive societies, dependent for
survival on hunting, the process of natural selection reinforced the innate
genetically transmitted tendency for men to form hierarchically bonded
groups. Though such male-bonding may now be less socially necessary, it
continues to give communities their 'spinal column their
interdependence, their structure, their social coherence and in good part
their continuity', while excluding most women from positions of authority
(Tiger, 1969, p. 60).
Tiger concedes that changes in the 'environment' could eventually
reduce, even minimise, the tendency towards male dominance. Goldberg
does not even hold out this hope. Although accepting that male dominance
reflects the interaction of sex-related hormonal differences and
environmental cues, he maintains that men are predisposed, through their
endocrinological endowment, not simply to a particular kind of aggressive
or dominant behaviour, which achieves dyadic or social dominance in
specific societies, but to whatever behaviour is required for dominance.
Since all societies are hierarchical in one way or another, man's hormonal
endowment means that 'the environment that is necessary for patriarchy is
inherent in society itself' and patriarchy is inevitable (Goldberg, 1979,
p. 85).
Feminists have effectively attacked these and other socio-biological
accounts of male dominance for their assumptions about the importance of
hunting in primitive societies, their frequent unwarranted inferences from
the observed behaviour of primates, their subjective use of archaeological
evidence and their often circular reasoning (see Leibowitz, 1975; Slocum,
1975; Sayers, 1982). Oakley does not rule out the possibility that men are
innately more aggressive than women, but points out that in humans the
relationship between hormones and behaviour is extremely complicated.
Even if differences were verified not only in hormonal levels but in the
'hormonal sensitivity of the central nervous system in men and women ...
it would not create two distinct types - male and female - but a whole range
from very male to very female over which individuals would be distributed
as they are for other variables'. And the effect of such differences upon
behaviour would still be debatable given 'the enormous dependence of the
human species on learning processes' (Oakley, 1972, p. 191).
The feminists cited so far in this debate have vigorously denied that
women's oppression is rooted in biology. Their objection is understandable

since, given the widespread tendency to associate what is natural with what
is good, acceptance of the natural origins of male dominance can easily
seem an acceptance of male dominance itself. The early radical feminist,
Millett, rejects biological explanations on such grounds. Although her
discussion of the role of biology tacitly acknowledges the issue to be more
complex than she allows, she argues that there is insufficient evidence that
women's oppression originated in biology, that biological differences
between the sexes are probably irrelevant to male dominance today and that
to emphasise them plays into men's hands (Millett, 1972).
But other feminists, particularly radical feminists, accord biology much
more weight. A pioneering analysis that locates male dominance in the
biological differences between men and women is provided by Shulamith
Firestone in the Dialectic of Sex. She claims that she is applying the
analytical method, dialectical materialism, which was prescribed by Marx,
but whose profound implications, as a man, he was incapable of seeing. She
elaborates a materialistic theory of history based on relations not of
production but of reproduction. In fact, she goes as far as agreeing with the
ideologues of male dominance that the unequal division of the sexes is
natural. For though sex differences do not of themselves imply inequality,
reproduction of the species has inevitably required, given prevailing levels
of technology, the 'biological family' or basic reproductive unit of male-
female-infant, which is inherently unequal. First, women have been made
dependent upon their menfolk through their biological vulnerability
associated with menstruation, the menopause and other 'female ills',
constant painful childbirth, wet-nursing and the care of infants. Then, since
human infants take so long to grow up, their dependence upon adults is
prolonged. In particular there develops an intense mother-child
interdependency, which in turn helps to shape female psychology. Finally,
these reproductive differences have underlain the sexual division of labour
and power. Now, although 'man is increasingly capable of freeing himself
from the biological conditions that created his tyranny over women and
children', as its beneficiary 'he has little reason to want to give this tyranny
up' (Firestone, 1970, p. 18).
Firestone emphasises the biological determinants of male dominance.
Even though such psychological factors as motherly feelings or men's
enjoyment of power enter into her account, they are firmly rooted in
biological differences between the sexes and would not exist without them.
She does not conclude either that men are superior or that male dominance
is inevitable or right. On the contrary, she approvingly quotes de Beauvoir
as saying 'Human society is an antiphysis - in a sense it is against nature; it
does not passively submit to the presence of nature but rather takes over the
control of nature on its own behalf' (ibid., p. 18). But male dominance will
not easily be ended. Given its basis in the relations of reproduction it can
only be overthrown by revolution. In a conscious echo of Marx, Firestone

argues that women must seize control of the means of reproduction with the
object of destroying not only male dominance but 'the sex distinction
itself'.
Other radical feminist writers have explored aspects of the physical basis
of women's oppression. Susan Brownmiller in Against Our Will examines
the history of sexual rape. Far from the act of abnormal individuals, she
argues that rape, and the threat of rape, have been 'nothing more or less
than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women
in a state of fear' (Brownmiller, 1975, p. 15). It is this fear which may have
forced women to turn to other men for protection. Mary Daly's
Gyn!Ecology is an eccentric, even whimsical, work whose ostensible
purpose is to show how women can transcend patriarchal culture, by
rejecting its language and assumptions and learning to love one another. Its
centre, however, consists of a devastating account of different ways in
which men have physically assaulted women: through 'suttee' or widow-
burning, in India; foot-binding in China; mutilation of female genitals by
excision of the clitoris or sewing or locking up of the vagina in Africa;
witch-burnings in Europe and America; and even, under the veneer of
modern science, contemporary gynaecology and 'therapy'. Their motive, it
is implied, has been envy and exploitation of women's physical creativity
and the psychic creativity that goes with it (Daly, 1978).
Radical feminists like Firestone do not deny the role of ideology, but they
still derive women's oppression from biological circumstances. Others fear
this explanation could be used by feminism's enemies to justify male
dominance. But to argue that relations of reproduction, while technology
was primitive, gave men power over women, is neither to justify male
dominance in the past nor to condone it now. As Richards points out, even
if men were found to be naturally dominant because of their hormone
endowment, feminists would not need to deny it, for it would still not entitle
men to rule. 'Ought cannot be derived from is' (Richards, 1980, p. 44). If
male dominance has been a feature of virtually every known society, how
can we explain it, except ultimately by reference to what distinguishes men
from women? Women's reproductive role originally made them both
vulnerable and necessary to men. Any adequate explanation of women's
oppression, any proper understanding, as we shall see, of the birth of
feminism and especially of women's liberation and any effective feminist
strategy needs to take account of this physical basis of male dominance.
Explanations emphasising culture and ideology
The second type of explanation for male dominance minimises the

importance of material causes, whether biological or economic. Instead, it
stresses the role of 'culture' in the sense of both social practices and
ideology. Again, we find both feminist and non-feminist exponents of this
approach.
A first and eminently reasonable step is to distinguish between biological
sex and gender. To quote Oakley, ' "sex" is a word that refers to the
biological differences between male and female: the visible differences in
genitalia, the related difference in procreative function. "Gender" however
is a matter of culture: it refers to the social classification into "masculine"
and "feminine" ' (Oakley, 1972, p. 16). Though a person's sex usually
determines their gender, exceptionally in our society and more frequently in
some others the two are unrelated. Moreover what is understood by
'masculine' and 'feminine' is subject to considerable cross-cultural
variation. A woman's social identity is based on her gender, not directly on
her sex.
But explanations of the culture type go much further than this. First, they
have been used to account for the sexual division of labour, seen to underlie
male dominance. Almost everyone seems agreed on the universality of a
sex-based or, strictly speaking, a gender-based division of labour, except
possibly in the case of the Mbuti pygmies, as we have seen. There is
considerable variation in the actual content of men's and women's social
roles. In some societies, women engage in activities such as hunting and
fighting which elsewhere are identified with men. Conversely, men of the
Arapesh and Trobriand Islands share in the care of small children.
Margaret Mead and, even more so, Oakley emphasise the variability of
women's role:
The chief importance of biological sex in determining social roles is in

providing a universal and obvious division around which other
distinctions can be organised. In deciding which activities are to fall on
each side of the boundary, the important factor is culture ... other
cultures have developed sex roles quite different from our own. (Oakley,
1972, p. 156.)
But this relativism can be overdone. A number of feminist

anthropologists maintain that, despite cross-cultural variations in their
content, sex roles show significant continuities. Specifically, in most
contemporary societies women have primary responsibility for child-
rearing. The context of this responsibility is the institution of the family,
which is itself seemingly universal if, like Gough, we understand it as 'a
married couple or other group of adult kinfolk who co-operate
economically and in the upbringing of children, and all or most of whom
share a common dwelling' (Gough, 1975, p. 52). Women have more
responsibility for children, their activities are more family-centred than
men's, and this shapes other aspects of their social role.
How can this element of continuity be explained? One explanation would

be biological, either that women are naturally suited for child-rearing or
that physical dependence on men for a long time gave women little choice.
But it has also been attributed to cultural factors.
On the one hand, non-feminists have suggested that the sex-based
division of labour is functional in some sense to the proper and stable
ordering of society. Okin traces this theme from the writings of Aristotle
through to the functionalist sociology of Talcott Parsons. Though Parsons
maintains that the biological differences between the sexes provide a logical
basis for the sexual division of labour, he explains and justifies it primarily
as the prerequisite of the modern nuclear family whose contribution to
society is indispensable. The family promotes social stability and
continuity, in particular through its socialisation functions, and the stability
of the family in turn requires that wives specialise in child-rearing,
housework and the articulation of 'expressive', as opposed to instrumental,
masculine values. Parsons does recognise the psychological strain such role-
differentiation imposes on both sexes, and especially women, but sees it as a
necessary price for the maintenance of the family (see Okin, 1980,
pp. 241-6).
Such arguments are of course unacceptable to feminists. But none the less
many invoke culture to explain the sexual division of labour. They rightly
point out that just because women bear children, there is no logical reason
why they should be mainly responsible for rearing them. Culture is brought
in to bridge this logical gulf, though it is never quite made clear what it is
about culture, or cultures, that otherwise vary so tremendously, that brings
nearly all of them to assign child-rearing to women.
Another kind of cultural explanation emphasises the consequences for
women of the differentiation between private and public spheres. Rosaldo
provides a good example of this approach. She attributes this
differentiation to the 'fact that in most traditional societies, a good part of a
woman's adult life is spent giving birth to and raising children' (Rosaldo,
1974, p. 23). In this context, she defines the domestic sphere as 'those
minimal institutions and modes of activity that are organised immediately
around one or more mothers and their children', while the public sphere
comprises 'activities, institutions and forms of association that link, rank
organise or subsume particular mother-child groups' (ibid., p. 23).
Women's mothering role, which Rosaldo insists reflects organisational as
much as biological constraints, limits their political and economic activities
and focuses their concern on the domestic sphere. Men, on the other hand,
having 'no single commitment as enduring, time-consuming and
emotionally compelling - as close to seeming necessary and natural - as the
relation of a woman to her infant child' are left 'free to form those broader
associations that we call society' (ibid., p. 24). Rosaldo suggests that such
subjective compartmentalisation, which does not of course preclude
objective interdependence, fosters male dominance. The implication is that

first, by distancing man from his family, the separation of public and
private spheres lends him more authority within it. But the man also has
more time and opportunity to shape the public culture which then evaluates
women's role.
Ortner offers an interesting development of this argument. She suggests
that a major reason why women's role is universally deemed secondary is
that it is associated, because of its domestic setting as well as because of
women's reproductive functions, with nature as opposed to culture. In so
far as culture has an imperative to maintain itself, it devalues the nature it
seeks to transcend. This perceived opposition of culture to nature then
readily translates itself into the opposition of male to female. So culture
requires the subordination of women because they are identified with nature
(Ortner, 1974).
Many feminists criticise an analysis of women's subordination based on
the distinction between a private and public sphere, for the same reasons
they reject a concept of politics that locates it within a specific public arena.
Friedl also argues that this approach may exaggerate the importance of the
male-dominated 'public' sphere in many societies. In the Greek village she
cites, 'the private and not the public sector is the sphere in which the relative
attribution of power to males and females is of the greatest real
importance'. Furthermore, within this private sphere, women informally
have considerable power over decisions about the household's economy and
their children's futures (Friedl, 1967, p. 97).
On the other hand, while this approach perhaps underestimates the role
of biological differences, it does point to an actual, if regrettable, aspect of
women's lives. Indeed, the notional separation of domestic and public
spheres is often buttressed by a differentiated use of space. In one
Proven~al village, Reiter discovers a 'sexual geography', dictating not only
that women spend more time than men in the village itself, but that they
spend a minimum of time in 'public' places, except the church and three
backstreet village shops (Reiter, 1975). This approach also helps to explain
variations in women's status. Rosaldo suggests that 'women's status will be
lowest in those societies where there is a firm differentiation between
domestic and public spheres of activity and where women are isolated from
one another and placed under a single man's authority, in the home'
(Rosaldo, 1974, p. 36).
The third 'cultural' explanation to be examined has been primarily
explored by a number of Marxist feminists who have moved away from a
'rraditional' Marxist approach, in which the material relations of
production largely determine the 'superstructural' realm of culture and
ideology, and have sought new ways to theorise the relative autonomy of
ideology, including the ideological construction of women's role. In this
search many first turned to the then highly influential work of the French
neo-Marxist, Althusser. As Lieven writes in her useful and clear

introduction to this question:
A theoretical formulation of ideology, such as that of Althusser, as

something that has as much real force and material effects as have
economic or political constraints, was extremely attractive to feminists
who had been experiencing and analysing both in every aspect of their
lives. (Lieven, 1981, p. 261.)
Some feminists have explored this relative autonomy of ideology through

the perspective of the French psychoanalytic theorist, Lacan, and used it to
relate patriarchal ideology to the configurations of the subconscious mind
discovered in psychoanalysis and, ultimately, to the emergence of kinship
systems. Their argument centres upon the notion of the 'exchange of
women' as formulated by the anthropologist Levi-Strauss. Anthropologists
have always paid great attention to kinship, which they understand to
comprise not simply biological relationships but the broader social
construction of genealogical ties, in which people may sometimes be
deemed relatives, although they are unconnected by blood or even
marriage. It is generally recognised that in primitive societies kinship is
crucial, constituting the 'idiom of social interaction, organising economic,
political and ceremonial, as well as sexual activity' (Rubin, 1975, p. 169).
Levi-Strauss argues that the fundamental principle of all such kinship
systems, which explains their otherwise mystifying variety of rules and
institutions, is the exchange, through marriage, of women between men.
This exchange is necessary in order to transcend the biological family and
create a broader society linking different biological families. Thus, though
he does not himself equate men's exchange of women with male dominance,
he has been taken to imply that they originated together, with this
transcendence of the biological family (incidentally, the opposite of
Firestone's thesis) and the creation of society or culture itself.
Juliet Mitchell's complex study, Psychoanalysis and Feminism, explores
the possibility that the workings of the subconscious mind, and particularly
the Oedipus complex, investigated and recorded by Freud, are both the
reflection and the perpetuating mechanism of male dominance in society.
Though doubtful of the wisdom in looking for ultimate causes, she takes up
Lacan's suggestion that these subconscious syndromes represent the
residual imprint in the individual's psyche of the process by which they were
incorporated into the kinship system. She speculates that the Oedipus
complex, with its incest taboo and assertion of male superiority, or more
precisely the authority of the (dead) father, was necessary for the exchange
of women on which society was originally based. In advanced capitalist
society the role of kinship and therefore of the exchange of women has been
largely superseded by more directly economic forms of exchange. However
the 'biological' nuclear family, still crucial to the reproduction of

capitalism, has inherited and given a new twist to the Oedipal syndrome,
simultaneously driving it deeper and fuelling it: 'the mother and sister or
father and brother you sensually cannot have are also the only people you
are supposed to love' (Mitchell, 1974, p. 378).
Rubin's argument is similar, but as an anthropologist she warns against
too literal an interpretation of the concept of the exchange of women. In
many primitive societies such a transaction is either only implicit or scarcely
discernible. Instead she suggests we use the concept as 'a shorthand for
expressing that the social relations of a kinship system specify that men have
certain rights in their female kin and that women do not have the same
rights either to themselves or to their male kin'. These rights are based on
the ultimate control of female sexuality but extend far beyond (Rubin,
1975, p. 177).
The 'exchange of women' thesis is ingenious, if singularly difficult to
prove. It still does not explain why men should exchange women rather than
the other way round. And it could be open to the same charge made against
the public-private dichotomy, that it accepts too easily male
rationalisation, however sophisticated - in this interpretation - such a
rationalisation may be.
The arguments for the cultural determination of male dominance
examined so far are perhaps the most explicit. But of course a great number
- probably the majority - of feminist writers imply that male dominance is
primarily a cultural phenomenon. They emphasise the role of
'socialisation', the way that children assimilate sex roles through a process
of imitation, identification and internalisation (Oakley, 1972, pp. 179-80).
The family is seen as the crucial site of socialisation. Indeed, since
children spend more time with their mothers than their fathers, the ironic
fact may be that mothers are the single most powerful agents of their
daughters' acquisition of gender. In modern societies, a second important
socialising agent is school education. Numerous studies document the
sexism inherent in educational policy, the range of subjects open to girls,
the content of textbooks, the male-dominated staff hierarchy and the
assumptions of teachers in Britain and the United States (see, for instance,
Byrne, 1978; Lobban, 1978). What is empirically less well established,
though probable, is that these features of the official and 'hidden' curricula
independently affect pupils' gender identity.
It would be foolish to deny the role of socialisation in the continuation of
male dominance. But is it the main explanation? Women appear to
acquiesce, even collude, in their own oppression. If, in the short term, this is
entirely due to socialisation, we can still ask why socialisation takes this
form. It cannot explain itself. Secondly, is women's seeming collaboration a
mere result of conditioning or false consciousness, or does it reflect a kind
of rationality? Women are oppressed and, as Sapiro points out, oppression
implies not simply men's direct material power over women but their
indirect ability to make women feel inferior and unaware of alternative
ways of living. Even so, Sapiro argues, within those constraints women are
not necessarily irrational. Drawing on games theory, she suggests that
women pursue a strategy of minimising the risk of loss (Sapiro, 1979).
Stacey and Price also ask, in the light of many women's opposition to
female suffrage and emancipation (and, we could add, women's extensive
participation in America's Moral Majority of the 1980s), 'is it that the
traditional wife-mother role has satisfactions which outweigh those that it
is possible to gain in the public world?' They proceed to examine evidence
about the way the nuclear family works, but do not come back to answer
the question they so promisingly raise (Stacey and Price, 1981, p. 102). It is
at least possible that many women staunchly champion the family, and their
traditional role within it, because these form the context of their
painstakingly acquired skills, power and self-esteem. To enter the
'masculine' world is to risk losing these hard-won benefits, with no
certainty of compensatory status or success in the other world's terms.
There are theoretical objections to placing too great an emphasis on
socialisation, and the autonomy of culture and ideology. But there are also
political dangers. As Leon writes, such an emphasis not only diverts
attention from women's daily subjection to male pressure and power, but
helps to divide women by portraying the victim of conditioning, albeit
through no fault of her own, as irrational and thus inferior to her
enlightened sisters (Leon, 1978).
Male dominance and the economy
The third type of explanation of male dominance emphasises its economic

causes. Though the economy cannot simply be reduced to material relations
of production, such an approach is clearly, like explanations centring on
biological differences between the sexes, more 'materialist' than our second
type of explanation. Its exponents are generally Marxist, exclusively so if we
accept Delphy's inclusion of herself in that category.
No one with feminist pretensions will deny that Marx's own contribution
to this subject is entirely inadequate. McDonagh and Harrison summarise
this contribution as follows. Marx identifies three fundamental aspects of
social activity: the production of means to satisfy needs, the creation of new
needs and the reproduction of the species. The third of these he sees as
natural and unproblematic. Accordingly, in The German Ideology, he and
Engels view the sexual division of labour prior to the emergence of an
economic surplus as natural and egalitarian. Even in the context of early
capitalism, Marx does not consider reproduction to require specific
analysis. Instead he understands patriarchy, as we have seen, as a system of

father-dominated household production. Since he identifies patriarchy
solely in terms of production, not (biological) reproduction, he can quite
logically argue that it emerged together with the institution of private
property. He can predict its erosion, at least among the property-less
proletariat, with the fuller development of capitalism:
However terrible and disgusting the dissolution under the capitalist

system of the old familial ties may appear, nevertheless modern industry,
by assigning as it does an important part in the process of production,
outside the domestic sphere, to women, to young persons, and to children
of both sexes, creates a new economic foundation for a higher form of
the family and of relations between the sexes (McDonagh and Harrison,
1978.)
Marx has been criticised for neglecting the political economy of

reproduction. But the main shortcoming of his contribution is that it is so
sparse. In his writings he never turns his full attention to the question of
women, though Engels suggests that he planned to. This also means that
different writers have been able to put rather different interpretations on
what Marx did say.
Those seeking a more satisfactory Marxist account of male dominance
have in the first instance turned to Engels's Origin of the Family, Private
Property and the State, which is centrally concerned with this question.
Strongly influenced by the anthropologist Morgan, Engels posits successive
stages in the evolution of the family broadly related to changes in
technology and relations of production. In the era of 'primitive
communism' he suggests that a form of group marriage prevailed. This was
not, as those with 'brothel eyes' might suppose, the institutionalisation of
sexual depravity, but it did allow women considerable sexual freedom.
Within this system children belonged to their biological mother, not their
father. In the next stage, for reasons of clan survival but also because
women wanted it, there was a gradual transition to the 'pairing family'.
This was not accompanied by any decline in women's status. Even though
the natural division of labour centred women's activities in the home while
men procured food outside it, women had as much sexual~reedom as men,
they retained their 'mother right' and may even have presided over some
form of matriarchy. The origins of patriarchy lie instead in the subsequent
emergence, through 'the introduction of cattle breeding, of the working up
of metals, of weaving and finally field cultivation' (Engels, 1972, p. 66) of
an economic surplus. Men, because of the sexual division of labour
prevailing, just happened to be best placed to appropriate this surplus. They
now wanted to pass it on to sons they knew to be their own, and their new
economic power gave them the means to do so. Through 'the World historic
defeat of the female sex', mother right was replaced by father right and the
patriarchal household was installed.
If Engels is open to criticism for his assumption that the sexual division of
labour was originally natural and egalitarian, as well as for his many factual
inaccuracies, his is still one of the first sympathetic analyses of male
dominance and usefully made the link between reproduction and relations
of production. Some Marxist feminists have sought to build directly upon
his analysis. Probably the most elaborate and ambitious attempt is Evelyn
Reed's Woman's Evolution. She reinterprets a wealth of anthropological
evidence to argue that the first era of human existence was 'matriarchal'. By
this she means not that women were dominant - in fact, sexual
egalitarianism prevailed - but that the basic social unit, or clan, revolved
around the 'motherhood' or set of women kin collectively. In fact, it was
woman who had 'humanised the species' by introducing the taboo on sexual
relations between kin. Anthropologists have mistaken this for an incest
taboo but it was really a taboo against cannibalism, preventing conflict
amongst kinsmen over women. This taboo in turn maintained the
matriarchy, so long as it obliged men to seek mates amongst the members of
a different clan but remain in their own clan. Men had few rights as
husbands or fathers, especially since their role in reproduction was only
imperfectly understood (Reed, 1975).
While Reed's reconstruction of this matriarchal society is at least
plausible, she does not take it much further than Engels himself in
explaining exactly why and how the transition to a patriarchal society
occurred. One consequence of the emergence of an economic surplus, she
suggests, was the institution of the bride-price which may have helped
society and the husband to regard both his wife and her children as property
he had paid for. But she does not explain why men bought women rather
than the other way round.
Other Marxist feminists concerned with the origins of male dominance
have turned not to Engels directly but to the debate amongst, principally
French, Althusserians about precapitalist social formations. It is suggested
that in such societies an economic surplus may already exist which, while
not yet the basis for private property or class formation, is associated with
increased control by the male elders of the means not only of production
but also of reproduction. Marxist feminists have seen in this approach a
chance to move away from traditional Marxism's emphasis on production
and to explore relations of reproduction which could be of more direct
relevance for women's oppression. Unfortunately, as Edholme et al. have
pointed out, analysis has been impeded by using reproduction to mean, in
this context, three rather different things: social reproduction or
reproduction of the total conditions of production, reproduction of the
labour force, and biological reproduction (Edholme et al., 1977).
Explorations of this perspective are clearly still at an early stage, but
O'Laughlin has applied it in her clear study of the Mbu Kpau people of
Chad. A detailed examination of their organisation of production and
reproduction leads her to conclude that the unmistakeable and ritualised
pattern of male dominance does not result from simple biological
differences. Nor does it reflect a technologically determined sexual division
of labour, since 'within production as a whole there are few sexually
assigned roles outside the domestic sphere and the contribution of both
sexes are equitable'. Male dominance instead appears to arise from the
relations of production and reproduction associated with the existence of an
economic surplus. Male elders in practice, if not juridically, control the
material means of reproducing production, such as seeds and implements,
and also control women's reproductive functions, both child-bearing and
child-rearing (O'Laughlin, 1974, p. 306). If this kind of inequality exists
prior to the emergence of private property, the question remains why this
should be so. One possible answer is the increased importance of controlling
population rates, as labour-intensive production and the possibility of a
surplus make labour power more valuable. However, as Edholme et at.
demonstrate, there are a number of logical problems with this explanation
(Edholme et at., 1977).
These speculations focus on the economic origins of women's oppression.
At the same time, Marxist feminists have asked how far and in what ways
male dominance is necessary to different modes of production, most
particularly to advanced capitalism. As we have seen, Marx and Engels
believed that the development of capitalism, by expanding the property-less
proletariat and drawing women back into the public workforce, would
begin to undermine sex inequality. It was only socialism, by finally
eliminating private property and making possible the collectivisation of
child care and other formerly domestic functions, that could eliminate it.
But Marxist feminists have tended to emphasise and seek to account for the
limits to women's emancipation under contemporary capitalism.
They have considered first women's role in public production. While the
proportion of adult women in public employment steadily increased until by
1980 they constituted 39.4 per cent of the workforce (though two-fifths of
these were in part-time jobs) in the United Kingdom, their occupational and
pay levels remain consistently and markedly inferior to men's. One initial
explanation was that women, fettered by domestic obligations and the
ideological constraints that go with them, helped capitalism by swelling the
'reserve army of labour' and thus depressing labour costs (see Beechey,
1977). Subsequently it was recognised that women workers tend to be
concentrated and segregated in particular jobs where they are not in direct
competition with men, but it could still be argued that they provide capital
with a cheap and flexible source of labour (Breugel, 1979).
Secondly, and again largely within the confines of a traditional Marxist
framework, writers have emphasised women's contribution to capitalism as
consumers. Weinbaum and Bridges even argue that such consumption

amounts to work, since housewives in making their purchases must
'reconcile production for profit with socially-determined needs' (Weinbaum
and Bridges, 1979, p. 199).
The most extensive and original debate has been about the relationship
between advanced capitalism and women's domestic labour. Molyneux,
writing in 1979, reckoned that this debate had generated over fifty articles
(Molyneux, 1979a). Specifically, it is about how far and in which ways
women's domestic labour is necessary to contemporary capitalism.
One aspect of this question concerns women's contribution as housewives
to production. Marx and Engels depict domestic labour under capitalism as
unproductive, in the strict sense that it does not produce commodities for
exchange and so does not generate surplus value for the capitalist. With the
advent of second-wave feminism this formulation appeared unsatisfactory.
Benston helped to launch the domestic labour debate, when she argued that
the cause of women's oppression under capitalism was precisely the
economic necessity of their domestic labour. Even so, she followed Marx in
distinguishing between the use-values created by housework, which she
argued were necessary to maintain the economic system, and other
productive labour. In fact, she suggested that there was a separate, if
subsidiary and dependent domestic mode of production, which was
precapitalist in form (Benston, 1969).
Seccombe followed Benston in pointing out the social necessity of
women's domestic labour. He rejected the argument that it constituted a
distinct mode of production, and went further in emphasising the
inefficiency of domestic labour. Sheltered from the direct impact of the
capitalist market-place, housework was not subject to its law of value or to
capitalism's relentless drive for profit-making innovation. It was indeed
'the least efficient organisation of a labour process existent within
capitalism' (Seccombe, 1974, p. 17). A number of feminists took issue with
this conclusion. In particular Costa and James argued that women's
domestic labour did, ultimately, contribute to surplus value, by freeing men
from the need to do housework and thereby making them available for
wage labour. This kind of analysis, incidentally, largely underpinned the
demand for 'Wages for Housework', which enjoyed a brief but intense
vogue in the mid-1970s (Costa and James, 1972). Yet the mileage to be got
from arguing that women's domestic labour creates surplus value appears
limited, both theoretically and, from a feminist stance, tactically. As
Gardiner et al. point out, over the last one and a half centuries many types
of domestic labour have been replaced by goods and services provided
by the market or the state, such as 'laundries and prepared foods, educa-
tion and health care', indicating that they are not necessarily purveyed
more cheaply and efficiently within the family than outside it (Gardiner
et at., 1980, p. 248). And a political demand that women's domestic
labour be waged can appear to condone the prevailing sexual division of

labour.
More promising is the examination of domestic labour's role in capitalist
reproduction. Seccombe, for instance, finds it integral both to the
reproduction of labour power and to the reproduction of relations of
production. He suggests that domestic labour reproduces labour power
simultaneously on a daily and on a generational basis: 'The former gets the
wage worker to the plant gates every morning, the latter reproduces the next
generation of both wage and domestic labour power' (p. 14). Reproduction
of the labour force requires not only physical maintenance but
psychological inputs - soothing feelings, promoting family harmony and
sexual services. In the reproduction of the relations of production, the role
of women's domestic labour is principally ideological. Most important of
all is the mother's part in the early socialisation of her children into
attitudes and perceptions appropriate to their role in bourgeois society.
Barrett adds that the housewife 'plays the role of normative lynch-pin in the
family, providing an incentive for the man's motivation to work as a
breadwinner and cushioning him against the alienation of his labour power'
(Barrett, 1980, p. 174).
The argument that women's domestic labour is essential to the social
reproduction of capitalism has more immediate plausibility than the parallel
claim for its contribution to production. Certainly in the context of
contemporary capitalist society it would be difficult to deny that it
contributed to social reproduction of the economic system. But Marxist
feminists such as Barrett and Molyneux have themselves recently pointed
out the limits of this line of reasoning. Given that it posits the separation,
under industrial capitalism, of wage and domestic labour, it does not
explain why men should have been associated with one and women with the
other. How did women come to be the domestic labourers? Even if this
problem is by-passed, it is not clear, as Barrett points out, that the
reproduction of labour is best served, from the capitalist's viewpoint, by the
way that labour is currently organised. 'If we compare it to a system where
migrant workers live virtually in barracks with their costs of reproduction
largely borne in the hinterland we can see that the overall costs incurred in
reproducing the working class through the present system are not as low as
they might possibly be' (ibid., p. 221). Finally, Barrett suggests that the
concrete reality of women's domestic labour within the typical nuclear
family plays less part in reproducing the relations of production than what,
following Mcintosh, she terms the 'family-household' system. This is the
combination of an ideology of 'familism', based essentially on the
bourgeois nuclear family, and the reality of a great diversity of household
forms. It is the family-household system that socialises its members into
compliance with capitalism and simultaneously maintains women's social
subordination. This does of course raise the question of whether this
family-household system plays such a role only in advanced capitalism or

whether, as seems to be the case in existing industrialised state socialist
societies, it contributes to social stability in industrial societies as a whole.
In sum, and as a number of Marxist feminists have conceded, women's
oppression cannot be simply explained by its functionality for capitalism.
On the other hand, capitalism has built upon and reshaped pre-existing
differentiation in gender roles and, in some respects, though not necessarily
narrowly economic ones, may by now be dependent upon such a
differentiation.
A rather different approach that accounts for male dominance primarily
in economic terms can be found in the writings of the French feminist
Christine Delphy. Although she describes her method as Marxist, her
insistence that women constitute a separate class with its own distinctive
relationship to the means of production really makes her a radical feminist.
She follows Benston in suggesting that the family is the site of a distinct
mode of production, but she goes further in refusing to see this mode of
production as in any sense dependent upon the capitalist mode. Her thesis is
that in contemporary capitalist societies two principal modes of production
coexist, those of industry and of the family. The former is characterised by
capitalist exploitation, the latter by patriarchal exploitation. Thus all
married women who, Delphy emphasises, constitute the vast majority of
women at some time in their lives produce goods and services, including
those associated with child-rearing, within the family but are dependent for
'payment' upon the personal will of their husbands. This mode of
production serves the interests not of capital, but of men (Delphy, 1977).
Delphy's analysis is attractive in so far as it suggests that the economic
exploitation of women is more to do with men's collective interest than with
capitalism, but there are major difficulties with it. These are not so much
her assertion that all wives are exploited, 'even if they have one or two
servants', though this is hard enough to take, or her much criticised
emphasis on the unrepresentative experience of French farmers' wives, but
her failure to define the relationship between capitalism and the family
economy: between the classes of capital and labour on the one hand, and
women as a class on the other (Barrett and Mcintosh, 1979). Moreover,
though Delphy acknowledges the importance of women's role in biological
reproduction, she does not explore its implications for her analysis but
concentrates excessively on women's role in domestic production.
As with culture and ideology then, so with economic imperatives; it seems
that they cannot on their own adequately explain either the origins or the
continuation of women's oppression. At the same time, such imperatives
have probably exercised a major influence over the degree and forms of that
oppression, as well as currently constituting a crucial constraint upon the
possibilities of liberation.
How, then, is women's oppression to be explained? It would seem clear,
first, that although for clarity's sake I have distinguished biological,

cultural and economic factors, an adequate explanation will be relatively
complex and include all three. Second, the question can be posed in
different ways. Are we concerned with the origins of male dominance, its
present causes, its preconditions or its perpetuating mechanisms? As
Mitchell writes, 'more or less, every type of explanation contains some
truth'; the problem is that 'the answers are somehow more accurate than the
question' (Mitchell, 1974, p. 364). This does not make the question either
fruitless .or unnecessary. Admittedly answers, particularly as far as origins
are concerned, must be tentative and to a degree subjective, but, as already
stressed, they will still help to determine the effectiveness of feminist
strategy.
It seems to me likely that the biological differences between the sexes were
the root cause of and to a lesser extent continue to underpin male
dominance. Women's greater physical vulnerability enabled men to
dominate them; their reproductive role gave men a motive for doing so.
Even now it is women's reproductive role, above all, that enables men to
keep them subordinate.
Yet feminists are right to stress the vital mediating role of culture.
Biological sex differences in no way determine or justify the sex-based
division of labour or the social evaluation of sex roles. The institution of the
family, and women's mothering role within it, are cultural phenomena
which reflect and reinforce, especially through the separation of domestic
and public spheres, male chauvinist attitudes and practice. Culture in its
turn is significantly shaped by economic forces. It may well be that the
emergence of an economic surplus encouraged man's more systematic
domination not only of other men but of women. In the context of an
already male-dominated society, the industrial revolution depressed
women's status still further as they were tethered to a domestic sphere
whose social value steadily declined. In Britain and the United States the
imperatives of advanced capitalism in important respects reinforce male
dominance, especially through the family-household system, though in
other ways they tend to undermine it.
It is interesting to note here Young and Harris's suggestion that the
dominant mode of women's subordination may vary with the level of
economic development. Where the development of productive forces is low,
the mechanism is that of institutionalised physical violence, for instance
gang rape. At a higher developmental level, ideological mechanisms, as in
taboos and mythology, may prevail. Once there is sufficient economic
development to ensure relatively stable settlement, economic mechanisms
come to the fore (Young and Harris, 1976, p. 51). Though this specific
development may be open to dispute, the argument that the mode of male
dominance has varied is a useful one. Certainly, reliance on institutionalised
force (Brownmiller's insistence on men's collective complicity in rape
notwithstanding) has become increasingly unnecessary as society's cultural
and economic resources have developed.
The inevitability of male dominance?
To argue that male dominance is virtually universal is emphatically not to

say that it is inevitable. This book itself is but one symptom of the far-
reaching influence of feminist ideas. Feminism in turn has arisen not in a
social vacuum but as a response to the changing circumstances and
opportunities associated with industrialism.
Forces are at work in society helping to undermine the system of male
dominance. But feminists need to accelerate and consolidate their impact by
bringing the issue into the public political arena. A later chapter will show
how public policy and the state have themselves played a real, if secondary,
part in maintaining women's oppression. On the other hand, women can
use public politics in their own interests. It is to women's political
participation that we turn in Chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 3 concentrates on
participation in politics as voters and at 'grass-roots' level in political
parties, movements and groupings, while Chapter 4 looks at women's
involvement in political elites and the behaviour of women leaders.
2
Women's Political Behaviour
Of all aspects of the relationship between women and politics, it is women's

political participation that has received most sustained attention from
political science. There is a substantial literature on the subject, some more,
some less sympathetic to the feminist perspective. Quantitative evidence,
though uneven in its coverage, is relatively abundant and expanding.
Yet despite its volume, the literature is in some ways disappointing. First
is the problem of bias, not simply in the evaluation, but also in the
perception of 'facts', as far as these can be distinguished. Such bias occurs
not only in the sexist accounts of the 1950s and 1960s but, more
disarmingly, in some feminist critiques. Bias is no doubt unavoidable in
social science, even at its most rigorously behaviourist. How much more so
in a field so emotive, so concerned with questions of 'prejudice' and
'consciousness' as this.
The other main problem is that the forms of participation studied have
been largely confined to politics, narrowly and conventionally defined. At
the level of grass-roots political behaviour, interest has centred upon
participation within formal, constitutional, government-oriented
institutions or procedures. This leaves largely uncharted a whole range of
political behaviour which influences decision-making in society, and
provides a quite misleading view of women's political involvement.
The extent of women's participation in grass-roots politics
Voting
Within this narrowly conceived range of political behaviour, studies of

women have concentrated on voting patterns. The political importance of
voting is in dispute. An elector provided with a choice of candidates clearly
has more impact than if faced with a single slate. Yet even in a competitive
party system, the value of the individual vote is questionable. Given the
infrequency of elections, the at best limited choice of candidates, the
35
profusion of safe seats, the inadequacy of the information supplied to the

electorate and the independence of candidates once elected, political
scientists tend to stress the psychological satisfaction voting gives the voter
and its role in legitimising the political authorities and systems, functions
not so different to those diagnosed in totalitarian states. Such cynicism can
be overdone. The policy changes following the 1979 British General
Election have at the least reminded us that, cumulatively, votes can
sometimes matter very much.
The relationship of the vote to other forms of political participation is
also unclear. Voting is sometimes understood as the first step in a succession
of increasingly demanding political acts, but it may be more realistic to view
it as logically distinct, as:
A unique form of political behaviour in the sense that it occurs only

rarely, is highly biased by strong mechanisms of social control and social
desirability enhanced by the rain-dance ritual of campaigning, and does
not involve the voter in major informational or other costs. (Marsh and
Kaase, 1979, p. 86.)
Although voting may have its limitations as a criterion of political

participation, women's exercise of the vote has especial meaning against the
background of suffragist struggles. The suffragettes, however mistakenly,
perceived the vote not simply as a symbol of political emancipation but as a
means to effective political participation. In Britain and the United States
they endured severe privations to gain it. Women still do not everywhere
possess the same formal voting rights as men, though exceptions at national
level are now confined to Saudi Arabia and Liechtenstein. In some
countries they have only very recently been enfranchised, the most well-
known example being Switzerland, where women were unable to vote in
national elections until 1972. How have women exercised their hard-won
franchise?
In some countries, including incidentally not only socialist states but also
Australia, voting is in effect compulsory; our interest is therefore primarily
in how far women have used their vote when given a real choice between
voting and abstention. Further, official voting records rarely differentiate
by sex, so that figures cited tend to be based on surveys conducted
immediately before or after an election. As a result, their reliability depends
not only upon the accuracy of the sample surveyed but upon the
respondents' truthfulness.
It has been widely observed that women do not vote with the same
frequency as men. This has been the conventional wisdom concerning
British national and local elections in the past (see, for instance, Blonde!,
1965, p. 55), although the few relevant studies do not unanimously support
such a conclusion. Data from Butler and Stokes's analysis of the 1964 and
Women's Political Behaviour 31
1970 Parliamentary elections (see Butler and Stokes, 1974) have been
reworked to show that women's turnout fell marginally short of men's; in
1964, 90 per cent of eligible women and 92.5 per cent of eligible men voted,
while in 1970 the corresponding figures were 83.3 per cent and 87.1 per cent
(Baxter and Lansing, 1980, p. 150). Again, the apparently well-founded
consensus in the United States was that women were less inclined than men
to use their vote (see, for instance, Campbell et al., 1960, p. 483; Gruberg,
1968, pp. 9-16). Data from the Centre of Political Studies at Michigan
University (a source for statistics relating to women's political behaviour)
showed a continuing excess of the percentage of men over women voting in
the Presidential elections from 1948 to 1972. From 13 per cent in 1948, the
differential dropped to 3 per cent in 1964 and 1968, rising again to 6 per
cent in 1972. A similar gap was recorded for other Western democracies in
the 1950s and 1960s, not only France and West Germany but also the
progressive Scandinavian polities of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The at
first glance surprising deviation from this pattern is Italy where, since
enfranchisement in 1945, women have voted at a consistently higher rate
than men (see Curren, 1974).
The data indicate an even more pronounced tendency for male voting
turnout to exceed female in the 'developing' countries. For Latin America,
this has been reported in Colombia and Brazil, although the gap has closed
quite rapidly in Argentina and Chile. A consistent differential in voting
turnout between the sexes is also recorded in India.
This generalisation needs to be seriously qualified. In the first place, as
the figures cited illustrate, the differential typically has not been large. In
the second, over time, in Western democracies it has frequently diminished
to negligible proportions or disappeared outright. This is apparent in the
voting rates for American Presidential elections already cited. Similarly in
Britain, according to MORI opinion poll, 76 per cent of women and 79 per
cent of men voted at the February 1974 General Election (The Guardian, 5
May 1978). In the 1979 General Election, 49 per cent of voters were women
and 51 per cent men (Butler and Kavanagh, 1980, p. 343). In West Germany
the difference was only 0.8 per cent by 1976. Not only have significant sex
differences in voting rates disappeared in Sweden and Canada but, in 1972,
in Finland and Japan women were voting at marginally higher rates than
men. Moreover any residual differences usually vanish when voting rates
are controlled for such intervening characteristics as age or education. In
the third place, in developing countries, studies indicate a tendency for the
differential to narrow the longer women have had the vote and with
increasing urbanisation. The implications of these variations are discussed
further below, but they do suggest that women's tendency to vote Jess than
men is not inherent but contingent and transient.
Other conventional forms ofparticipation
I have argued that the political significance of voting, both its impact and
the individual commitment it requires, is usually slight. We need to examine
more demanding forms of political participation. Although we can draw
upon several systematic studies, information remains inadequate, patchy
and still dependent on an unnecessarily limited view of what such
participation includes. This is not to say that the kinds of participation
studied are unimportant, however. Besides, they constitute the usual
prerequisite for more elite political participation; if women's participation
in this conventional sense is Jess than men's, we have at least part of the
explanation for their under-representation in political elites.
Again, the general finding has been that women do participate less than
men. This is alleged in Britain, though evidence is thin. Dowse and Hughes
told us firmly, 'One of the best researched findings in British politics is that
women participate less and declare lower levels of interest in politics than do
men.' However, as indices of participation they relied on office-holding and
voting behaviour and cited no British evidence at all (Dowse and Hughes,
1972, p. 192). Baxter and Lansing use the Butler-Stokes data to show a
modest sex differential in political activity related to the 1964 and 1970
British General Election campaigns.
In America, data from the Centre for Political Studies covering the
national elections of 1952, 1964 and 1972 show male activism to exceed
female, when activism consists of campaigning for political parties or their
candidates, membership of a political club or organisation or attendance at
a political meeting, the latter two activities in the context of a party political
campaign (Welch, 1977). This definition of activism is of course extremely
narrow. Using a similar concept of activism, Black and McGien in Canada
find a small but significant sex differential in 1964 which had diminished but
not vanished by 1974 (Black and McGlen, 1979). Nielson and Sauerberg
report the findings of a pre-election survey in Denmark in 1977, which
showed 11 per cent of men and 10 per cent of women to be party members
and 39 per cent of men but only 31 per cent of women to have been involved
in 'legal' political activities. They conclude, however, that sex is not an
important predictor of political involvement (Nielson and Sauer berg, 1980).
On the other hand, relying on survey data from three regions of Southern
Norway in 1974, Lafferty argues confidently that, 'In sum, sex is the most
important "structural" determinant of political participation in Norway'
(Lafferty, 1978, p. 25).
That differentiation by sex in the rate of political participation is a cross-
cultural phenomenon is further underlined by a study, published in 1978 but
based on data collected between 1966 and 1971, of political participation in
seven countries: Austria, India, Japan, the Netherlands, Nigeria, the United
States and Yugoslavia. The authors calculate rates of participation by
combining measurements for a number of indicators: voting, activity in

electoral campaigns, 'communal activity' meaning citizen contact with
government officials on matters of general interest, and 'particularised
contacts' or citizen contacts with government officials on matters of
concern to a specific individual or group. This is clearly a broader
conception of political participation than some of those cited above. They
find that, in this sense, men participate more than women in all seven
countries, though the differential is least in the United States and the
Netherlands (Verba et at., 1978).
Data for women's membership of political parties and interest
organisations tend to confirm this picture. In Britain, women are
substantially represented in the membership of the two main parties. Hills,
drawing on official Labour Party figures and studies of local Conservative
Associations, estimates that they constitute approximately 40 per cent and
51 per cent of these parties' membership respectively (Hills, 198la). There
are no comparable statistics for the United States where party membership is
often barely distinguishable from electoral support. Rates in Sweden and
Finland are comparable to those in Britain, but in other West European
countries they are lower. In France, they range from 41 per cent for the
RPR (Rassemblement pour Ia Republique) to 22 per cent for the Socialist
Party. Similarly, in 1978, women in Italy formed 25 per cent and 38 per cent
of the members of the Communist and Christian Democrat parties
respectively. In West Germany, female party membership has increased
since the 1960s but still stands at just over 20 per cent in the Christian
Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party.
Party membership is especially necessary for political advancement in
communist states. In most East European countries, including the Soviet
Union, the proportion of party members who are women has only recently
reached 25 per cent, though in East Germany they constitute 31 per cent.
Similarly, in Cuba, just under 19 per cent of party members are women
(The Guardian, 28 May 1980). As Chaney notes, 'General membership
parties are a fairly recent phenomenon in Latin America' but she estimates
that in the late 1960s women formed 15-20 per cent and 20 per cent of the
various parties' membership in Peru and Chile respectively (Chaney, 1979,
pp. 91-2).
Verba and Nie provide data on participation in a range of organisations,
not all of them directly political, in the United States. They find that 8 per
cent more men than women belong to at least one organisation although
only 2 per cent more are active in at least two. The difference, they
conclude, is small (Verba and Nie, 1972). In their seven-country survey,
Verba et at. find that, with the exception of the United States where men's
lead is 'negligible', their rates of affiliation to institutions in general, and to
political institutions in particular, are consistently higher than women's
(Verba et at., 1978).
Quantiative data on women's participation in (non-feminist) interest

organisations is otherwise extremely thin, with the important exception of
trade union membership. Trade unions, though not formally political,
readily assume political significance. Once more, women are seriously
under-represented within them. Not only do they constitute a lower
proportion of total membership than men, but women workers are less
prone than men to join unions. In 1979, in Britain, they formed 29 per cent
of union membership, although 36 per cent of the paid workforce and in
the United States 25 per cent of trade union membership is female. In
France 30 per cent of trade union members are women. In Australia they
form more than a third of the unionised workforce and in Sweden by 1980
they comprised 40 per cent of the membership of the powerful trade union
federation, the LO. Rates may be even higher in some East European
countries - indeed, over 40 per cent of trade union members are women in
the Soviet Union- but, with only the temporary exception of Poland, these
states accord their unions little political independence.
Overall, the evidence suggests that women's political participation,
conventionally defined, is everywhere less than men's. Even so, a number of
caveats are in order. The first is that political activism tends in any case to
be a minority attribute. Second, these sex differences are not constant but
vary noticeably over time and across cultures. Of the seven countries in their
study, Verba eta/. find that America and the Netherlands exhibit the least
and India, followed by Nigeria, the most (1978). Indeed Lynn shows that if
data for the Presidential elections of 1968, 1972 and 1976 are analysed
together there is no significant difference in the sexes' rate of political
participation in the United States, except that men donate more funds to the
election campaign (Lynn, 1979). Black and McGlen also observe a
narrowing differential over time in Canada (1979). Though women's share
of party membership has risen steadily but slowly over the last two decades
in most of the countries for which we have information, both women's rate
of unionisation and their share of union membership have often increased
dramatically. Again, the implications of these variations must be discussed
further below, but they suggest that, as for voting, sex differences in
political participation, conventionally defined and at grass-roots level, are
not fundamental but could eventually fade away.
Less conventional politics
A satisfactory account of politics, as well as a comprehensive picture of

women as participants, requires us to broaden the definition of political
participation. There are other kinds of activity that intentionally influence
the making of public policy. In particular we need to include ad hoc politics,
not fully integrated into the formal political process or institutionalised, as
well as protest activity directed against the existing regime. A further form
of participation, of the greatest importance for women in the past, is
indirect, influencing those who do participate.
Ad hoc participation means participation in political campaigns that are
relatively short-lived, throwing up makeshift organisations and tending to
rely on direct tactics such as pickets, squats and self-help projects.
Typically, too, they focus on issues of local or community concern.
Women's involvement in such activities is not new, though information
about the past is limited. In Britain, for instance, women were prominent in
the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century food riots, as well as the 1837
demonstrations against the Poor Law (Stacey and Price, 1981, p. 41). In
eighteenth-century France, women 'were often central figures in food riots
and market disturbances', revealing 'political awareness and a certain
modicum of political skill' (Levy and Applewhite, 1980, p. 10). But it is the
scale of this involvement from the 1960s, together with changing academic
perspectives, that has drawn it to our attention.
In Britain women have been conspicuous in the community action
movement. This really got under way in the 1970s, though its leadership and
ethos owed much to the New Left student politics of the 1960s. It is
essentially urban, focuses on local issues and combines elements of self-help
with pressure on the authorities. A collection of essays edited by Marjorie
Mayo and written revealingly not by political scientists but by sociologists,
social workers, feminists and other activists, describes rather
impressionistically women's often preponderant role in housing campaigns,
child-care projects and the local claimants' union (Mayo, 1977).
Several studies have provided a similar picture in the United States. In the
late 1960s community politics was encouraged by the student and civil
rights movements on the one hand and the federal government's new urban
aid programmes on the other. As in Britain, women, both middle-class and
working-class, were subsequently keen participants. Gittell and Shtob, who
usefully summarise a number of relevant sources, tell us 'Neighbourhood
associations and community-action councils have a high female
involvement, according to all observers of the government-sponsored
organisations ... and to War on Poverty research studies' (Gittell and Shtob,
1980, p. 574). McCourt provides a pioneering study of white working-class
women's participation in eight politically active community organisations
011 the south side of Chicago. She finds that a majority of the most active
women are over 40 years old, not in paid employment and far from
consciously sympathetic with the values of women's liberation. The trigger
to their political involvement is the threat posed to their neighbourhood by
racial tension, declining school standards or industrial pollution (McCourt,
1977). Schoenberg also describes how, in several inner cities, the older
women members of longstanding ethnic communities were mobilised by the
perceived deterioration of their neighbourhood (Schoenberg, 1980). Other
women have campaigned for greater popular control of local health services
and for welfare rights.
Further evidence for women's ad hoc participation comes from Norway.
Hernes and Voje cite an opinion poll which showed that 49 per cent of male
and 47 per cent of female respondents had recently taken part in one or
more ad hoc political actions. The figures for both sexes seem surprisingly
high but the authors are chiefly interested in the implications for women
who, they suggest, 'come into their own in this type of activity'. They
incidentally note that many such political activities arise in neighbourhoods
where women not in paid employment predominate (Hernes and Voje,
1980, p. 177).
From women's participation in ad hoc politics we turn to the overlapping
sphere of protest politics, which is directed against the political authorities
and may actually be illegal or violent. There is sadly still a shortage of hard
information on this subject. Yet its implications for women's political
behaviour are too important to ignore.
A relevant starting point is the Barnes and Kaase study. They designed a
questionnaire to measure 'protest potential', that is, the readiness to resort
to direct, even illegal and violent, political action. Their data from Austria,
Britain, West Germany, the Netherlands and the United States indicate that
in Europe, less so in America, protest potential is positively though not
strongly associated with being male. However, except in Austria, women
are slightly more likely than men to belong to the sub-category of
protesters, those whose repertoire of political action is confined to direct
action and precludes conventional politics. Although these findings relate
only to intentions, they are remarkable and 'may well mean that women
report low participation rates in conventional politics not merely because of
their traditional inactivity, conditioned by lower educational levels, but
from a sex-based lack of identification with conventional politics' (Barnes
and Kaase, 1979, p. 184).
Women have often played an active role in revolutionary movements.
This was as true of Britain's own seventeenth-century Revolution (see
Rowbotham, 1974, p. 10) as of each of the French Revolutions of 1789,
1830, 1848, 1870 and 1968. Levy and Applewhite, in their study of femmes
sans-culottes in France's first Revolution, trace the 'evolution in their
political sophistication and influence that ultimately led to repression at the
hands of Thermidorian officials fully cognizant of the implications of
feminine political activities' (Levy and Applewhite, 1980, p. 10). In Russia,
'women were prominent in all the socialist movements . . . beginning with
agrarian reformers and ending with the Bolsheviks'. Although they rarely
attained leadership, in the October Revolution women fought in the streets:
'the poor women of Petrograd . . . stormed out to defend the Red
Revolution, alongside boys of ten and men armed only with shovels' (Salaff
and Merkle, 1970, pp. 171-3). In South America, too, women have
participated in peasant revolts and in urban guerrilla movements in

Argentina and Brazil, especially in the Tupamaros in Uruguay. Of the last-
named, Jaquette writes 'Reports issued by the movement indicate that a
large number of women have taken part in robberies, kidnappings and
other operations.' She notes that even as guerrillas, women do not usually
escape the division of labour by sex: 'Within the guerrilla operation itself,
certain tasks such as bearing messages, spying, carrying contraband
weapons etc., have been traditionally assigned to women, along with the
tasks of nursing and cooking' (Jaquette, 1973, p. 351). Women also played
a surprisingly conspicuous role in the uprising against the late Shah of Iran.
As Tabari writes their 'well-organised ... contingents became one of the
distinguishing features of the street demonstrations' (Tabari, 1980, p. 19).
In so far as nationalist movements can be distinguished from the
revolutionary activities already discussed, women's active participation has
frequently been recorded. Their contribution to India's long struggle for
independence from British rule was perhaps outstanding. In Africa,
Algerian women played a prominent part in the FLN's (Front de Liberation
Nationale's) war of terror against the French and the colons, smuggling
arms, even planting bombs, and joined in full force the insurrections of
December 1960 and July 1962 (Ainad-Tabet, 1980). Women actively
supported the wars of independence against the British in Yemen
(Molyneux, 1979b). Little describes the role of women's brigades in the
nationalist movement in Zambia, women's involvement in the Kenyan Mau
Mau and in resistance to the French in the Ivory Coast (Little, 1973). In
Zimbabwe, women joined the freedom fighters in large numbers. Typical is
the experience of Sarudzai Chichirunya who:
was 19 when she learned to handle a sub-machine-gun and went to fight

the liberation war in Robert Mugabe's guerrilla army. In her platoon of
35 people, who slipped through the bush to wipe out a Rhodesian security
base one May morning, three-quarters were women, carrying AK-47s,
mortars and bazookas.
The number of women eventually involved in such activities is estimated at

over 10,000 (The Guardian, 21 October 1980). Many decades earlier women
took part in successive independence movements in Latin America. In Gran
Colombia, from around the end of the eighteenth century;
women contributed to the independence movement in numerous ways.

First, and perhaps most dramatic, was their personal participation in
combat, accessory actions and espionage. Second, women lent their
support in their traditional helping roles as hotesses of political tertulias
and as nurses. Third, they made significant economic contributions by
donating moneys and supplies to the insurgents. (Cherpak, 1978, p. 220.)
From these examples it is clear that women have not been absent from the
more violent or, as they are sometimes called, 'terrorist' wings of such
movements. The media have highlighted their role in such organisations as
Baader-Meinhof, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Symbionese
Liberation Front and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).
Indeed by 1978, 60 per cent of the terrorists sought by the police in the
Federal German Republic were women (Jacobs, 1978, p. 166). In a radio
broadcast, Richard Clutterbuck attempted to explain such 'unfeminine'
behaviour in the somewhat contradictory terms of penis envy and the
charisma of individual male terrorists. But solid information is scant and,
while fascinating, this could prove a perilous subject for future research.
In their opposition to existing regimes, women have often faced severe
personal danger. Just after Franco's death in 1976, one-third of Spanish
political prisoners were female (Thiercelin, 1980). In Turkey, hundreds of
women were arrested and many were tortured under the martial law
established in 1971 (Sertel, 1980).
Women's participation in these oppositional movements, even more
perhaps than their ad hoc politics, contrasts vividly with the picture of their
conventional political activity presented earlier. But a complete account of
women's political behaviour also cannot ignore its more indirect forms.
That women should so often have been confined to these indicates the limits
to their political participation. At the same time, by indirect means, in the
past and even today, women have not only exercised considerable political
influence but made clear their interest in political questions.
Women participate in politics, informally and indirectly, through their
menfolk, particularly in societies where politics is relatively
uninstitutionalised. A spate of recent anthropological studies - once more,
political science is silent - illustrate how women manipulate the public
sphere of decision-making, apparently dominated by men. Through
carefully staged histrionics they force domestic disputes into the public
domain, or they simply threaten to shame their menfolk in this way. Often
women play on men's fears of their supposed supernatural powers, as
amongst Berber groups in North Africa (Nelson, 1975). Perhaps women's
greatest source of political leverage is their role as 'structural links between
kinship groups in societies where family and kinship are the fundamental
institutions of everyday life' (ibid., p. 559). It enables them to mediate in
marriages which often form part of important political alliances, and gives
them access to an invaluable information network. Kinship may also
provide the basis for a further source of influence, the extensive women's
solidary groups or networks, through which they can reduce their practical
dependence upon men and also help to shape 'public opinion' in ways that
the male decision-makers cannot afford to ignore. Wolf recalls:
In the Taiwanese village I knew best, some women were very skilled at
forming and directing village opinion toward matters as apparently

disparate as domestic conflicts and temple organisation. The women who
had most influence on village affairs were those who worked through the
women's community. (Wolf, 1974, p. 162.)
As societies 'modernise', the evidence suggests that these sources of

indirect political influence come to count for less. Even so, Jaquette argues
that in Latin America the salience of 'clientelism' in politics may provide
some women with new opportunities. Clientelism is the process by which
central political institutions of the modernising state are linked to the
traditional periphery by a hierarchical chain of personal dependency
relationships. Women's key position in informal kinship networks may
enable them to influence the operation of these relationships (Jaquette,
1976). From the thoroughly privatised base of the modern nuclear family,
women's scope for such indirect political influence must normally be
minimal, but even here mothers are important agents of their children's
political socialisation, as we shall see.
A second form of indirect political participation is taking part in
women's associations. While. these are relatively organised and permanent,
they are usually depicted as apolitical. Women's associations assume a
variety of guises, and can be found in both preindustrial and industrial
urban societies. They proliferate for example in West Africa, where many in
the past enjoyed and a few still enjoy today a direct say in community
politics. Even the less directly powerful associations have political
significance. Leis describes such an association in a south Nigerian village.
It holds regular meetings, elects its own officers, settles disputes between
members, regulates aspects of the local market, lends money and imposes
effective sanctions on transgressors of its rulings, whether men or women
(Leis, 1974).
In more urban and industrialised contexts, women's associations are
legion (I am excluding here feminist groups, as well as those political and
professional women's organisations whos pressure group character is overt
and widely recognised, such as America's League of Women Voters).
Political scientists have generally ignored their political potential - partly,
one suspects, because their membership is female. Feminist social scientists
also often depict such associations, particularly in those countries where
women have formal political rights, as reactionary. Obviously such
associations are a very mixed bag, in terms of membership, formal
arrangements and activities. While feminist criticisms may frequently be
well founded, however, this is not a reason to underestimate their role as a
vehicle for women's political influence.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, and while women were still
denied the vote in Britain and the United States, associations of, mainly
middle-class, women proliferated; many took up charitable and social
service functions, which in turn often led into campaigns for social reform.
In the United States such organisations included the Charity Organisation
Society, which 'aimed to reconstitute the able-bodied poor by putting them
in contact with a "friendly visitor", a middle-class female volunteer who
tried to bring middle-class values into the immoral environment'; the
General Federation of Women's Clubs, which in the 1890s was revising its
original emphasis on literary and cultural activities in favour of social
service and reform; and the famous Women's Christian Temperance
Union, founded in 1873 to promote temperance but later extending its
concerns to issues such as prison reform, child-labour laws and even
women's suffrage (see Gittell and Shtob, 1980, pp. 68-9). Although these
associations and their British counterparts could often rightly be accused of
helping to maintain the existing social system, they played an undeniable
political role in helping to bring many such issues to the attention of
politicians and the public.
Turning to the twentieth century, as Delamont - again, significantly, a
sociologist - notes, in Britain 'No good social science research has been
done on the large organisations for women, such as the Women's Institutes,
Townswomen's Guilds, Women's Royal Voluntary Service, Citizens'
Advice Bureaux and Mothers' Union' (Delamont, 1980, p. 192). Yet in 1978
it was estimated that around three million women were in all-female
organisations. Most of these organisations are careful to present themselves
as apolitical. Even so I suggest that they play a political role in at least two
ways. First, individual branches and, occasionally, national organisations
take up particular issues. The successful joint campaign of several such
organisations to remove turnstiles from public lavatories may not seem
exactly world-shattering, but they also supported the demand for child
benefits to be paid to mothers. Second, 'it is in the women's organisations
that those with a capacity or a taste for leadership can most easily achieve it'
(Encel eta/., 1975, p. 278). Some women may for that very reason prefer to
remain in this relative cul-de-sac rather than venture out into male-
dominated politics. But it is also relevant that many local Conservative
women councillors are recruited from this background. The same is true of
women in the United States in local, and even sometimes state-level,
politics.
Two further studies suggest a political dimension to women's
associations. Encel et a/. look at the role of such associations in Australia.
Of particular interest is the Country Women's Association, which in 1972
had 79,372 members in 2,665 branches. Its rationale has been to put rural
women in touch with one another, acting as a forum for their concerns and
a means of enhancing rural community welfare. The list of its social,
educational and welfare activities is impressive; increasingly it has also
brought influence to bear 'on issues where it clearly has special knowledge
and experience' (ibid., pp. 285-8). Caplan looks at the city of Madras, in
southern India, where 'there exist around 40 major women's organisations,

several of which are "umbrella" organisations for smaller groups with
membership running into thousands' (Caplan, 1978, p. 99). Although
Caplan herself minimises their political importance, suggesting that few see
themselves as pressure groups, her own analysis reveals that their
membership often cuts across caste and linguistic divisions, in itself some
kind of triumph for women's solidarity in the Indian context. Further,
individual women regularly use their position as 'social workers' within
these associations as a stepping-stone to a conventional political career.
To sum up, women's participation in conventional politics, at grass-roots
level, is less than men's. But the differential is often small, diminishing or
both. Women also participate politically in other ways; indirectly, through
informal, personal influence and through numerous women's associations,
and directly, through ad hoc campaigns, as typified in the spate of
community action in Britain and the US, and through protest activity,
which can be violent in form. Moreover, though shortage of reliable
information prevents any firm conclusion, it seems likely that women's
associations do indirectly assist women's political participation.
Women's political attitudes
What has been the impact of women's political participation? Although

women took part in public politics long before winning the vote, it was this
prospect that led both sympathisers and critics to ask what distinctive
contribution women would make. The debate, which was replicated in
many countries, ranged between two extreme positions. On the one hand,
many suffragists, accepting the Victorian, idealised view of women as
private and untainted, argued that their participation could only be
beneficial, imbuing politics with a new sense of morality. The American
feminist, Elisabeth Cady Stanton, maintained that the effect of female
suffrage would be 'to exalt purity, virtue, morality, true religion, to lift man
up into the higher realms of thought' (cited by Elshtain, 1974, p. 464).
Similarly, Julia Ward Howe insisted that 'The very intensity of our feeling
for home, husband and children gives us a power of loving and working
outside of our homes, to redeem the world as love and work only can' (cited
by Bernard, 1979, p. 280). Opponents of women's suffrage, on the other
hand, emphasised that women's sheltered background and limited moral
intellectual faculties ill suited them for politics, and that their politicisation
would have disastrous consequences for family life and, ultimately, social
harmony. So Dicey warned 'a revolution of such boundless significance
cannot be attempted without the greatest peril to England' (cited by Curren,
1974, p. 2).
In the event, there seems little basis for either of these apocalyptic
prophecies. Female suffrage has not transformed society or politics. Yet

both non-feminists and feminists regularly suggest that women's political
attitudes and impact differ subtly but significantly from men's. As before,
the evidence cited to support such claims is patchy and often ambiguous.
None the less the generalisations made about alleged differences provide a
useful framework around which to present the discussion.
Female political activity is male-dominated
Many studies conclude, and some simply assume, that women's political
behaviour is dominated by the men in their lives (see, for instance, Campbell
et at., 1960; Charzat, 1972). In the first place, wives are presumed to adopt
the political views of their husbands. Thus, observing the similarity in
political outlook between spouses, Lazarsfeld et at. deduce 'The almost
perfect agreement between husband and wife comes about as a result of
male dominance in political situations' (Lazarsfeld et at., 1968, p. 141).
The feminist critique of this assumption questions not so much the
finding that the reported political preferences of husbands and wives
converge as the construction put upon it. Goot and Reid argue that evidence
to support such a construction is less than convincing. Sometimes it is
second-hand, as when respondents were asked about influences on their
mother's party allegiance (Butler and Stokes, 1974). Or it is based on too
few instances, as when Milne and Mackenzie drew their conclusions from
the replies of 24 out of 240 women (Milne and Mackenzie, 1958).
Two more careful studies do tend to lend more support to this
generalisation. Beck and Jennings, using data gathered in the US in 1965,
show that wives' political attitudes are further from their own parents and
nearer their in-laws' than are husbands' (Beck and Jennings, 1975). Weiner,
to prove that this does not result from selective mating, goes on to
demonstrate that a couple's political views become both more homogeneous
and closer to the husband's original views over time (Weiner, 1978). Still,
even if these studies do establish that wives adjust to their husbands'
political attitudes, more than vice versa, this may be because 'It is still the
case that within marriage male careers and status tend to predominate, and
it may therefore be that the women who change are reacting to extra-
familial influence, or adapting to an entire milieu rather than, as it were,
yielding politically to a man' (Evans, 1980, p. 214). There is also a curious
contradiction between this finding and women's reported tendency both to
vote less than men - they evidently do not follow their husbands into the
polling booths - and to be more conservative than men.
It has similarly been supposed that children, including daughters, adopt
their fathers' political views (see, for instance, Lazarsfeld et al., 1968). Goot
and Reid again question the reasoning behind this supposition, and show
that sometimes parental influence is simply equated with paternal influence.

For instance, Butler and Stokes assume fathers' influence on partisanship to
be greater, because it is most visible, but simultaneously observe that 'when
the mother was partisan and agreed with the father, she strongly reinforced
his influence on the child ... when she was partisan and disagreed with the
father, she was if anything a little more likely to carry the child with her'
(Butler and Stokes, 1974, p. 53). Moreover, a study in the United States of
the impact on children's partisanship of parents whose party identifications
differ finds that mothers have only slightly less influence than fathers on
their daughters (Jennings and Langton, 1969). If, then, the generalisation
that husbands dominate their wives' political behaviour has received some
e'llpirical confirmation, there is little evidence that fathers dominate the
political attitudes of their children, or at least of their daughters.
Women are conservative
A generalisation that is by now almost a cliche and which appears more

securely founded, at least in terms of the recent past, is that women are
politically more conservative than men. Thus a standard comment of
British electoral studies has been that women are more likely than men to
vote for the Conservative Party (see, for instance, Blonde!, 1965, p. 60).
Indeed, they were blamed for the Conservatives' victory in 1970. On the eve
of the General Election in May 1979, Crewe had predicted the 'typical
Conservative advantage amongst women', though in the event the British
Election study survey showed 45 per cent of women voting Conservative, as
opposed to 46 per cent of men (Crewe, 1979).
Even in the past, observers may have exaggerated and misunderstood
female Conservative voting in Britain. Not only did Rose estimate the gap
between male and female Conservative voting in 1974 at only 2.5 per cent
(Rose, 1974) but, as early as the 1951 and 1955 General Elections, it was
pointed out that:
the associations between age and voting, and to a more limited extent, sex
and voting, were attributable partly to the basic relationship between
social class and voting, through the effects of differential death rates on
the class structure of different age and sex groups ... because until
recently higher death rates occurred in the lower social groups and among
males, so that the longer-lived tended to be women of the higher social
strata. (Milne and Mackenzie, 1958, pp. 59-60.)
More recent studies confirm a strong relationship between female

Conservatism and longevity; for instance, Baxter and Lansing, reworking
the Butler and Stokes 1964 General Election data, find that generational
differences amongst women were pronounced: while older women voted

Conservative at about the same rate as men of their age, and while middle-
aged (30 to 59) women were 8 percentage points ahead of men in their rate
of Conservative voting, young women voted Labour at a rate (57 per cent)
11 points higher than young men. They conclude that women's
conservatism in Britain is a 'generational artefact' (Baxter and Lansing,
1980, p. 157). However, as Evans points out, this leaves unresolved the
question of whether older women's conservatism is a function simply of the
life cycle or also a result of their assimiliation of partisan values at a time
when the Labour Party was not yet perceived as a viable contender for
national power (Evans, 1980). We should also note Francis and Peele's
finding that in Britain, young women are no less conservative than older
women on certain issues, such as the choice between tax cuts and
maintaining levels of social expenditure (Francis and Peele, 1978).
Female conservatism has also been, and in many cases continues to be, a
feature of voting behaviour in other West European nations. It is strongly
associated with the presence of an influential Roman Catholic church; one
author in fact suggests that women's vote prevented the communists coming
to power in France, West Germany and Italy (Devaud, 1968). But, up to the
1970s, women were apparently more inclined than men to vote for
conservative parties in every country for which information is available
including not only Greece, Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands but
also Sweden and Finland. This difference, the evidence suggests, is
declining. Though in the 1978 French legislative elections, 48 per cent of
women's vote but only 43 per cent of men's went to the conservative
coalition parties, the UDF and RPR, this margin was smaller than the 10-12
per cent differential in the earlier years of the Fifth Republic. In West
Germany's 1976 Bundestag elections, 47.6 per cent of men and 43.1 per cent
of women voted for the socialist SPD, while 47.2 per cent of men but 48.8
per cent of women voted for the two conservative parties, the CDU and
CSU - not an astounding difference. In Sweden, in respect of conservatism,
'surveys conducted during the 1970s found no discernible difference
between men and women's voting behaviour' (Eduards, 1981, p. 223).
As Jaquette observes, in the context of United States politics, where in
any case a conservative orientation is less easily equated with support for
Republicans or Democrats, from the existing evidence 'it is not clear that
women are as conservative as their European counterparts' (Jaquette, 1974,
p. xxii). Similarly in Canada Vickers and Brodie point out that women and
men vote at similar rates for the two main parties, the Liberals and
Conservatives, which are difficult to distinguish in terms of a Left-Right
spectrum. Nor, according to the authors, can the fact that rather fewer
women than men vote for the social-democratic NDP (New Democratic
Party) be taken to indicate their greater conservatism, since it primarily
reflects their lower rate of participation in trade unions (Vickers and
Brodie, 1981). Australian women, on the other hand, have given greater
electoral support than men to the conservative Liberal Party, but during the
1970s this tendency has diminished (Simms, 1981).
Women's marginally greater propensity to be politically conservative
shows up in their patterns of party membership. We have already seen this
to be true of Britain, Sweden, Finland, France and Italy. In Australia,
women form approximately one half of the membership of the Liberal
Party but one quarter of Labour Party membership. Cumulatively the case
for female political conservatism in the developed world is impressive.
Corresponding information for the developing world is somewhat scant,
but data from Latin America lend support to the thesis of women's
conservatism. Unusually, in Chile's 1970 and 1971 General Elections and in
Argentina's 1965 General Election, women voted in separate booths and
their votes were separately tallied. On each occasion women inclined rather
more than men to the conservative parties, which were also the parties
identified with the Roman Catholic church. Lewis does, however, point out
that Argentinian women did not support parties of the far right (Lewis,
1971). In Chile and Brazil women figured prominently in demonstrations
against Allende and the 'liberal' Goulart, respectively. One survey of
partisanship in Mexico further finds that women are slightly less prone than
men to support the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional), though, as
Jaquette argues, in the context of Mexican politics, 'a vote for PAN
[Partido de Accion Nacional] represents an opposition vote to Mexico's
single party, PRI, and this may be interpreted as a radical alternative'
(Jaquette, 1976, p. 60).
Despite the weight of evidence and inference I have cited, the
generalisation of female conservatism requires careful qualification. In the
first place, the differences between the sexes should not be exaggerated.
Rarely does the differential between male and female support for
conservative parties, as far as it has been recorded, exceed 10 per cent, and
there is a widespread tendency for it to narrow. Second, it is commonly
found that people's political attitudes become more conservative as they
grow older, so that in countries such as France, West Germany, Australia or
Britain, female conservatism has been shown as in part a function of
women's greater longevity. In Argentina, Lewis finds that women in urban
districts tend to vote on class lines while in the countryside they vote more
conservatively than their class or status would dictate. This suggests that
female conservatism will decline as the isolation of rural women breaks
down (Lewis, 1971).
Not only does this evidence indicate that female conservatism is marginal
and perhaps declining, but other findings actually run counter to the
generalisation that women are politically conservative. Even when
conservatism is simply taken to mean support for conservative political
parties, particular studies can be cited of localities in Australia and in
Belgium where women were found to give more support to the Socialist or
Labour Parties than men (Goot and Reid, 1975). But counter-evidence can
also be produced when conservatism is defined more broadly.
This raises the more fundamental objection to this generalisation: the
concept of conservatism is too broad to be discriminating. If it is taken to
connote right-wing political attitudes, it is demonstrably no more
characteristic of women than of men. In Argentina, for instance, we noted
that the female vote leant more than the male towards parties representing
the status quo, but not towards the radical right. As Goot and Reid point
out, poll data indicate that electoral supporters of the Poujadists in France,
the Neo-Fascists in Italy, the National Socialists in Germany and the Ultras
in Northern Ireland were disproportionately male. Perhaps it is more
accurate to equate female conservatism with adherence to the established
political order. In that case of course the established order could be a
'socialist' one; in so far as the concentration of Soviet women party workers
in 'indoctrination' positions reflects their preference rather than more
practical constraints, which is debatable, it would support such an
interpretation (Moses, 1976). Even so, can this easily be squared with the
observations cited earlier of women's protest potential, their participation
in ad hoc and revolutionary politics? Possibly one could argue that, in some
of these activities, women are protecting their own or their loved ones'
interests, bound up in a traditional order. For instance, women engage in
community action campaigns often to protest against deteriorating housing
and neighbourhood conditions. At other times, this would be extremely
difficult to maintain, and the very methods that women employ in ad hoc
and protest politics do not indicate undue respect for established political
institutions.
Even if we set aside such unconventional politics, the thesis of female
conservatism may exaggerate the extent of women's positive commitment to
conservative values. As we shall see, women have consistently been found to
be less politically knowledgeable or involved than men and, most relevant to
the present discussion, they have been reported as thinking less ideologically
than men. In a reworking of the data collected for the Barnes and Kaase
project, Jennings and Farah find that in all five of the nations u11der
consideration (Austria, Britain, the Netherlands, the United States and
West Germany), women are less likely than men to recognise, employ or
understand concepts associated with the political left and right (Jennings
and Farah, 1980).
Finally, as Evans reminds us, it is now widely recognised that individuals'
political attitudes are difficult to identify and not necessarily internally
consistent (Evans, 1980). Conservatism, it follows, does not exist
subjectively as an integrated system of values and beliefs. Not surprisingly,
women's attitudes to various political questions may not be consistent either
with one another or with a standard conservative line. There is, as we shall
see, considerable evidence in the Western democracies that women are more
pacifist than men, an attitude not entirely consonant with orthodox
conservatism. Evans further cites findings in Britain that women are 3 per
cent more likely than men to believe that the police should be armed at
public demonstrations but 4 per cent less likely to favour restoration of
capital punishment, an indication of the complexity of women's political
preferences (ibid., p. 219). Similarly Francis and Peele, using data collected
by Butler and Stokes during the 1970 General Election, chart attitudinal
differences between the sexes and between generations on a series of
contemporary political issues. A complicated pattern emerges; they discover
that while differences in the partisanship of the sexes decline steadily with
successive generations, a parallel convergence is apparent in only three out
of the six selected issues, those concerning the Labour Government's ability
to control price increases, immigration and the seriousness of strikes. On
the other hand, between younger men and women there is only modest
convergence on attitudes to joining the European Community. Women at
all ages are more likely than men to be critical of the influence of big
business and younger women are, if anything, more inclined than older
women to prefer tax cuts to social expenditure. The authors use these
findings to argue that convergence of political attitudes between the sexes
increases with the political immediacy of the issue, but they also
demonstrate the absence of an internally logical relationship between the
attitudes themselves (Francis and Peele, 1978).
The assertion that women are politically more conservative than men is
acceptable only if these differences are recognised to be marginal and
perhaps transitory. In any case we need to be clear what is meant by
'conservatism' in this context and to remember that a 'conservative'
disposition can embrace a range of contradictory attitudes on specific
issues.
Women personalise politics
Another frequent contention is that women are more candidate-oriented, as

opposed to issue-oriented, than men; that is, they tend to personalise
politics. The most famous cited example is female support for Eisenhower
as American Presidential candidate in 1952 which, it is said, transformed
his slim majority into a landslide victory. Again, however, the evidence to
support this is inadequate. Indeed Shabad and Andersen (1979), after a
careful examination of citations, conclude that it is drawn from a single
source: Campbell et at. 's study of American voting behaviour, which in any
case reported that sex differences in this regard were minimal (Campbell et
a/., 1960). There is counter-evidence: Goot and Reid (1975) refer to a survey
conducted in Canada specifically to discover whether Trudeau was
especially attractive to women voters which indicated that he was not.

Jones also cites an opinion poll taken in Japan in 1972 which found that
women were actually less candidate-oriented than men (Jones, 1975).
Shabad and Andersen use data on the US Presidential elections from
1952 to 1976, some of which formed the basis of the Campbell eta/. study,
to pursue the question further. They reveal a small and diminishing
difference in the sexes' tendency to appraise a candidate in terms of
personality rather than issue or party consideration. Observing that the
majority of both sexes stress personality considerations, they examine the
responses that have been lumped together under this heading. They find
that relatively few respondents, though slightly more women than men, are
concerned with purely personal characteristics that have little political
content, such as the candidate's looks or family life. Instead, they are
principally influenced by their perception of candidates' competence,
followed closely by their capacity for leadership and trustworthiness
(Shabad and Andersen, 1979).
Women are moralistic
Women's political participation has also been labelled moralistic. We saw

that female suffrage was widely expected, either approvingly or
disapprovingly, to introduce a new moralism into politics. Moreover,
female conservatism had been associated, especially in Roman Catholic
countries, with the influence of the Church. On a priori grounds female
moralism in politics could be anticipated.
There is some evidence to support this. First, women have frequently
been found to hold more pacifist views than men on the issues of war and
nuclear arms. In America this has been documented by successive studies.
Baxter and Lansing summarise research findings based on Presidential
election surveys from 1952 to 1976 showing that 'women differ from men
most strongly on issues that pertain to war and peace'. For example in 1952,
48 per cent of men but only 32 per cent of women approved of America's
military involvement in Korea. In 1968, over half the men respondents but
more than two-thirds of the women disapproved of intervention in
Vietnam. Both the size of the sex differential and its constancy over time are
remarkable. Baxter and Lansing find it is younger, better educated women
who are most 'dovish', suggesting this tendency could increase (Baxter and
Lansing, 1980, pp. 57-9). It is revealing of attitudes prevalent then, that
Parkin's study of British CND supporters in the 1960s was interested in
mothers' influence on young members' attitudes, but nowhere discussed
women's membership as such. One can infer from his data, however, that
40.7 per cent of his sample of 358 members were women, quite a high
percentage given the level of female political activism at that time (Parkin,
1968). Wilson also tells us that:
from the beginning women were centrally involved in the campaign

against the bomb and one of the early demonstrations consisted of 2,000
women with black sashes and flags walking on a pouring wet Sunday
from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square. Once under way, CND always
attracted large numbers of women. (Wilson, 1980, pp. 177-8.)
My personal impression is that women have played a prominent role in

the CND revival since the end of the 1970s, though statistical evidence to
back this is lacking. Further recent manifestations of women's pacifism
include the formation of a British Women's Peace Alliance and the march
to Brussels in Summer 1981 of thousands of European women in a protest
against the nuclear arms race, which was organised by five Norwegian
women's peace groups (The Guardian, 25 July 1981).
Tangentially related to the issue of nuclear weapons is that of nuclear
power, though it is an ecological as much as a moral question. In the United
States a Gallup poll found that, following the incident at Three Mile Island,
71 per cent of men but only 59 per cent of women were opposed to closing
of all nuclear plants (Baxter and Lansing, 1980, p. 59). Nuclear power has
become a central theme of Swedish electoral politics; in the referendum of
March 1980, 46 per cent of women as against 31 per cent of men opposed it,
though women's party preferences seem not to be affected by the issue
(Eduards, 1981).
Women have also been depicted as more puritanical than men. This is in
part the legacy of women's campaigns in the United States and Britain
against prostitution and alcohol. Indeed the bootleggers of America's
prohibition days were ironically much indebted to the exertions of the
Women's Christian Temperance Union. In Sweden a referendum held in
1922 showed 59.1 per cent of men but only 41.5 per cent of women to be
against prohibition. Rather more recently Gruberg cites surveys conducted
during the 1950s in the American West and Midwest which 'showed a real
divergence between the sexes on such issues as prohibition, legalised
gambling and prostitution' (Gruberg, 1968, p. 13).
As an extension of this puritanism, and against the background of
American women's involvement in the urban reform movement of the
Progressive era, women have also been associated with 'reformism', in the
sense of efforts to 'clean up' government and fight corruption. Lane in
particular asserts this characteristic only to dismiss it, in a memorable
phrase, as 'a bloodless love of the good' (Lane, 1959, p. 212).
One objection to the charge of women's political moralism is that, with
the exception of their pacifism, this trait is insufficiently documented. But a
second major objection must be to the assumptions that underlie it. How
realistic is it to read disinterested moralism into these attitudes, in so far as

they exist? For instance, 'many women voted for prohibition because
drunken husbands were poor providers and physically abused women and
children in the home. Thus it was not "moralism" but self-interest that
determined their decision in some cases and social awareness in others'
(Epstein, 1981, p. 134). Less flatteringly, some male critics have attributed
women's pacifism to their ignorance and to their timidity. Yet what is
wrong with moralism in politics? To quote Goot and Reid:
What is being cited in the name of political science is a conception of

politics every bit as narrow and misleading as the one being assailed. Here
politics appears to be restricted to material interests, jockeying for
advantage in a tough-talking world of wheeler-dealing, cost-benefits and
compromise. A masculine world. (Goot and Reid, 1975, p. 31.)
Women are apolitical
This brings us to a more fundamental characterisation of female

participation as essentially apolitical. In discussing generalisations about
women's political behaviour so far, I have frequently pointed to inadequate
or contradictory evidence. Nor is it unfair to suggest that some
commentators have too readily leaped to conclusions congruent with
stereotypes of female personality and sex roles. They have exaggerated sex
differences thus helping to perpetuate the folklore they defer to.
Of all the charges brought against women's political behaviour,
apparently the most solidly founded is that they know less about politics,
are less interested and less psychologically involved in it than men. Evidence
can be cited from the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada, France,
West Germany, Italy and Denmark amongst Western democracies. For
Eastern Europe information is extremely thin and confined to Yugoslavia,
Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union; it suggests that, even in these
countries, mass mobilisation has not eradicated a similar sex difference in
levels of political interest (Wolchik, 1981). Less surprisingly, perhaps, such
a difference is reported in India, and in a discussion of women's role in
Ghana (Smock, 1977). To reinforce this conclusion we can refer again to the
Verba et a/. seven-nation survey of political participation; women were
found to score consistently lower than men on political interest and
psychoiogical involvement, in Austria, India, Japan, the Netherlands,
Nigeria, the United States (though here the differential was very small) and
Yugoslavia (Verba eta/., 1978).
Yet even this generalisation requires qualification. A first point to stress
is that most people are pretty apolitical, on a conventional understanding of
what 'political' means. Second, in the United States and Britain the
reported differences in the politicisation of the sexes are slight. Nor are
differences elsewhere unchanging; on the contrary, surveys in Australia,
Canada and France have shown the gap to be narrowing steadily. Sex
differences in political interest are further reduced when intervening
variables, in particular level of education, are accounted for.
Beyond these factual qualifications, there are questions about the
underlying assumptions. It is not so much that the assumptions are sexist, at
least not directly so. Rather politics has been conceptualised in a narrowly
conventional fashion. Consequently measures designed to score political
knowledge or involvement are excessively oriented towards this kind of
politics. As Evans asks, 'Do the items of factual information about office
holders etc., which are commonly used, in fact comprise the most salient
basis for political understanding?' (Evans, 1980, p. 221). Women, I have
shown, are not inevitably apolitical; they can get involved in politics when
its concerns and mechanisms are accessible to them. It is probably true that
women are less 'political', in a conventional sense, than men, but that is
quite different from saying that they do not appreciate the political
dimension in social life.
Women are politically superior
Although many commentators, including on occasion feminists (see, for

instance, Iglitzin, 1974), conclude from the kind of information presented
so far that women participate politically like inadequate men, suffering
from 'insufficient masculinisation' (Jaquette, 1974, p. xviii), other
feminists suggest or at least hint at an alternative interpretation according to
which women's participation stems from a distinctive and superior
motivation. This is part of a more general feminist argument that women
are superior to men, either innately or because of the way they live, which I
considered in the Introduction. This view is not to my knowledge
systematically expounded anywhere in relation to women's political
participation. It is useful to piece together the outline of such a position,
drawing upon fragmented sources, and it runs as follows.
Women are firstly more percipient than men, seeing through the facade
of conventional politics. Their own experience has shown them that politics,
as presently practised, is about power. Moreover real political power is
concentrated and little affected by apparently democratic processes of
popular participation. Consequently women see less point than men in
conventional political participation. Thus Amundsen suggests that one
reason they vote less than men may be their rejection of the present political
system (Amundsen, 1971, p. 142). Bourque and Grossholtz also speculate
that women's tendency to rate their political efficacy, that is their ability to
effect change through politics, lower than men's, and their evaluation of
candidates on the basis of personality, in so far as it is proven, is evidence

not of political immaturity but of a shrewd appraisal of the political system
(Bourque and Grossholtz, 1974).
Secondly, women are more democratic than men; they eschew power as
an end in itself. Their experience of male dominance has alerted them to the
ways in which power can be abused. An emphasis on democracy is a
particular feature of the women's liberation movement, but it has also been
suggested that women, because of their own oppression, are more
sympathetic with the plight of the 'underdog' of whatever category.
A third observation, stemming from the previous two, is that women are
more radical than men. They are more willing and more able to challenge
existing political practices and concepts. Again this is primarily asserted in
the context of women's liberation which has radicalised legitimate politics
by bringing issues formerly considered non-political into the political arena
and challenging prevailing definitions of the political. Cockburn also
suggests that, in community politics, 'Women ... in action tend to be
intractable and uncompromising ... to be unexpected, to think up new
ways of doing things ... Women are often total in their demands'
(Cockburn, 1977, pp. 63-4). Bernard considers that women may have a
special role to play in 'the task of restructuring the future' (Bernard, 1979,
p. 283). She cites Boulding, another feminist, who describes women as
living until now on the 'underside' of history. This experience, Boulding
contends, provides women with 'a special resource. It is society's free
fantasy space, its visioning pace, its bonding space. It is a space in which
minds can learn to grapple with complexities that are destroying the
overside' (Boulding, 1976, p. 789). The view that women are potentially
more radical than men would find further support from the evidence of
their participation in protest and revolutionary politics cited earlier.
Finally, women are more ethical and humane than men. In so far as they
participate in conventional politics, they bring to it concern for ordinary
human beings and for ethical standards of conduct. This was of course an
argument used repeatedly by nineteenth-century suffragists, but today's
feminists produce it too. Stoper and Johnson for instance quote Gloria
Steinem's belief that women in politics can contribute 'by tempering the
idea of manhood into something less aggressive and better suited to this
crowded, post-atomic planet' (Stoper and Johnson, 1977, p. 195). Bernard
holds that 'the contribution of women to general policy has actually tended
to be altruistic, on the humane side and their contribution to political life
benign' (Bernard, 1979, p. 282). Bourque and Grossholtz suggest that if
women evince little interest or expertise in specific policy areas it is because
these areas do not really matter; on issues like peace and capital
punishment, women do have definite and more humane opinions than men
(Bourque and Grossholtz, 1974). As we have seen there are some grounds
for this supposition, particularly for saying women are more pacifist than
men. However it is not necessary to resort to biological explanations -

women's role as the bearers of new life- as some feminists would advocate,
to account for these sex differences. Not only rules of scholarship but
political expediency warn against their exaggeration; as Stoper and Johnson
point out, it could play into the hands of male politicians happy to confine
women to traditionally 'feminine' political roles.
I must re-emphasise that such a case for women's political superiority has
yet to be systematically advanced. Nor, in this form, would it appear much
more tenable than the 'sexist' interpretations that it rejects. At the least,
however, it is useful simply in pointing_ up the arbitrariness of many
traditional readings of women's political behaviour and in providing an
alternative paradigm.
The preceding paragraphs do not exhaust the catalogue of perceived
characteristics. For instance, it has been suggested that women are more
fickle in their political loyalties than men, but, as Goot and Reid point out,
supporting evidence is thin. Of more interest and plausibility is the frequent
assertion that women are more oriented towards local than national
politics, a possibility whose implications are further considered in the
following chapter.
The overall conclusion of this survey of evidence and argument must be
that few dramatic differences exist between the two sexes' political attitudes
at grass-roots level. Women do appear more conservative in certain
respects, less knowledgeable about and interested in politics, at least
conventional politics, and perhaps more moralistic. But these differences
should not be exaggerated and in many contexts they dwindle to vanishing
point.
Determinants of women's political behaviour
We must now ask how such distinctive features as have been uncovered in
the scope and content of women's political participation can best be
explained. It is, interesting to note that even feminist explanations in
political science emphasise characteristics of women themselves rather than
relevant features of the political system. Moreover, these explanations
differ not so much on the range of factors conditioning women's
orientation to politics as on which is the most important. In the following
discussion I shall distinguish broadly between relevant characteristics of
women, on the one hand, and of politics on the other, although of course
they are interdependent.
The effects of childhood socialisation
Beginning with women, which of their attributes most shape their political
behaviour? Early studies tended to refer simultaneously to women's

'mentality of minors' (Duverger, 1955, p. 129), their immediate situation
and their position within the structure of society, without attempting to
unravel these strands. Later studies have sought to distinguish explicitly the
effects of socialisation or sex-role stereotyping from those of factors
variously labelled situational or structural. Since the theoretical frameworks
of these studies do not entirely coincide, the terms 'situational' and
'structural' are not always used the same way and their usages overlap. All
the same, they offer a useful framework for analysis.
Political socialisation has been defined as the 'interaction between the
social system and an individual, whereby both predisposition for and skills
relating to participation in the political sphere are internalised' (Flora and
Lynn, 1974, p. 51). Those writers who emphasise the role of socialisation in
forming women's political attitudes and aptitudes generally make two
further assumptions. They assume that this political orientation arises
within the context of already established sex roles and, secondly, that these
more basic sex roles are principally instilled in childhood.
A classical exponent of this thesis is Greenstein. While he accepts that
situational or structural factors may contribute to adult political attitudes,
he finds the origins of these attitudes in childhood experience. In a much-
quoted passage, he writes:
The political differences between boys and girls do not seem to flow
mainly from a rationalistic developmental sequence in which the girl
learns 'politics is not for girls' hence 'I am not interested in politics'.
Rather there is a much more subtle and complex process in which -
through differential opportunities, rewards and punishments which vary
by sex, and by identification with one or other parent - a sex identity is
acquired. Among other things this learning process associates girls with
the immediate environment and boys with the wider environment.
Political responses, developing as they do relatively late in childhood, fall
into the framework of already present nonpolitical orientations.
(Greenstein, 1965, p. 125.)
To support his argument, he cites several earlier studies and his own
research with Newhaven schoolchildren, although in fact his own data
indicate only small differences in political interest and knowledge between
boys and girls. Two feminist political scientists have separately endorsed
this view (though on other occasions they both appear to reject it). lglitzin
stresses the role of socialisation in creating apolitical women; she refers to
her own survey, conducted in 1971-2, of a group of American 11-year-olds
who, she found, were already instilled both with broad sex-role stereotypes
and with sex-stereotypical orientations to specifically political issues
(lglitzin, 1974; Amundsen, 1971).
Other feminists object to this interpretation as faintly insulting but also

inaccurate. It portrays women as passive subjects of a male-dominated
culture and as retaining, long after they have ceased physically to be
children, their childlike psychological dependence upon men. It thus implies
that women lack the attributes of rationality, adulthood or aggression
which, as we shall see, have been identified as prerequisites of successful
political participation.
In so far as sex differences in political orientations can be demonstrated
amongst schoolchildren, these could reflect the children's realistic
anticipation of their future options. But, in any case, studies both in Britain
and in the United States have failed to discover significant sex differences in
schoolchildren's political attitudes. Dowse and Hughes found that,
although such differences existed within their sample of Exeter pupils, they
were marginal and rarely statistically significant (Dowse and Hughes, 1971).
Similarly a study of schoolchildren in Illinois led its authors to conclude 'the
political differences between boys and girls, uncovered in this study, are, in
general, minor' (Orum et a/., 1974). Two further studies, as we shall see,
have demonstrated the decisive influence upon adult political attitudes of
factors other than childhood socialisation, while Welch concludes from her
analysis of women's political participation that, when situational and
structural factors are taken into account, the independent contribution of
socialisation disappears altogether (Welch, 1977).
Rather than claiming the primacy of such early socialisation, we might
therefore prefer to argue that it is decisive only under specific
circumstances. For instance, Campbell et a/. found that distinctive
traditionally female political attitudes were most prevalent amongst the old
and least educated women. This led them to suggest that childhood
socialisation instilled more differentiated sex identities in the past than
nowadays, so that women brought up in those times and unexposed through
education to alternative values retained these stereotypical attitudes as they
grew older (Campbell et a/., 1960). Similarly, in both Canada and
Argentina, studies have shown that it is the women most sheltered by
tradition - older, less educated, religious, rural - who show the greatest
divergence in social and specifically political attitudes from their menfolk
(Black and McGlen, 1979; Lewis, 1971). Even those who argue for the
importance of situational factors paradoxically imply that, in the absence of
such situational stimuli as employment outside the home or higher
education, childhood socialisation has a more lasting effect upon political
attitudes. Feminists could still question these modest claims for
socialisation, explaining traditional female political behaviour as a rational
response to women's adult situation. If women are apparently apolitical, it
is because they lack a stake in politics, as conventionally understood, and if
women are conservative it is because patriarchy has obliged them to acquire
a stake in the traditional order. This raises the whole difficult question of
the relationship between rationality and oppression that we first

encountered in examining the causes of male dominance.
Immediate constraints of women's situation
An alternative interpretation of women's political behaviour emphasises the

immediate situation that constrains and prompts them. According to this
view, domestic and mothering responsibilities, that keep a woman
housebound and out of the paid workforce, limit her interest and actual
involvement in politics. She has less occasion to learn of and discuss
political affairs and less time and freedom to undertake political work.
Political scientists have long acknowledged these constraints even while
preferring to stress the impact of socialisation. 'The sheer demands on a
housewife and mother mean that she has little opportunity or need to gain
politically relevant experience' (Lipset, 1963, p. 206). Campbell et at. also
noted the negative association between the presence of small children at
home and women's voting turnout.
Empirical support for this interpretation comes from several more recent
studies. Pomper, in his survey of electoral behaviour in the United States,
confirms the dampening impact on women's political participation of small
children in the home (Pomper, 1975). Three other studies are centrally
concerned with the effects of situational constraints on women's political
behaviour. Andersen shows that the main increase in female political
participation in the United States over the years 1952 to 1972 was amongst
women employed outside the home (Andersen, 1975). Tedin et at. use
sibling pairs to test for the influence of socialisation and situational factors
on sex differences in political participation. They conclude that situational
factors, such as college education, can over-ride the impact of childhood
socialisation (Tedin et at., 1977). Welch, using the same data as Andersen,
provided by the Centre of Political Studies, tests for the role of
socialisation, situational and structural factors. She controls for three kinds
of situational factor: whether the respondent is employed outside the home,
whether she is married and whether she has children at home. Employment
outside the home, she confirms, is associated with a dramatic increase in
political participation, but she finds that the other two indicators have little
independent impact (Welch, 1977). Evidence from France suggests that
employment outside the home may be of especial importance in offsetting
the impact of socialisation through the Roman Catholic church on the level
of women's interest in politics (Mossuz-Lavau and Sineau, 1981).
Women's paid employment tends to vary positively with participation in
conventional grass-roots politics, but its relationship to other forms of
political participation is less clear. Indeed, as we have seen, such studies as
exist suggest that the women who take part in community action are
predominantly housewives. It is argued that community politics addresses

the kinds of issues with which women as housewives and mothers are most
immediately concerned. In particular it is about consumption, and
housewives are the front-line consumers, as shoppers and as recipients of
state-provided services. As Wilson writes, in Britain 'The division of labour
within the family usually means that it is women who go to the rent office,
women who attempt to grapple with the schools, women who are
interviewed by the social workers' (Wilson, 1977, p. 4). Similarly, in the
United States, Weinbaum and Bridges argue that 'It is housewives'
responsibility for nurturance on the one hand and the impossibilities of
helping other human beings be healthy and creative within the constraints
of the practice of the present system on the other, that create the incredible
tensions of the practice of consumption work' and impel women into
community politics (Weinbaum and Bridges, 1979, p. 199). At the same
time the less institutionalised character of such politics makes it easier for
housewives to participate.
To return however, to conventional political participation, Welch has
reservations about the importance even of situational factors. Since her
data show the effect of family responsibilities to be negligible and since she
believes that women will increasingly take up outside employment, she
concludes that, in the United States at least, situational factors are
becoming increasingly less relevant. Possibly confirming this thesis, Flora
and Lynn find that becoming a mother does not necessarily reduce a
woman's rate of political participation, unless her consort refuses to share
parental duties. The focus of her participation may however change to
issues relevant to her child and to local rather than national politics (Flora
and Lynn, 1974).
Structural explanations
Welch argues that by now the most significant causes of the lingering
differences between male and female rates of participation in the United
States are structural. She understands this term quite narrowly. Some
'structuralists' refer to social structure as a set of power relations which
largely determine individual behaviour. Heiskanen, for instance, maintains
that the social structure, incorporating both class relations and patriarchy,
positively discourages female political participation (Heiskanen, 1971). In a
broad sense she is obviously right, but her analysis does not facilitate a more
precise identification of the mechanisms through which structure, in this
sense, operates. Welch, on the other hand, simply inquires how far women
are over-represented in those sections of the population at large whose rates
of political participation are particularly low, and for present purposes this
approach seems most useful.
Nearly all studies seeking to explain sex differences in political

participation stress the role of education. They find not only that women's
participation increases with the level of their educational achievement, but
that often amongst the most highly educated sex differences narrow to
insignificance. By now, in the United States, sex differences amongst those
with college education in rates of overall political participation are
marginal, and in voting turnout entirely disappear. Though Baxter and
Lansing report that in Britain education has less bearing on women's
participation rates, in the Netherlands Verba et a/. find that at higher
educational levels sex differences in political activism diminish and women
even outstrip men in voting rates (Verba et a/., 1978). An inverse
relationship between such differences and women's educational
achievement has also been found in Canada, in several Latin American
countries and in India, where female voting turnout is highest in those states
with the highest literacy rates. On the other hand, Bentzon finds that
education makes no significant difference in Denmark (Bentzon, 1977).
Verba eta/. discover that while, in the countries studied, higher educational
levels erode the sex differential in degrees of political concern, in Japan,
Nigeria, Austria and India this does not spill over into rates of political
activism.
Duverger, back in 1955, had raised the question of the relative impact of
education and employment. He was convinced that education was the most
decisive influence on women's political participation, arguing that
'economic independence has no more succeeded in banishing a general
mentality born of a tradition dating back thousands of years than has the
conquest of political rights' (Duverger, 1955, p. 152). The evidence,
however, is contradictory. The finding that in the United States and Canada
the first and most politicised employed women were the professionals, that
is, presumably, the most highly educated, seems to confirm Duverger's
thesis. Welch also shows that sex differences in political activism are
minimal amongst college and even high school graduates who are
unemployed but rather more significant amongst the less educated
unemployed. But other studies indicate the relevance of both education and
employment. It is tempting to conclude, therefore, with Jennings and
Niemi, that the impact is cumulative (Jennings and Niemi, 1971).
The other major structural variable which appears to determine women's
political participation is age. In the United States, sex differences in voting
turnout are greatest among the elderly. Baxter and Lansing's analysis of the
1964 and 1970 General Election data in Britain reveals a more complicated
relationship. The differential is greatest between men and women aged 65
and over, narrows between the ages of 50 and 65, is even marginally
reversed in the age band 30 to 50, but opens up again below the age of 30
(Baxter and Lansing, 1980, p. 150). We may be able to explain this
discrepancy first by attributing young women's low voting rate to their
responsibility for infants and second by noting that, although the sex
differential is minimal, for this age group in the United States this is
primarily due to the low voting turnout of young men. Against this
explanation, though, we have the finding of both Welch, and Flora and
Lynn that motherhood does not depress political participation. Age, as we
have seen, is also associated with variations in women's conservatism. The
correlation is revealed not only in voting behaviour and the results of
opinion polls, but by the finding that young women are especially ready to
contemplate protest politics (Barnes and Kaase, 1979).
The list of pertinent structural variables is still not exhausted. Class, not
surprisingly, has a bearing upon conservatism. For instance, we saw that
Milne and Mackenzie explained British women voters' conservatism in the
past in terms of the greater longevity of middle- and upper-class women. In
Argentina, Lewis finds that upper-class women are more conservative than
either upper-class men or lower-class women (Lewis, 1971). Class, or
caste, has also been shown to affect women's political participation rates in
India, though in complex fashion. Survey data suggest that it is women
from the middle tiers of the caste hierarchy who participate most. This may
be because Brahmin women are more confined to their homes, while the
poorest Sudra and outcaste women are too busy surviving to have time or
attention for political participation (Muni, 1979). Urbanisation, finally, is
found to vary negatively with women's conservatism in Chile, and
positively with their political participation in Canada, the northern States of
America and Yugoslavia.
There are, in sum, considerable grounds for arguing that the pattern of
women's political participation increasingly reflects their over-
representation in certain disadvantaged social categories that cut across
sexual divisions. This does not, of course, explain why women should be
disadvantaged in this way and whether their relative socio-economic
position will automatically improve in the future, as Welch for instance
appears to assume. But in any case this structural coincidence is for the
moment not the whole story and we still need to refer to socialisation and
situational factors as well.
Even so, if we conclude our analysis at this point, we present a one-sided
and conservative picture. The brunt of the responsibility for these sex
differences (as far as they exist) falls upon women. Moreover, as Hernes
and Voje suggest, such an explanation creates future expectations which in
turn prolong these differences (Hernes and Voje, 1980). For we ignore the
positive deterrents implied by political systems and institutions themselves.
The more specific and crucial impact of these deterrents on women's
penetration of political elites is the subject of the following chapter. But the
present chapter remains incomplete without some indication of political
constraints upon women's grass-roots participation.
The first point to be made is a general one, but still important. Politics, in
the sense we have used it in this chapter, is a public activity. In communities

where there is no real distinction between private and public, between the
life of the family and a transcending community, politics as a distinctively
conscious activity of decision-making on behalf of the community is likely
to be at a minimum. As politics has emerged as an aspect of social
organisation, so has some kind of demarcation between the private, non-
political sphere and the public. I have already discussed the patriarchal
assignation of women to the private or domestic sphere. The most
systematic attempt to tie this in with women's political participation in
contemporary Britain is provided by Stacey and Price.
They describe how, in the feudal era, the distinction between personal
and public power was negligible; feudal ladies like their lords, Queens like
Kings, ruled households coterminous with their fiefdoms or kingdoms.
Though from the twelfth century a distinct public sphere, with an
impersonal machinery of government, was developing, contraction and
insulation of the private sphere was gradual. Stacey and Price follow Weber
in ascribing to the growth of nineteenth-century capitalism the
crystallisation of an emerging public domain of bureaucracy, industry and
commerce. The political counterpart of this process was assertion of new
liberal-democratic norms of freely elected government directing an
impartial bureaucracy, While this ideal was never fully realised, its partial
implementation greatly impeded the exercise of private power in public
politics; political office was increasingly a function of merit.
Initially, therefore, women's exclusion from politics was accentuated,
since they were restricted to a narrow and powerless private sphere.
However, the logical corollary of a politics based on public merit rather
than on ascription was eventually perceived to be the admission of women,
on a basis of formal equality with men, into the political arena. And so it
might be supposed that in the longer run the process of political
institutionalisation has benefited women. But Stacey and Price argue that
such formal rights are of little use to women without corresponding changes
in family structure and the ideology that legitimates it. Women in practice
remain tethered by their domestic responsibilities and the attitudes
associated with them, unable to compete on equal terms with men in the
public political world (Stacey and Price, 1981).
What, following Stacey and Price, I am suggesting is that, leaving aside
questions of the character of specific political institutions, their very
location within a non-domestic sphere makes participation more difficult
for women than for men. This obstacle, paradoxically, increases, assuming
that family roles remain largely unchanged, in societies with highly
differentiated processes for public participation. Consequently, women
have many ways of exercising informal political influence when politics is
less institutionalised and may prefer, in more institutionalised political
systems, to participate in ad hoc or even protest politics.
There are further specific aspects of contemporary politics that positively

deter women. Most blatant but, at grass-roots level, increasingly unusual
are actual legal barriers. Rarely are women now denied the vote, as women.
But other voting qualifications can especially disadvantage them, as for
instance the literacy requirement in Brazil and Peru.
More significant is the role of political institutions themselves in either
discouraging, or sometimes nowadays even encouraging, women's political
participation. Such effects may be consciously pursued; thus, in Egypt it is
impossible, in practice, for women to join the ruling party in rural areas
(Smock and Yousseff, 1977). At the same time, some political parties go out
of their way to recruit women. This may be in part due to their egalitarian
values but usually less noble motives are apparent. In Guinea, according to
Little, Sekou Toure encouraged women to join the PDG (Parti
Democratique de Guini:e) because at the outset his party needed the active
support of underprivileged groups, who had most to gain from the policy
changes he was promising. He may also have felt it wise to appeal to social
categories, like women, who cut across divisive ethnic loyalties (Little,
1973). In many other instances, such as Nkrumah's Convention People's
Party in Ghana, and in Malaya's United Malays National Organisation,
women have been vigorously recruited, at least into the women's sections,
primarily as a means of mobilising women's vote at election time
(Manderson, 1977). A party, too, may devote particular energy to the
recruitment of women members at specific times, as for instance in the
recruitment drives of the Soviet Communist Party in the 1920s, during the
Second World War and from the mid-1960s onwards (Lapidus, 1978).
Beyond such deliberate policies, political institutions can be uninviting to
women. Simply because they have been until recently exclusively male,
because men still dominate their leadership positions, women are
discouraged. Then also male dominance tends to generate a 'masculine'
style and atmosphere. Political scientists often specify the behaviour traits,
not commonly associated with women, that effective political participation
in contemporary democratic politics requires. Sometimes the activist is
depicted as rational in the sense of being able logically to relate ends and
means. The stereotypical woman of course is not rational, in this sense, but
emotional, at best intuitive. Alternatively the activist is expected to be adult
and responsible, in contrast to women's alleged dependence and
immaturity. Finally a less idealistic version of democratic politics requires
the participant to be competitive and aggressive, again the opposite of
women's supposed passivity. Of these three attributes - rationality,
responsibility and aggressiveness - it is the third which feminists (including
myself) may be most prepared to accept as a prerequisite for effective
participation in contemporary politics and to agree is a trait currently
exhibited less by women than by men. Moreover, within male-dominated
political institutions, women may be facing not only a competitive style, but
also male hostility directed specifically, if half-consciously, at them as

intruders.
Then again, such institutions will function in ways practically convenient
to the men who established and run them. Considerations such as where,
when and how often meetings are held will be more serious deterrents to
elite political participation but may also constrain participation at grass-
roots level.
Finally, it is frequently suggested that politics, as presently practised,
focuses on issues that are peripheral to women's interests; women lack a
'stake' in the subject matter of conventional politics (see, for instance,
Lane, 1959). This argument can only be accepted with reservations. Issues
such as defence, foreign policy and economic policy clearly are of urgent
relevance to men and women alike. What is more true is that conventional
politics tends to neglect or to label as 'administrative', 'social' or 'cultural',
issues that are of most immediate concern to many women, such as nursery
school provision, or standards of housing or education. This is one reason,
we have seen, for women's participation in community action.
The pattern of women's political participation cannot, in conclusion,
simply be explained by reference to their personality, practical situation or
even distribution within the social system. Features of conventional politics
themselves act as deterrents. It is in this context that the appeal of women's
associations, of 'unconventional' political participation and, as we shall
see, in Chapter 5, of women's liberation, becomes so easy to understand.
3
Women in Political Elites
If women's political behaviour increasingly resembles men's at the grass-

roots, differences remain stark further up the ladder. Women are still
grossly under-represented within those elites, where by definition political
power is concentrated. Why should this be so and, from a feminist
viewpoint, does it matter?
One problem in attempting to answer these questions is again bias in the
literature (see, for instance, Carroll's critique, 1979). But two further
difficulties arise. One is conceptual: how is political power distributed
between different elite institutions and positions? Without knowing this, it
is difficult to evaluate and compare women's political achievements. It is
often suggested that women's importance declines the nearer to the real
locus of political power one goes.
This is allied with a further problem, that of the data. Until the 1970s,
information about women in political elites was hard to come by. As
Bourque and Grossholtz note, the 'classical "elite studies" assume that
those elites will be men and seem little concerned to investigate the few
women who do appear' (1974, p. 252). Since then extensive data have been
gathered on the numbers, backgrounds and roles of women legislators,
primarily in Britain and the United States, but coverage of other aspects of
women's participation in elite politics still remains fragmentary. Yet in
terms of political power, legislatures may be no more, or even less,
important than, say, political bureaucracies.
A minority presence
There have always been individual women who have wielded vast political
power. They have included Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth the First, Catherine
the Great of Russia, the warrior-saint Joan of Arc and Louis XIV's
mistress, Madame de Pompadour. In more recent times a succession of
women have emerged at the political helm of their countries: Eva Per6n,
Golda Meir, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher
69
and Norway's Oro Harlem Brundtland. Nor can their achievement be

explained simply by their family connections; in this respect the record of
Mrs Meir and Mrs Thatcher is especially remarkable. But the brilliance of
these few stars should not blind us to the near absence of other women from
the political firmament.
It is generally recognised that women form a tiny minority within political
elites. So obvious is this that a detailed enumeration would be superfluous,
the more so since the statistics date so rapidly. A brief survey is necessary,
however, just to emphasise the scale of women's under-representation. It
also shows the range of variation, and possible direction of future change.
We can usefully distinguish between different institutional arenas of
political participation. First are the institutions that form a channel of
'numerical representation' - that is, representation on the basis of 'one
person, one vote' - parties and representative legislatures. Second are the
agencies of interest representation and third the institutions of political
administration: these two are in many parts of the world increasingly fused
together in what could be called a 'corporate' system of participation. A
fourth institutional arena for political participation, especially important in
the United States, is the judiciary. Less formally integrated into the political
system are the communications media. Finally, political influence is wielded
outside these through informal and direct means.
National legislatures
Studies of women in political elites have hitherto centred excessively on

their participation in the institutions of numerical representation, and
particularly their role in legislatures. Women's under-representation in
national legislatures is extensively documented and a summary of the latest
information available is presented in Table 1 (pp. 72-3). In Britain's House
of Commons in 1981 there were no more than nineteen women Members of
Parliament, amounting to 3 per cent of the total. This is a considerable drop
from the total of twenty-seven women MPs under the preceding Labour
government. In fact the high point of female representation - twenty-nine
women MPs - was achieved in 1964, following Labour's victory in the
October General Election. In the House of Lords, in 1979, there were thirty-
nine women out of a total 303 life peers (13 per cent) and seventeen
peeresses in their own right, that is less than 2 per cent of hereditary peers
(Stacey and Price, 1981, p.149).
Following the national elections in the United States in November 1980,
there were nineteen women members (4.4 per cent) of the House of
Representatives. This meant virtually no change over four sessions; in the
preceding ninety-sixth session of Congress, there were eighteen .women in
the House of Representatives, in the ninety-fifth again eighteen, and in the
Women in Political Elites 71
ninety-fourth nineteen. Nor had there been a steady increase from the early
1960s. In the eighty-seventh session, 1961-2, seventeen women were elected
to the House but thereafter their numbers fell precipitately, and only began
to pick up again in the 1970s. Moreover in the Senate, America's powerful
upper chamber, there were in 1981 only two women, precisely 2 per cent. In
the preceding session there had actually been no women, and the Senate has
only ever admitted thirteen women members.
Women's legislative presence in the old Commonwealth countries is
similarly slight. In 1980 they formed less than 5 per cent of Canada's lower
house, 4.3 per cent of New Zealand's legislature and in Australia there was
not one woman in the House of Representatives. After the 1981 General
Elections in France, women still constituted only 4.3 per cent of the
National Assembly. As Table 1 shows, though rates of representation are
similar in Greece and Spain, in some other West European countries they
are higher. Following the 1980 elections in Italy, the figure leaped from 8.2
per cent to 16 per cent. By 1981, women formed 8.5 per cent of the
membership of the West German Bundestag. It is in the Scandinavian
legislatures, however, that the percentages of female representation are
most impressive. Though, in Denmark, the proportion of legislators who
were women fell from 17 per cent to 6.1 per cent after the 1979 General
Election, by 1980 it was 26 per cent in Finland, 24 per cent in Norway and a
record 27.8 per cent in Sweden.
In communist countries, women's representation in the national, or
federal, assembly is, comparatively speaking, quite respectable: for
instance, 31 per cent of the Russian Supreme Soviet, before the 1979
elections, were women. Few Western political scientists dispute, however,
that the independent legislative influence of the Supreme Soviet is marginal.
Revealingly, Jancar reports that, while the powers of Yugoslavia's federal
assembly were enhanced from 1953 to 1970, 'the participation of women
showed no significant increase' (Jancar, 1978, p. 91). In the Central
Committee of the Communist Party the proportion of women members is
predictably low. In 1980 it was only 3.3 per cent in the Soviet Union, though
Wolchik's data for 1976 indicate that in other East European states it was
somewhat higher, rising to 12 per cent in Hungary, 15 per cent in
Czechoslovakia and, though precise figures are not available, still higher in
Albania and East Germany (Wolchik, 1981). The corresponding
percentages for Cuba and China were 8.9 per cent and 10 per cent
respectively.
In the Third World, the numbers of female legislators are right down.
Following India's General Election of 1977, the percentage of women
members in the Lok Sabha declined from 4 to 3.5 per cent, but in January
1980 it rose again to 5 per cent. In Sri Lanka, the high point of women's
representation in the State Assembly was in 1970, when there were six
women MPs, constituting 3.2 per cent (Kearney, 1981).
TABLE 1
Women's representation in national legislatures or equivalent bodies
Country Institution Total Women Women as Year Source

members members percentage
of total
Albania Central Committee - - 15.4 1971 Wolchik, 1981

Algeria National Popular
Assembly 260 10 2.6 1979 Ainad-Tabet, 1980
Argentina - - - 2.0 1975 Katzenstein, 1978
Australia House of Representatives 127 0 0 1980 Simms,1981
Austria Lower House - - 10.0 1981 Castles, 1981
Belgium - - - 10.2 1979 Hunter, 1979
Brazil - - - 1.0 1975 Katzenstein, 1978
Bulgaria Central Committee - - 10.2 1976 Jancar, 1978
72
Canada - - - less than 5.0 1980 Vickers and Brodie, 1981
China Central Committee - - 10.0 1977 Katzenstein, 1978
Colombia - - - 3.0 1975 Katzenstein, 1978
Costa Rica - - - 5.0 1975 Katzenstein, 1978
Cuba Central Committee - - 8.9 1979 The Guardian, July 1979
Czechoslovakia Central Committee - - 15.0 1979 Wolchik, 1981
Denmark - - - 6.1 1980 Danish Embassy
Egypt - - - 2.0 1975 Katzenstein, 1978
El Salvador - - - 3.0 1975 Katzenstein, 1978
Finland Parliament - 52 26.0 1980 Haavio-Manila, 1981
France National Assembly 491 21 4.3 1981 French Embassy
Germany {East) Central Committee 140 30-40 c.25.0 1979 Einhorn, 1980 (estimate)
Germany (West) Bundestag 519 44 8.5 1981 West German Embassy
Greece Parliament - 4 - 1974 De Giry, 1980
Guatemala - - - 2.0 1975 Katzenstein, 1978
Guinea - - - 27.0 1975 Katzenstein, 1978
Hungary Central Committee - - 12.0 1976 Wolchik, 1981
Iceland - - - 5.0 1977 Skard, 1981
India LokSabha 544 28 5.0 1980 Indian High Commission
Iran Majlis 270 2 0.7 1980 The Guardian, 7 July 1980
Ireland (Eire) Dail - - 6.6 1981 Castles, 1981
Israel Knesset - - 6.6 1981 Castles, 1981
Italy - 322 52 16.0 1980 Italian Embassy
Japan House of Representatives - - 1.8 1980 Castles, 1981
Lebanon - - - 0 1973 Katzenstein, 1978
Luxembourg - - - 5.1 1979 Hunter, 1979
Mexico - - - 8.0 1975 Katzenstein, 1978
Netherlands - 150 21 14.0 1980 The Guardian, 30 June
1980
New Zealand - - - 4.3 1980 New Zealand High
Commission
Norway Storting ISS - 24.0 1980 Skard, 1981
Panama - - - 0 1975 Katzenstein, 1978
-.1 Paraguay - - - 7.0 1975 Katzenstein, 1978
73
.... Poland Central Committee - - 8.0 1976 Wolchik, 1981
Portugal - 250 24 9.6 1981 The Guardian, 17 August
1981
Romania Central Committee - - 9.1 1976 Wolchik, 1981
Soviet Union Central Committee 426 14 3.3 1977 Hough, 1977
Spain Congress 350 19 5.0 1979 Matsell, 1981
Sri Lanka State Assembly - 4 2.4 1977 Kearney, 1981
Sudan - - - 5.0 1973 Katzenstein, 1978
Sweden - 349 97 27.8 1980 Eduards, 1981
Switzerland - - - 10.5 1981 Castles, 1981
Syria - - - 4.0 1973 Katzenstein, 1978
Tunisia - - - 4.0 1973 Katzenstein, 1978
United Kingdom House of Commons 635 19 3.0 1981 Vallance, 1980
United States House of Representatives 435 19 4.4 1981 Congressional Quarterly
Weekly Report, 11
February 1981
As Table 1 shows, women's legislative presence is still lower in many

Latin American and Middle Eastern countries where, in any case, most
legislatures lead a precarious and constrained existence. Chaney notes that
in the early 1970s 'Before the recent flurry of coups, 55 women served in the
lower houses and eight in senates of the 21 American republics. This is
about two per cent of the total' (Chaney, 1979, p. 99).
Even these figures do not fully reveal the quantitative limits of women's
legislative role. Most available evidence shows the rate of turnover of
women legislators to be proportionately higher than for their male
counterparts. As we shall see, this may reflect, as in Britain, a preference
for male candidates in safe seats or, as in the Soviet Union, the frequently
symbolic reasons for including token women on the official slate of
candidates. In either case women legislators appear more dispensable.
There is a tendency, more distinct at local than at regional level, for the
rate of female representation to increase in lower-tier assemblies. For
instance in 1978 9.3 per cent of state legislators in the United States were
women. It has also been easier for women to enter provincial than federal
assemblies in Australia and Canada. Wolchik suggests a similar pattern in
Central Committee membership in Czechoslovakia (Wolchik, 1981). It is
marked in the composition of popularly elected councils in Eastern Europe
(Jancar, 1978). On the other hand, in 1977 female representation in the
West German Lander was 7 per cent, roughly the same as in the Bundestag,
while in Holland's provincial assemblies it was 10 per cent, less than in the
National Parliament. In India, too, women's representation in both the Lok
Sabha and the State Assemblies has hovered around 5 per cent (Katzenstein,
1978).
At local level, the tendency for greater female representation is somewhat
clearer. By 1977, 17 per cent of all local councillors in England and Wales
were women (Bristow, 1980). In the United States, however, in 1977 only 8
per cent of city mayors and councillors and 3 per cent of county
commissioners were female, though Baxter and Lansing point out that
between 1975 and 1977 the numbers of women municipal and city
councillors almost doubled (Baxter and Lansing, 1980, p. 136). Without
giving specific figures, Vickers and Brodie note the relatively high
percentage of women elected to municipal councils in Canada; this is partly,
they suggest, because municipal politics is non-partisan and therefore not
seen as a stepping-stone to higher political office (Vickers and Brodie,
1981). Similarly in 1974, women held 13.3 per cent of local council seats in
New Zealand (Halligan and Harris, 1977). The rate of female
representation is also higher in local than in national assemblies in
Australia, France, West Germany, Sweden and Eastern Europe, excluding
Yugoslavia. Chaney reports that in 1967 women were 4.7 per cent of
municipal councillors in Peru and 7.8 per cent in Chile (Chaney, 1979,
p. 104). Even in Brazil, where in 1975 there was only one woman in the
national legislature, 60 women mayors were elected between 1972 and 1976,
though admittedly in the economically most backward regions and at a time
when the powers of local government had been heavily circumscribed (Blay,
1979). However, in Norway, Finland, Sri Lanka and Japan women fare
slightly worse as local than as national representatives. The concentration
of female representation at local level is not an iron law, therefore, but it
serves as a rule of thumb.
Political parties
Women's penetration of national and local assemblies is in turn largely

determined by their position within the main political parties. As we have
seen, they are under-represented in parties' general membership, but this
can scarcely account for the small numbers of women in high party office.
In Britain, they have not formed more than 11 per cent of Labour Party
Annual Conference delegates, and in 1980 accounted for only 7 out of 29
members of the National Executive. Although 38 per cent of delegates to
the Conservative Party Annual Conference in that year were women, this
body lacks the policy-making powers of its Labour Party counterpart, and
in the National Union's Executive Committee, female representation has
remained around 20 per cent since 1970 (Hills, 1981a). In the United States,
though equal representation of the sexes is mandatory in the National
Committee and most state committees of the two main parties, often the
women selected have lacked an independent power base in the party and
their role has been symbolic. Following the introduction of the 'McGovern'
rules, and the pressure from organisations such as the National Women's
Political Caucus, representation of women at the Democratic Party
Convention leaped to nearly 40 per cent in 1972. By 1976 it had fallen back
to 33.7 per cent, however, while the corresponding rate for the Republican
Party was 31.5 per cent (Lynn, 1979, p. 414).
The diminution in female representation, as one ascends the party
hierarchy, is evident in all other Western democracies for which
information is available. It is most marked in conservative parties; as
Lovenduski and Hills comment: 'Ironically women's higher proportionate
memberships of right-wing parties are not normally reflected at the level of
party office holding' (Lovenduski and Hills, 1981, p. 527). Women, for
instance, accounted for only 2 per cent of office-holders in the Italian
Christian Democratic Party in 1976, and 14 per cent of the Political Bureau
in France's Gaullist RPR in 1980. Once more it is Sweden which has made
the greatest progress in promoting women to leading party positions; in
1979, they formed 37 per cent and 31 per cent of the executive boards of the
Conservative and Social Democrat parties respectively, while in the Liberal
Party their board membership, at 45 per cent, actually equalled their share
of the membership at large (Eduards, 1981, p. 214). Though the main

burden of this paragraph therefore must be women's drastic under-
representation, even in proportion to their membership rates, in the party
leadership, we should also note that in the majority of cases, and
particularly under pressure from women activists, their representation has
been increasing since the 1960s.
National governments
At the apex of the representational hierarchy, within national governments,

women virtually disappear. Britain has never had more than two female
Cabinet ministers at one time and by 1982, with the important exception of
Mrs Thatcher, there was no woman member of the Cabinet. Under
President Carter's administration in the United States, women fared slightly
better; he appointed Juanita Krebs as Secretary of Commerce and Patricia
Roberts as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in 1977, two out
of a total of eleven Cabinet appointments. However President Reagan's
Cabinet, formed after the Republicans' resounding electoral victory in
November 1980, contained no women at all.
In other Western democracies there have been very few women Cabinet
ministers, though their numbers have grown marginally in recent years. For
example, by 1980 Canada had seen a total of six, four of whom were
appointed after 1972 (Vickers and Brodie, 1981). There were no women
ministers of Cabinet status in the Fifth French Republic until the Presidency
of Giscard d'Estaing, who in 1974 appointed Dr Simone Veil as Minister of
Health and Francoise Giroud as head of the new Secretariat for the Status
of Women, though the latter post was dissolved two years later. In
President Mitterrand's government, formed in the summer of 1981, four
out of thirty-five members were women, certainly an improvement.
Otherwise, it is as usual only in Scandinavia that women's representation
in government goes a little way beyond mere tokenism. It was in Denmark,
in 1924, that the world's first woman Cabinet minister was appointed.
Finnish governments, according to Haavio-Mannila, usually include two or
three women (Haavio-Mannila, 1981). There were four women ministers in
Norway on the eve of the 1979 elections, and in 1980 five out of twenty
Swedish Cabinet ministers were female.
Women are better represented within the governments of Western
democracies, however, than they are either within the Soviet bloc or in
developing countries. In the case of communist countries it is appropriate to
consider women's numbers both within the formal governments and within
the party politburos. For 1976, Jancar identifies 494 strictly government
positions (including national ministerial posts, membership in state councils
and chairmanships of national assemblies) in the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe taken as a whole, of which women held twenty. At the same time
out of a corresponding total of 172 politburo places, women filled nine
(Jancar, 1978, p. 89). In May 1982, Yugoslavia was the first East European
state to appoint a woman Prime Minister: Milka Planinc (The Guardian, 16
January 1982). This is still better than in most Third World governments
where women are virtually unknown. Between 1952 and 1975, India boasted
only one woman minister of Cabinet rank, besides Indira Gandhi, though
eleven other women were ministers in the union government and two were
chief ministers of state governments (Katzenstein, 1978). None. of the
fourteen Cabinet Ministers appointed by Mrs Gandhi in 1980 were women.
In Sri Lanka only four women, including Mrs Bandaranaike, have ever
served in the Cabinet (Kearney, 1981). In 1969, in all the Latin American
states taken together, there were only four women in Cabinet-level posts
(Chaney, 1979).
Even these statistics do not reveal the full extent of women's under-
representation in national governments. For this we must recognise that
women's ministerial responsibilities are usually confined to those fields
considered to be the logical extension of traditional feminine concerns and
experience, such as health, welfare, education and consumer affairs. In
France, for instance, in 1977 women ministers were in charge of Health,
Women's Affairs, Universities and Culture, while in 1979 West Germany's
sole woman Cabinet minister supervised Youth, Families and Health. The
implications of this specialisation, which prevails not only in developing
countries such as Ghana, Egypt and India but in Eastern Europe and even
Scandinavia, will be explored later in the chapter.
It is then relatively well documented and well known that the proportion
of posts held by women within political parties, representative assemblies
and national governments, throughout the world, is small and increases in
roughly inverse proportion to the power they bestow. Though some increase
is observable over time, and particularly in the last decade, it is rarely
dramatic and far from universal. Such under-representation seri0usly
handicaps women's chances of influencing public policy. The full extent of
their handicap only appears when one also examines their participation
within the other political arenas I have identified. Unfortunately, since such
participation has received little scholarly attention, relevant information
has yet to be systematically assembled.
Unions and other interest organisations
In Western democracies at least, interest groups, particularly the 'peak'

economic interest organisations, constitute an important second channel of
political influence. According to the few statistics available, women are if
anything more marginal in these than in the 'numerical' channel. Their
scarcity in the leadership of business organisations is hardly surprising in

view of the tiny numbers of women in management at all, but still eloquent
of their powerlessness in elite politics. The Annual Report of the
Confederation of British Industry (CBI) in 1979 revealed that out of twenty-
six senior office-bearers and staff, only two were women and there were no
women chairmen either in its twenty-six standing committees or in its
thirteen regional councils. Finkelstein suggests that in the early 1970s men
outnumbered women in top corporation posts in the United States by about
600 to one, although there was evidence that increasing numbers of women
were moving into occupations that fed into these posts (Finkelstein, 1981).
This picture is mirrored even in Scandinavia; though in 1971 women formed
as much as 23 per cent of the membership of the SAF, Sweden's equivalent
to the CBI, not one woman was included among its senior officers (Means,
1976). In Finland, Sinkonnen found that between 1971 and 1973 within her
category of 'influentials', that is people with at least two memberships on
boards of directors in the 300 largest businesses, only 1.2 per cent were
women (Sinkonnen, 1977).
Women's membership of trade unions, we have seen, though
proportionately less than men's is often substantial. Even so, they form a
tiny minority of office-holders. In 1980, 70 per cent of the membership of
Britain's National Union of Teachers was female, yet women accounted for
less than 10 per cent of its National Executive. In the powerful Transport
and General Workers' Union, women made up 15.9 per cent of the
membership but in the forty-one-strong National Executive were without a
single representative. The only union affiliated to the Trades Union
Congress to have a woman as general secretary was the Health Visitors'
Association, with 99 per cent female membership (The Guardian, 10 March
1980). In the Trades Union Council itself, the number of places reserved
for women was increased, in 1981, from two to five, out of forty-two.
Women accounted for only 7 per cent of trade union office-holders in the
United States in 1976, and held twelve out of 489 official trade union
positions in Australia in 1978. The pattern is replicated in the Scandinavian
countries. In 1979 there was not one woman on the managing board of
Sweden's union federation, the LO. For Finnish trade unions Sinkonnen
calculates an index of under-representation, that is women as a proportion
of total membership divided by their share of executive posts. While the
index varies widely between unions, within the most 'important' unions it
never falls below 3.2 per cent (Sinkonnen, 1977). Union leadership in East
European countries and the Soviet Union includes a higher percentage of
women- for instance, 37 per cent of the Central Council of Trade Unions
in Czechoslovakia were women in 1975- but we have already observed that
these unions lack political weight. A recent exception is Poland, but even in
Solidarity by mid-1981, women appeared to have made few inroads into the
male-dominated hierarchy (see The Guardian, 5 November 1981).
These figures suggest that women's presence within the leadership of

interest organisations falls short even of their role in the 'numerical'
channel, an impression reinforced by the finding of a survey in Norway that
only 7 per cent of full-time employees and 9 per cent of elected officials of
interest organisations are female (Hernes and Voje, 1980). If women seek
political power, they should be concerned about these figures, not only
because these organisations supplement the numerical channel, but also
because it is increasingly apparent that, in many Western democracies, they
work in close collaboration with government and its bureaucracy, tending
in effect to bypass and pre-empt the traditional processes of representative
politics and promote a more corporate system of government.
Bureaucracies
Before exploring the implications of corporatism further, let us turn to

women's position within government bureaucracies. Again we are
hampered by the limited information. A further obstacle to cross-national
comparison is that each bureaucracy has its own distinctive hierarchy of
offices. In Britain's civil service, in 1978, there was not one woman amongst
the 39 permanent secretaries, the top administrative grade, and if we take
together all civil servants at the level of principal and above, the 448
constituted only 6.8 per cent (The Times, 11 April 1981). Likewise, within
the top echelons of the United States administration, even after a.n increase,
women formed a tiny 2.3 per cent (Lepper, 1974). Although in 1975 women
comprised 30 per cent of New Zealand's public servants, only 0.4 per cent
of these were in senior executive positions as compared with 13.3 per cent of
the men (Place, 1979). Silver reminds us that, at the apex of the French
bureaucracy, 'the Grand Corps de l'Etat - Conseil d'Etat, Cours des
Comptes, Inspecteurs des Finances - are the most prestigious non-elective
institutions of the French government'. But in 1974 they included a grand
total of nineteen women, or 3 per cent of their membership (Silver, 1981,
p. 230). In Scandinavian countries, women do better but not much better. In
1980 they formed 15 per cent of Norway's central administration as a
whole, while women occupied 10 per cent of Finland's senior administrative
posts in 1974, falling to 6.8 per cent the following year. In recently
traditional societies, their representation within bureaucracies is weaker
still. Women were 1 per cent of top civil servants in Japan in 1970, and
only 4 per cent in Israel in 1978.
Though in many developing countries it is socially acceptable for
educated, middle-class women to work in the government bureaucracy, they
rarely rise to senior positions. Katzenstein did, however, note a striking
increase by 1972 in the rate at which women were being recruited for the
prestigious Indian Administrative Service, Indian Foreign Service and
Indian Police Service (Katzenstein, 1978, p. 476). Chaney also notes that in
Chile women have made remarkable inroads into those sections of the
bureaucracy dealing with finance and personnel, because of their supposed
honesty (Chaney, 1979, p. 101).
Little has been written about the role of women in local and regional
administration. In 1976 in English local government, out of over 500 chief
executives, two were women. Even though women staff predominate in
education and social services, there were only two women chief education
officers out of 116 and eleven women directors of social services out of 127
(Hills, 1981a, p. 27). In local administration in the United States in 1978,
women held an average of 10.5 per cent of 'management positions'
(Sigelman, 1976). These findings suggest that women may be better
represented, though only marginally so, in local than in national
bureaucracies.
The near invisibility of women in bureaucratic leadership is the more
remarkable because, throughout the world, the state itself is one of their
principal employers. As an additional handicap, the few women who get
there are disproportionately concentrated in those sectors of administration
with traditional 'feminine' concerns. For example, Sinkonnen finds that
almost one half of the women in senior administrative positions in Finland
in 1974 were attached to the Ministry of Education, with the remainder
mostly clustered in the Ministries of Justice (where probationary work was a
central responsibility), Internal and Social Affairs and Health. In the
Ministry of Defence they formed only 0.8 per cent of senior managers
(Sinkonnen, 1977). In New Zealand, France and Norway, studies reveal the
same skewed distribution.
'Corporatist' institutions
The dearth of women in bureaucratic elites, and their virtual absence from
those sections dealing with defence, foreign affairs, finance and the
economy, is again at least as important in determining women's political
influence as their under-representation in the 'representative' arena. From
nation to nation the precise relationship between the bureaucracy and
political institutions which are, however loosely, 'representative' is varied
and elusive, but few doubt the real and expanding power of state
bureaucracies almost throughout the world. One manifestation of this
power, I have suggested, is the tendency toward corporatism, suspected in
Britain, the United States and France, but most officially sanctioned in
Scandinavia. A central feature of corporatism within Western democracies
is the proliferation of committees, councils and commissions, under the
aegis of the different ministries, within which representatives of group
interests and bureaucrats confer in the making and implementation of
government policy. We need, therefore, to know how well women are

represented on these consultative bodies, though once more there is little
research to draw upon.
Stacey and Price in Britain write:
Of the 425 members of 41 public boards of a commercial character in

1978, we find just 28 women (6.6 per cent). The Post Office had two
women out of a total membership of 18; British Airways had one woman
out of 15 members and the National Enterprise Board, one out of 11.
Many boards had no women at all, including the Electricity Board, the
British Gas Corporation, British Rail and the Scottish and Welsh
Development Agencies.
In addition there was one woman out of ten members of the Manpower
Services Commission, and, in 1979, one woman councillor out of nine in the
Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Stacey and Price, 1981,
p. 148). Hernes and Voje, who provide the best discussion of this question,
assess the role of women in Norway's approximately 1,150 corporate
consultative bodies. From 7 per cent in 1967, the proportion of women
members increased to 16.7 per cent by 1978, a significant jump but still well
behind women's presence in the 'numerical' channel. Moreover in 1975 only
3.3 per cent of chairpersons and 1.2 per cent of reporting secretaries of these
bodies were women, and women were predictably few in those that dealt
with industry, the labour market, the budget, agriculture, foreign policy
and defence (Heroes and Voje, 1980). In Finland by 1976 women made up 9
per cent of the total 4,681 members of consultative policy-making bodies
associated with the different ministries, but they accounted for only 2.6 per
cent of their chairpersons. In Sweden from 1965 to 1975 the incidence of
female membership of the influential public commissions increased from 6
to 11 per cent (Eduards, 1981). Not only are the numbers of women in such
corporate institutions low and growing slowly but, in Norway and Sweden
at least, women's most likely route to these positions is from the
'numerically' representative bodies, rather than from bureaucracy or from
interest organisations.
The judiciary
Outside the United States, political scientists do not generally emphasise the
political role of the judiciary. In a very broad sense, however, the judiciary
is political everywhere, and in the more conventional sense it often
contributes to policy-making in Western democracies, and not only when
they have a federal system of government. In Britain in 1977, two out of
ninety-seven senior judges were women and seven out of 285 circuit judges.
No woman has ever sat on the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords or
as a judge in the Court of Appeal. In the United States judiciary the
numbers of women have grown, particularly under the sponsorship of
President Carter, but by 1979 women were still less than 4 per cent of
federal trial judges and 8.3 per cent of Court of Appeals judges (Cook,
1979). In 1981 President Reagan appointed the first woman, Sandra
O'Connor, to the Supreme Court (The Guardian, 8 July 1981).
The media
While the political arenas discussed so far are the most influential, mention
must also be made of the communication media. Although their
independence from government and economic interests is always
precarious, particularly outside the Western democracies, the media remain
the public's primary source of information about public matters. Once
more, women are rarely to be found in leading positions. In Britain by the
mid-1970s, women constituted approximately 19 per cent of the National
Union of Journalists and there were also a number of well-known women
newspaper columnists. Smith argues, however, that women remained
marginal in the positions that really count; they were 10 per cent of Fleet
Street journalists and just over 2 per cent of news sub-editors and 3.6 per
cent of executives. Women editors were overwhelmingly concentrated in
such 'feminine' areas as the woman's page, fashion and cookery (Smith,
1981).
Leadership outside institutionalised politics
Moving beyond these institutionalised arenas, one might expect women to

assume leadership more frequently in direct or revolutionary political
activities. This may be true within community action groups, though the
evidence is contradictory. In Britain Mayo et a/. found women's
representation within the leadership much lower than their high
participation rates warranted (Mayo et a/., 1977). Gallagher in particular
suggested that in London women were likely to take the initiative only in the
most deprived neighbourhoods. She described how in South-East London,
women on a council housing estate organised a campaign against a council
decision that threatened to worsen their already grim housing conditions,
led a homeless families action committee and figured conspicuously in the
campaign of a local claimants' union. However, on a new estate nearby,
their role within the tenants' association was strictly limited. She concluded
that women assumed leadership roles only when their menfolk were too
demoralised to pre-empt them (Gallagher, 1977).
In revolutionary or 'anti-system' politics women, though active, are

rarely the leaders, the high-profile exceptions of such women as Bernadette
Devlin (in her pre-Parliamentary days), Angela Davis and Ulrike Meinhof
notwithstanding. In both the Russian and the Chinese Revolutions, though
women were deliberately mobilised into revolutionary activity, 'even during
the most democratic period of rapid change women played limited roles'.
They were not allowed to develop any power base of their own, and few
women won permanent positions of influence (Salaff and Merkle, 1970,
p. 167).
Women may achieve significant political influence indirectly, through
their private relationship with male politicians. In the twentieth century, the
woman who most successfully travelled this route to public power is Eva
Per6n. In a revealing discussion of her career, Navarro writes, that 'by the
time she died, on 26 July 1952, she was undoubtedly the second most
powerful figure in Argentina', but she observes that 'she held neither an
elected post nor an official position in Peron's government', and that her
authority was always a reflection of Per6n's (Navarro, 1977, p. 229). Her
closest counterpart since then has perhaps been Rosalynn Carter, wife of
the former American President. In a newspaper article entitled 'Rosalynn:
the Second President', we were told how 'Mrs Carter attends most Cabinet
meetings, not hesitating to speak her mind. She has a business lunch with
the President every Tuesday for which she draws up an agenda of non-
family topics' (Holden, 1980, p. 14). These two examples are remarkable
precisely because they are so unusual. It must be emphasised that both
women had been sing1e-minded1y devoted to the furtherance of their
husbands' power and policies, and their own influence was entirely
dependent upon their husbands' position. Probably more numerous are
those women whose political influence derives simultaneously from their
private relationship with a politician and from a formal political position,
for instance the wives of Presidents Tito and Ceausescu of Yugoslavia and
Romania respectively, or Imelda Marcos in the Philippines. The fate of
Mao's widow, Jiang Qing, perhaps illustrates the perils of presuming too
far upon this authority.
The preceding survey has shown, first, how very few women achieve
political office or leadership. Second, it has illustrated the tendency for
their representation to vary inversely with the distribution of political
power. Even the striking increase in female parliamentarians in Sweden,
Norway and Finland needs to be set alongside the growing influence of the
corporate channel of decision-making, in which women's role is still
marginal. Third, we have seen the variations between different countries,
ranging from women's near invisibility in many developing countries to
their substantial presence in the numerically representative institutions of
Scandinavian politics. These variations indicate that levels of social and
economic development may influence but by no means determine women's
access to political elites. Amongst developed countries compare, for

instance, women's participation in Sweden and in Australia. Amongst
developing countries contrast India with Iran. A fourth finding has been the
gradual increase, particularly over the last two decades, in women's share of
leadership roles. But the qualifications to these findings are numerous. It
remains that women's position in the national legislatures of Britain and the
United States has not significantly improved since the early 1960s.
Wbysofew?
How can we explain these findings? Chapters l and 2 have already supplied
part of the answer: women's generally subordinate roles in all areas of
modern public life, together with their rather lower rates of grass-roots
political participation. But an adequate analysis must identify the
constraints more precisely. Here we can draw on a considerable literature,
though focused primarily on women in Britain and the United States in
legislatures and governments.
First, we must concede that it is not always or entirely a disadvantage to
be a woman in politics. A woman's relationship to a particular man may
give her access to considerable indirect political power. In electoral
competition with men, women candidates have the advantage of greater
conspicuousness. Joan Lestor, the British Labour Party MP, has even been
quoted as saying: 'Any young woman in politics is at a distinct advantage;
there are lots of young men around, but if you are a woman and you are
reasonably articulate and can state your case, you are noticed and
remembered much longer' (Phillips, 1980, p. 74). Some women are
currently benefiting from the growing recognition that genuinely
representative institutions must include at least a few women; for instance,
Vallance suggests that it is easier for women than men to get on a
parliamentary constituency's short-list of candidates (Vallance, 1979).
Such potential advantages still fail to offset the cumulative constraints on
women's participation in elite politics. These constraints can best be
discussed without, it is hoped, doing too much damage to the subtlet)' of
individual authors' arguments, by continuing and developing the distinction
made in Chapter 2 between characteristics of women themselves and
characteristics of politics and political institutions. It is helpful, following
Lapidus, to view these as the supply side and the demand side of women's
political participation (Lapidus, 1978). On the supply side are the principal
factors determining the availability of women politicians. We are interested
not only in the women who do come forward but also in those who don't.
On the demand side are the political and institutional factors governing the
recruitment and role assignment of political elites in general, and female
politicians in particular. Of course supply and demand are not mutually
independent: women may, for instance, anticipate either practical

difficulties in combining domestic roles with political office or outright
discrimination. Such points of interdependence will be indicated as we
proceed.
The supply of women: socialisation
At face value, the main reason for the scarcity of women in public office is
simply that so few women actively seek it. In Chapter 2 I distinguished
between the implications of socialisation and of situational or structural
factors for women's political behaviour. The distinction is also helpful in
identifying the reasons for this restricted supply of aspiring female
politicians.
Many discussions of this question in the United States emphasise the
effects of socialisation; for instance, Githens and Prestage begin by
observing that 'The problems confronting women in politics have been
attributed chiefly to the tensions between ascribed and achieved status
created by female socialisation. This explanation often tends to be diffuse
and vague' (Githens and Prestage, 1977, p. 5). But they do not offer an
alternative perspective, choosing rather to elaborate the 'dynamic of
interaction' through which these tensions are experienced. In particular they
incorporate the concept of social 'marginality', defining the marginal actor
as 'a person who seeks to change his identification from one stratum to
another but who is unable to resolve the related choices between value
systems and between organised group ties'. Women will be especially
vulnerable to such tensions, say Githens and Prestage, because they rely
more than men upon the esteem of others. The psychological costs of
marginality will deter most women from seeking political office but will also
condition the behaviour of the women who attain it.
Kelley and Boutilier likewise define the crucial prerequisite for adult
political activism as an activist modern sex-role ideology and a sense of
personal control over one's 'life-space'. Although they accept that
motherhood can impede more demanding forms of political participation,
this is, they believe, principally due to a mother's fear of social disapproval
if she appears to neglect her children; the practical constraints of
motherhood are only marginal. In a startling passage, they assert that:
An activist woman for whom politics has become salient will not find that
lack of a baby sitter, uncooperative husband, or young children are
sufficient to keep her from voting or possibly even from running for an
office. The cost of not engaging in the behaviour may be too high. (Kelley
and Boutilier, 1978, p. 11.)
They underline the need for the right kind of childhood socialisation if
women are to achieve political prominence.
The authors cited also stress the influence of socialisation upon the way
women behave after they have acquired office, which obviously has
consequences for their subsequent political career. Similarly Constantini
and Craik, from their survey of men and women in leading party positions
in California, concluded that women devoted more time and energy to
routine party work than men and that women's ambitions were confined to
party office, while men were much more likely to seek public office. They
swiftly detected a 'marked resemblance to often noted sex-role differences
in the family. The male party leader, like the husband, is more likely to
specialise in the instrumental function of the system involved. The female
party leader, like the wife, tends to specialise in expressive functions'
(Constantini and Craik, 1977, p. 238). The eagerness with which they
espoused this sex-role reductionism is the more striking since, as Carroll
rightly points out in her criticism of this piece, their own data only indicate
very marginal differences in motivation between the sexes (Carroll, 1979).
It has further been suggested that women politicians adopt 'amateur'
rather than 'professional' political styles. Thus Lynn and Flora deduce
from their survey of delegates to the 1972 United States National Party
Conventions that, because of their fear of social disapproval, women
delegates are apparently less personally ambitious than men, and are also
more likely to perceive and engage in politics in terms of ideas and
principles rather than competitive strategies. They characterise this
approach as amateur, though this evaluation seems highly questionable,
reflecting a very American and 'masculine' concept of politics. It is also
contradicted by the finding of a succession of studies that women in politics
tend to be especially earnest and conscientious, a trait barely compatible
with amateurism Lynn and Flora, 1977).
Situational constraints
Other writers prefer to stress the impact of situational constraints, most

especially of motherhood. One influential argument has been advanced by
Lee, whose survey of leading local politicians in four New York suburbs
persuaded her that women are not deterred from such participation because
they find it either boring or corrupt. Though they often believe that politics
is an unsuitable activity for women, or at least expect men to think so, and
though they anticipate discrimination, none the less both sex-role
stereotyping and discrimination are, she argues, noticeably diminishing.
The most serious and enduring obstacle is responsibility for children at
home which, while it need not deter women from routine forms of political
participation, such as voting, does impede their access to political office.
The crucial factor is time, and not so much the amount of time available as
women's inability to control when they will be available for political work
(Lee, 1976). (Incidentally, Hernes and Voje suggest that the unpredictability
of women's daily schedule, when they are responsible for small children,
may be one reason for their preference for non-institutional forms of
political participation (Hernes and Voje, 1980).)
Lee's thesis has been explicitly echoed in a number of studies. More
important, there is a wealth of evidence that she is right. For instance, of the
twenty-seven women British MPs elected in October 1974, only two had
children under 10 years of age. The same tendency for women participants
to be either single, or married or divorced without young children, was
noted in the United States Congress and state legislatures and in the
Norwegian Storting in the mid-l970s. Wolchik cites findings in
Czechoslovakia that women are less politically active after marriage and the
birth of children, and that they give domestic responsibility as the main
reason for not accepting public office (Wolchik, 1981, p. 271).
Responsibility for small children may be less of an obstacle to participation
in local than in national politics. Bevs found that in American Boards of
Education there was actually no significant difference between men and
women members as regards the number and age of their children (Bevs,
1978). This may be because such political work is less demanding and closer
to home, a conclusion supported by the British women MPs who told
Phillips that while their children were young they had confined their
political activities to local government (Phillips, 1980).
Not only does motherhood inhibit women from seeking political office, it
also means that by the time their children are old enough to require less
constant care, such women are themselves relatively old for embarking
upon a political career. This is reflected in the frequent finding that women
politicians are somewhat older, on average, than their male counterparts.
The female state legislators interviewed by Githens complained they were
handicapped by gaining political office only in middle life, too late for the
competition for leading roles within the legislature or a bid for a seat in
Congress. They also, incidentally, felt themselves disadvantaged in this
competition because they lacked the required occupational backgrounds
(Githens, 1977). As we shall see, the appropriate job experience is a vital
ingredient of 'eligibility' for elite politics, and it is women's maternal
responsibilities (under, of course, the prevalent sexual division of labour)
which in large part prevent them from gaining such experience.
These conclusions are, it seems, in contradiction to Kelley and Boutilier's
claim that once women are politically enthused, no such practical obstacle
will hold them back. But their own data also contradict their argument.
Amongst the thirty-six active political women for whom they provide
biographical details, twelve had no children at home at the time of their
political involvement (a further three probably didn't either but the book
does not make this clear). Eight of those with children were themselves
wealthy enough to have servants or had rich relatives who could arrange for
their children to be looked after. Of the remaining three, Ellen Grasso
found support in her extended family; the other two, Golda Meir and Eva
Broido, did have to struggle to combine their roles as mother and politician.
Indeed Meir wrote in her autobiography, 'to this day I am not sure that I
didn't harm the children or neglect them, despite the efforts I made not to
be away from them even an hour more than was strictly necessary'. Her
decision to combine motherhood with a demanding public role was
evidently a painful one (Kelley and Boutilier, 1978, p. 131).
Women's availability for elite political roles is also related to their
employment outside the home, but the relationship is complicated and not
entirely clear. In Chapter 2 evidence was cited to show that women's paid
employment was positively related with grass-roots political activity, but
this was explained in terms both of socialisation and of situation; childhood
socialisation was counteracted by influence and opportunities associated
with a specific new situation. Employment outside the home is also
presumed to correlate positively with more elite forms of political
participation. For instance, Lovenduski and Hills, summarising their
findings for twenty different countries, note a broad association between
political activism, at grass-roots and elite level, and women's participation
in the workforce, except in Japan and Italy. Yet, as Curren points out,
employment outside the home imposes on women who are still expected to
be housewives, and especially if they have young children, a dual burden of
work which can scarcely leave them time or energy for more demanding
forms of political participation (Curren, 1978, p. 8). A number of studies
indicate the predominance of 'unemployed' housewives amongst women in
what could be called the intermediate range of political activities, for
instance local party activities, local government and even in US state
legislatures. Alternatively the women are often part-time workers.
Schoenberg cites one study, of American working-class women whose
participation in community politics increased when they took on part-time
jobs, but decreased again if they worked full-time (Schoenberg, 1980). A
sample survey of local councillors in England in the mid-1970s suggested
that 91 per cent of women councillors were housewives, retired or employed
part-time (Hills, 1981b). However, this pattern is reversed at the level of
national politics. A tentative explanation for these apparent inconsistencies
can be offered. Participation in the paid workforce does change women's
political awareness and aspirations. This is reflected in the impact of paid
employment both on women's political participation in the long term and,
more immediately, on their grass-roots activism. On the other hand,
employment outside the home does contribute to women's dual work
burden and that is why, at the intermediate level of political participation,
housewifes without outside work commitments predominate, often together
with women in part-time work. However, the kinds of attitude, skills and
experience compatible with holding office at the summit of the
contemporary political system presuppose paid employment, and indeed
employment of a specific kind, and this is part of the explanation for the
small numbers and only very gradual increase of women in this political
arena. Again then, while a combination of childhood socialisation and
more direct situational influences are at work, the further up the political
hierarchy one goes, the more salient the situational constraints.
There remains one further and important aspect of women's situation- it
could also be explained in terms of their location within the structure of
educational and occupational opportunity - which potentially limits their
availability for the political elite. Seligman eta/., in analysing the process of
political recruitment, distinguish between three stages: certification,
selection and role assignment. The certification stage entails the informal
delimitation of an eligible pool of contenders (Seligman et al., 1974, p. 14).
Eligibility criteria are, of course, a function of the political institutions
themselves and thus a feature of the demand for women politicians but,
given these criteria, it is significant that fewer women than men can usually
satisfy them. One customary aspect of eligibility is educational attainment.
It is therefore relevant to note that in Britain there are still two men for
every woman studying at university and although, in the United States, only
slightly fewer women than men complete the first three years of college,
significantly fewer complete a fourth year. Chaney suggests that women at
university do not typically study in the more politicised faculties and
therefore miss out on the student politics that has proved an important
training-ground for the future politicians (Chaney, 1979, p. 91). Though
referring to Latin America, this point is more widely applicable.
Secondly, there are certain professions peculiarly compatible with a
political career. In Britain, Curren finds, MPs frequently combine their
political work with a private law practice, a directorship, a consultancy,
journalism or even a doctor's general practice, where they can work flexible
hours. These professions may also benefit from the MP's status and provide
insurance against possible electoral defeat. In addition, certain occupations
such as teaching, law, public relations, journalism, trade union
organisation, and even acting, develop communication skills that are vital
to the successful politician. Of all the MPs elected in 1970 and 1974, 31 per
cent of the Conservatives and 43 per cent of the Labour members were
drawn from the professions (mainly lawyers in the former and teachers in
the latter). Women do not play a prominent role in most of these
professions. Moreover their extensive employment in clerical grades of the
civil service and in local government may be a further disadvantage, since
civil servants are restricted in the range of political activities they can
undertake while the employees of a local authority may not serve as its
councillors (Curren, 1978). In the United States since 1900, nearly one-
quarter of state legislators have been lawyers, while in 1979 only 3 per cent
of American lawyers were women, though, more encouragingly, 25.3 per
cent of law students were female (Lynn, 1979). Githens finds that in the
Maryland legislature 33.8 per cent of delegates are lawyers and 38.7 per cent
are businessmen, with these two groups also dominating the standing
committees (Githens, 1977). In Iowa's state legislature farmers feature even
more prominently than lawyers and businessmen, but this hardly assists
women aspirants (King, 1977). Nor is the picture very different in Eastern
Europe; for instance in the Soviet Union women are greatly under-
represented in those industrial, technical and agricultural professional
specialisations which are most convergent with political leadership roles
(Lapidus, 1978).
Stiehm presents an interesting variation on this theme of eligibility.
Women, she suggests, cannot be taken seriously as candidates for executive
positions so long as they are not recruited on a similar basis to men for
military and police duties. In the United States, women constituted 5 per
cent of the armed services in 1976 and were eligible for 80 per cent of the
possible range of jobs, yet they 'remain marginal and their career
possibilities continue to be restricted'. These restrictions to women's
military service have implications for women's broader political role, says
Stiehm, because, as Weber showed, the key function of the state, and
therefore of its executives, is the control of force. 'If women will not,
cannot, or if it is thought that they will not or cannot exercise force, they are
poor candidates for office with coercive responsibility' (Stiehm, 1979, pp.
1-3). It would be difficult to v~rify Stiehm's thesis but, while one suspects
that women's secondary military role reinforces conventional assumptions
about their suitability for politics, it is unlikely to be decisive except in
highly militarised polities.
Relatively few women actively aspire to political office because they lack
motivation, but more importantly because there are specific constraints on
their freedom to do so and they are less able than men to satisfy the
requirements of certification. Their reticence is not, however, independent
of the political system itself; the ethos and male chauvinism of politics is a
deterrent, the practical operation of political institutions is difficult to
reconcile with the demands of young children unless husbands are unusually
co-operative, and it is the political system which determines the necessary
attributes of its recruits. Women in not putting themselves forward may
then be rationally anticipating the obstacles to a political career.
The demand side: political institutions
Turning to the 'demand' side of this interaction we begin with an obvious

but essential observation. Whereas in grass-roots political activities, such as
voting, campaigning for a local election and lobbying a local politician,

there are no logical constraints on the numbers of participants, there is
inevitably competition between the would-be participants in elite political
activities. It is not simply that the sort of people who go in for them happen
to be aggressive, and that aggression is a quality traditionally associated
with men rather than women. Much more fundamentally, every political
office won by a woman must be at the expense of male contenders.
Moreover, the more powerful a political position is perceived to be, the
greater will be the competition for it. Nor is this observation confined to
institutionalised politics. Even within a revolutionary movement or an ad
hoc political organisation without regularised procedures for selecting the
leadership, only a limited number can be the leaders. Given men's
competitive edge in any current leadership contest and their dominance of
the existing selection processes, women who seek political power are
operating within an entirely different political context than when they
simply join in grass-roots political activity.
But the institutionalisation of politics poses further obstacles. The role of
major 'institutional barriers', to use Hills's term (Hills, 1978), is illustrated
by the effect of their relative absence on the careers of Mrs Gandhi and Mrs
Bandaranaike. Both achieved political prominence through their personal
association with leading male politicians, in political systems whose central
institutions were still relatively permeable. Katzenstein suggests that this
low level of political institutionalisation accounts for the contrast, in India,
between the visibility of a number of influential women politicians and the
low overall rates of women holding political office (Katzenstein, 1978).
Such a finding is by no means confined to the developing world. In Britain
during the first decade of (limited) female suffrage, five out of the eleven
women MPs owed their position to this 'male equivalence', in Currell's
phrase (Curren, 1978). Moreover in the US Congress between 1917 and
1976, 73 per cent of women Senators and 50 per cent of women
Representatives were the widows of Congressmen (though Kincaid, in
particular, is anxious to dispel any impression that their advent to Congress
was either automatic or involuntary, pointing out for instance that less than
3 per cent of Senators and 9 per cent of Representatives who died in office
were succeeded by their widows (Kincaid, 1978)).
The institutional barriers to political recruitment and promotion are less
and less likely to be legal ones. This was not always so. Thus, in Britain,
women were not allowed until1918 to stand for Parliament, and until1946
married women could not work in the civil service. The removal of these
legal barriers has still left women facing a labyrinthine edifice of vested
male interests and conventions. Three particular obstacles can be identified.
Listing these in order of their reliance upon male chauvinism, the first, and
by no means the least important although it has nothing to do with men's
attitudes to women, is the way that, at each level, political advancement
requires 'appropriate' political or occupational experience. To get to the top

you have, typically, to have climbed the lower rungs, which also means that
you have to begin climbing early enough to leave yourself time. More
clearly related to male chauvinist assumptions are the ethos and
organisation of political activity at each level, which reflect the styles and
convenience of men, as was pointed out in Chapter 2. Finally, the direct
expression of male prejudice and power is outright discrimination.
Institutional barriers to becoming a legislator
To assess and illustrate the extent to which these obstacles reinforce one
another and deter women, let us examine in more detail the routes to the
political pinnacle for women in Britain and the United States, confining
ourselves largely to the 'numerical representation' channel because it is on
this that political scientists have so far concentrated. Our starting point will
be eligibility for the national legislature. In the informal process of
'certification' for these bodies, I suggested, certain occupations, in which
women are usually only a small minority, carry special weight.
Consequently women rely on having had the right kind of previous political
experience instead. In Britain, this means that the main reservoirs from
which women have been recruited for Parliament are political parties, local
government and trade unions.
We have seen, however, that women, though constituting nearly half the
membership of the Labour and Conservative parties, do not achieve high
party office in anything like this proportion. Hills asks how far this is
simply the result of the parties' formal rules. At constituency level, the rules
for the composition of the Labour General Committee (GC) do not oblige
branches to send women delegates but may give women members overall a
slight edge in voting for delegates, through the separate representation of
Women's Sections, while Conservative branches are required to send two
representatives, one of each sex, to the Constituency Executive Council.
The limited evidence available suggests that even at this level women are
under-represented in both parties: one recent survey of eighteen Labour
GCs found women were only 30 per cent of their membership though 40 per
cent of party membership at large. There is no specific requirement for
women delegates to the Labour Party Annual Conference, while the
Conservative constituency associations are obliged to send at least one
woman out of up to seven delegates to their Annual Conference. Women's
numbers are correspondingly higher in the Conservative Annual
Conference, though it should be remembered that this body has much less
say in party policy than does its Labour counterpart. Of the twenty-five
members of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee (NEC), only
five, who in practice are nominated by the trade unions, must be women. Of
the 200 members of the Conservative Executive Committee, a much less

powerful body than the Labour NEC, only chairpersons of the Women's
National Advisory Committees, at national and area level, are
automatically women. In sum, the internal rules of the two parties do not
assist women, particularly in the higher reaches of party organisation, but
neither can they account for women's disappointing record. To explain this
we must refer to the situational constraints discussed earlier in this chapter
but also to the strong possibility of discrimination. Hills cites one Labour
Party survey of women activists, in 1972, 45 per cent of whom felt that male
contenders for party office were always or often given preference over
equally qualified women and a further 33 per cent of whom thought this
was sometimes the case (Hills, 1978).
The second source of women in Parliament is local government. Vallance
points out that of the twenty-seven women MPs elected in October 1974,
seventeen had local government experience (Vallance, 1979). Once more,
though, we have seen that women are under-represented amongst local
councillors. Yet, 'to become a candidate for local government in either
party is not a complicated process' (Hills, 1978, p. 9). Labour Party
candidates, nominated by party branches, trade unions and other affiliated
organisations and then, frequently, screened by a constituency party
committee, are vetted by the party Local Government Committee and
ultimately selected by the branch they wish to represent. In the Conservative
Party, wards find their own candidate, subject to the Constituency
Association's approval, and they need not even be a party member. These
procedures do not at face value disadvantage women or explain their small
numbers in local government.
Bristow looks for a relationship between the extent of female
representation in a local authority and its socio-economic environment.
Women are best represented in London councils and worst in Welsh
councils, but paradoxically, outside London, they do better in rural than in
urban areas. Most striking is the correlation between the extent of women's
representation and the affluence and, to a lesser extent, the conservatism of
the authority, again excepting London. Bristow leans towards an
explanation that emphasises the availability of middle-class housewives
(Bristow, 1980). Hills rightly criticises Bristow both for making
assumptions about women's class from data based on men, and for
ignoring the attitudes of the recruiting parties themselves. She points to
evidence of bias against women candidates, when selecting the safe seats, in
both parties. However, this does not succeed in accounting for the
variations in women's rates of council membership (Hills, 1981b).
If women's penetration of party and local government elites is limited, it
far exceeds their office-holding in trade unions, as I have shown. This
despite the Women's Conference held annually since 1926 and the local and
national Women's Advisory Committees established in the mid-1930s. As a
result of pressure by the Women's Conference over the last three years, the
TUC finally agreed to increase the statutory quota of women delegates to
the TUC from two to five out of forty-one, as we saw. Overall we must
agree with Vallance that so long as these three areas of political activity
remain the main 'feeders' of women into Parliament, there is little prospect
of a dramatic surge in the numbers of would-be women candidates
(Vallance, 1980).
Turning now to the United States, amongst those Congresswomen who
do not owe their seat at least partially to their dead husband, that is
amongst the younger or more junior women members, the commonest prior
political activity has been membership of a state legislature. We need
therefore to examine the recruitment of women to these legislatures, for
which there is a substantial literature. Here let me remind the reader that
although women's representation at state level has been steadily increasing,
it remains concentrated in certain States (not, incidentally, the States which
send women delegates to Congress) and still constitutes less than 10 per cent
of total membership.
Since women are much less likely than men to 'step sideways' into the
state legislature, on the strength of their professional eligibility, they are
more dependent on alternative recruitment channels. Chief amongst these
are political parties and voluntary associations. Women are by now
probably as likely as men to be involved in party activity, but there is ample
evidence that they are much less likely to assume leadership roles. The
expectation that 'Women do the lickin' and stickin', while men plan the
strategy' still prevails (Bonepath, 1977, p. 289). Alternatively or, often,
additionally would-be women legislators have been active in community
work. Through such activity a woman can develop organisational and social
skills, she will become acquainted with political processes and officials and
may perceive a political dimension to community issues. A further stepping-
stone, frequently mentioned, is membership of a local authority, either
through election or appointment. Diamond reports that in 1971
approximately two-thirds of both male and female members of the
combined state legislatures of Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and
Maine had held some other public office prior to election (Diamond, 1977).
But not only are women under-repre_sented in local government,
Constantini and Craik suggest they may be most numerous in those local
authorities which are not partisan and are therefore not perceived as
stepping-stones to higher political office - though perhaps we should be
wary of the inferences these authors make from their data (Constantini and
Craik, 1977).
Women with a background of party activity, community work or local
public office may be invited by the local party to run for state office, they
may contest the party primary or they may run as independents. Although
about 28 per cent of the women candidates for state and national office
interviewed by Hightower lacked this background (they had instead become

involved in politics through the New Left and particularly the women's
liberation movement, in the late 1960s), her study was based in the New
York area, so that this high percentage is probably atypical (Hightower,
1977). More importantly, such women would not be recruited by the
parties, but would have to recruit themselves.
There are, therefore, different ways to be selected as a candidate. Women
who choose to contest party primaries are obviously less certain of selection
than those whom the party recruits, particularly because they often
encounter more difficulty in raising the campaign funds than do male
contestants. Campaigning in the United States, as is well known, is a very
expensive activity. 'Women do not ordinarily have access to large sums for
campaigning, even if they are from wealthy families ... nor do they have
the contacts to tap outside financial resources, lacking access to the "old-
boy" networks that donate a great deal of primary campaign money'
(Epstein, 1981, p. 139). On the other hand, it is regularly observed that
parties tend to select women candidates, without a primary contest, for
seats that they are unlikely to win. Primaries are more likely to be held in
constituencies which are considered 'safe', so that if a woman succeeds in
the primary, she stands a better chance of also winning the seat.
At this point we must ask why women do so much better in some states
than in others. Many factors are at work and, as Diamond shows, once a
legislature has established a precedent of having a relatively large number of
women members, this is itself the single best predictor of women's future
numbers. None the less, the fundamental determinant appears to be the
extent to which membership in a state's legislature is prized and contested.
Women do best in those legislatures in which the ratio of seats to population
is highest, whose constituencies are predominantly rural and which operate
as 'citizen' rather than 'professional' bodies, that is as gatherings of public-
spirited citizens rather than of full-time, aspiring politicians. In the
Southern states, this explanation must be supplemented by reference to the
impact of that region's traditional, patriarchal culture. Again, we can
explain the minimal numbers of women in the upper chambers of state
legislatures in terms of the greater competition for the limited number of
seats within them, together with the knock-on effect of the scale of female
representation in the lower house (Diamond, 1977).
I have considered so far the institutional process by which the pool of
women eligible for national legislative office is constituted. Next we must
examine the process of recruitment itself. In Britain, as in the United States,
many women who would be eligible in terms of the criteria already
discussed do not seek legislative office. Commentators like Kelley and
Boutilier might like to put this down to childhood socialisation. An
explanation at least as plausible is women's rational anticipation of further
institutional barriers. If they have responsibility for young children they
may be deterred by the time needed for travelling to and from the
constituency they are contesting. If elected, they will face potentially
difficult decisions about where they and their family should live. They will
also face the prolonged and 'unsocial' hours of parliamentary sittings,
together with the lack of creche facilities in an institution established for
and by men. Less tangibly, they may fear the prejudice of the public and of
male MPs. This is both reflected in, and perhaps encouraged by, the
treatment of women politicians by the press. As Phillips notes, 'the press
expects that women candidates' moral standards must be absolutely beyond
reproach, an expectation that is not made of their male colleagues'
(Phillips, 1980, p. 106). For instance, when the Daily Mirror learned that
Labour candidate Tessa Jowell was a divorcee, living with a married man, it
ran a story entitled 'Love Confessions of Labour's Tessa'. As is better
known, the press reacted viciously to two women MPs who deliberately
drew attention to themselves as victims of male prejudice: Maureen
Colquhoun, who declared publicly that she was a lesbian, and Helene
Hayman, who breastfed her baby in the-House of Commons. The physical
appearance of women politicians holds a particular fascination for the
media, and this inevitably trivialises women's political contribution.
The women whom such prospects cannot deter encounter further
obstacles in the selection process, as Hills recounts. The Labour Party
maintains two lists, the 'A' list of candidates nominated by trade unions
and the 'B' list of candidates nominated by constituency parties, from
which constituency parties select their shortlist of potential candidates.
(There is an increasing tendency for would-be candidates to bypass these
lists and approach the constituency directly.) Conservative Central Office
keeps a similar list of approved candidates. In recent years, both parties
have publicly stated their concern to promote the selection of women
candidates. On the trade union-sponsored 'A' list, however, and not
surprisingly in view of the near invisibility of women in trade union
leadership, there were only three women out of 103 nominees in 1977. Even
in the 'B' list in 1979 women constituted only 8.4 per cent of nominees. This
was actually slightly down on the 1976 level of 9 per cent, although this
partly reflects the increasing circumvention of the list system. On the other
hand Marcus Fox, the then Conservative Party Vice-Chairman, claimed to
have fostered an increase in the proportion of women on his party's list of
candidates from less than 10 per cent in 1976 to nearly 15 per cent in 1979.
Party lists notwithstanding, the decisive agent of selection remains the
constituency party, or at least its governing bodies. In fact, women seem to
stand a good chance of being selected on to constituency shortlists; a token
woman is nowadays even perhaps de rigeur for such a list to have
democratic credibility. Instead, bias becomes operative in the next stage.
According to Hills, in the Conservative Party women are less likely than
men to be selected as candidates at all, while in the Labour Party they have
a better than even chance. But in both parties they are considerably less
likely than men to be nominated for safe seats. For instance, in October
1974, twenty-seven out of one hundred and sixty-one women candidates
were elected as against 608 out of 2,282 men, making the odds for men 3. 7: 1
but for women 6:1. In the 1979 General Election, nineteen out of 138
women candidates were elected, increasing the odds against women to
7. 3: 1. This reflected the victory of the Conservatives who ran a total of only
thirty-one women candidates.
Why should so few women be selected for safe seats? In the past, it has
been suggested that women were an electoral liability, because voters of
both sexes preferred to vote for men. Possibly this was true in the early
years when women stood for Parliament. It is always difficult to disentangle
the effects of a candidate's sex from all the other variables that could
influence electoral behaviour. In so far as it is possible, however, Vallance
concludes that in recent General Elections the impact of a candidate's sex
on voting results has been negligible (Vallance, 1979). Hills concedes, on the
basis of an analysis of the General Elections of 1966, 1970 and October
1974, that the gender of the candidate may have a very marginal impact on
electoral outcome. She does also point out that in these elections women's
candidature did not in practice affect the outcome in any constituency
(Hills, 1981b, p. 227). Darcy and Schramm reach a similar conclusion in
their study of the elections for the US House of Representatives in 1970,
1972 and 1974, finding that when voting differentials are controlled for a
candidate's party and incumbency status, their sex has little independent
explanatory power (Darcy and Schramm, 1977). On the basis of a much
more impressionistic survey of five General Elections in Australia prior to
1977, Mackerras again deduces that women candidates do not lose votes
(Mackerras, 1977). The irrelevance of the candidate's sex has also been
demonstrated in studies of local government elections in Britain, the United
States and New Zealand. The only Western democracy where sex: has been
reported as making a difference is Greece (De Giry, 1980). Yet, with the
exception of Finland, in all these countries the available evidence suggests
that women candidates are less likely than men to be chosen for safe seats.
It is not the electorate that does not want women, so much as the
'selectorate', even if this partly reflects a mistaken anticipation of electoral
attitudes.
A further obstacle to women's recruitment to Parliament may be the
single-member, first past the post electoral system. Several writers suggest
that the party list version of proportional representation (PR) particularly
favours women, because it encourages national parties to devise slates of
candidates which are representative of the main groups in society, including
the two sexes, so as to maximise their electoral appeal. A second reason why
such lists are more likely to include women may be that the choice at this
level is not of the either/or kind as it is for instance in a single-member
constituency, so that women are less directly in competition with men.

Certainly, use of the party list system coincides with the relatively high
proportion of women in the legislatures in Scandinavian countries and the
Netherlands, while its cessation in France in 1958 may have contributed to
the decline in women's representation in the National Assembly.
Turning once more to the United States, we have already noted how few
women achieve Congressional office. There have only ever been thirteen in
the Senate, seven of whom were, in any case, appointed not elected. Nor has
women's membership of the House of Representatives markedly increased
over the last two decades. This is partly due to the decline in the number of
women in Congress replacing their dead husbands. But it is also relevant to
note that Congress is probably the most powerful legislature in the world,
both because of the wealth and international power of the United States and
because of the degree of its constitutional and political independence from
the executive branch of government. The political parties seem extremely
reluctant to adopt women candidates for Congressional elections. In 1970,
1972 and 1974, out of 1,099 contested elections for Congressional office,
only eighty-seven featured women candidates.
Barriers inside the legislature
We must finally consider the institutional constraints facing women who do

become legislators. Since there are few women candidates for safe seats, the
rate of turnover of women members is high, compounding the disadvantage
of being on average somewhat older than their male colleagues at the outset
of their legislative career. Furthermore, some women MPs feel like
intruders in the 'gentlemen's club' atmosphere of the House of Commons,
while Congresswomen reported 'generalised resistance in informal
relations' and exclusion from such important informal organisations as the
'club' (Gehlen, 1969, p. 37). However, when Vallance matches men and
women MPs according to their length of service and other relevant
qualifications, she finds that their chances of reaching Front Bench
positions are roughly equal. Gehlen found no recent evidence of
discrimination against women in promotion to committee chairs in the
House of Representatives. What is much more noticeable is women's
specialisation in the traditional 'feminine' fields as far as government
appointments in Britain and committee assignments in Congress are
concerned. It is often not clear how far such specialisation stems from the
actual preferences of women politicians. But when we learn that Sir Harold
Wilson, who is often singled out as the British Prime Minister who did most
to encourage women in Parliament, admits that he would never have dared
appoint a woman overlord of those strongholds of male chauvinism, the
Home Office, the Treasury and the Foreign Office, we cannot doubt that
institutional barriers are still sometimes decisive (Phillips, 1980).
This analysis suggests that any satisfactory explanation of the dearth of
women politicians must stress not simply women's availability but the way
this is shaped by the character of modern politics. Not only can parallels be
traced in the experience of women in other Western democracies, it is clear
that such institutional barriers also exist in communist systems. To begin
with, women are less likely than men to be party members, the prerequisite
both for higher party office and for professional advancement, which in
turn can lead to higher political position. Though women's incidence in
district and regional party bodies is higher than in Central Committees, they
'appear to be excluded from those positions of regional party leadership,
such as district first secretary, which serve as recruiting channels into the
central party elite' (Wolchik, 1981, p. 261). The women who do reach the
Central Committee moreover tend to have occupied lower party and
government positions prior to this promotion than their male colleagues. A
disproportionately large number of them have been involved in mass
organisational and propaganda work, whose status within the party, Moses
suggests, is relatively low (Moses, 1976). Accordingly, women within the
Central Committee have less authority, a more rapid turnover rate and less
likelihood of top party office. This pattern prevails throughout Eastern
Europe, though Wolchik finds sex differences in political careers and
recruitment channels greatest in Poland and Hungary.
Given these cumulative institutional hurdles, discrimination is simply the
last straw. There are of course real difficulties with the concept of
discrimination. It is almost impossible to prove the intention to
discriminate. Even with full information, it is often difficult to know
whether a person, apparently discriminated against on grou6ds of their sex,
possessed all other legitimately relevant qualifications for the position
concerned. But if we simply infer discrimination from the discrepancy
between the proportion of the eligible contestants who are female and the
proportion of those selected who are female, then it would appear that such
discrimination, though declining, is by no means extinct. Tolchin, for
instance, finds it rampant in the process of recruitment for the American
judiciary, whether its basis is selection on merit, partisan election or non-
partisan election (Tolchin, 1977).
Strategies for women?
Let us assume for the moment that feminists should want to increase
women's participation in political elites. Chapters 5 and 6 are centrally
concerned with feminist strategy. Here I shall briefly suggest which factors
emerge from the preceding analysis as most conducive to a leading political

role for women.
If the question was posed at the level of the individual aspiring woman
politician, an initial, frivolous answer would be 'Take out Swedish or
Finnish citizenship'. Women's chances also seem to be somewhat better,
other things being equal, in the more industrialised nations, though their
representation is sometimes higher in rural than in urban regions. Typical
examples are the United States state legislatures and local government in
Britain, France and Yugoslavia. This may be because there is less
competition for government or party office in rural areas. On the other
hand, there are more women in urban than in rural local authorities in
Sweden and Finland.
We are concerned here with rather more positive steps than simply living
in the right place. First, it is apparent that, for the moment, and within the
context of conventional politics, women have more hope of penetrating the
numerically representative institutions than the other arenas I have
identified. Prerequisites for entry are easier to satisfy, and the process of
recruitment and promotion is more susceptible to pressure from below.
Second, women do best where competition is least, for instance in local
rather than central government or in some state legislatures more than in
others. This may indicate the best starting point for women's assault on the
political citadel, though there is always a danger of ending up in a powerless
cul-de-sac. Third, and still related to the numerical channel, women's
chances of selection and election are greatest under the party list system of
proportional representation. Perhaps, then, women in Britain and the
United States should be campaigning for the adoption of PR.
Women evidently benefit from sponsorship. Such sponsorship can range
from the personal encouragement of a political leader, such as Mahatma
Gandhi or Sir Harold Wilson, to some system of quotas or other form of
positive discrimination in recruitment. The Congress Party in India has long
required that 15 per cent of its candidates in state elections should be
women. Though this quota is rarely achieved, the concentration of women
candidates in the Congress Party is striking. In France, the Socialist Party in
1974 fixed a quota of 10 per cent of women, equal to their party
membership rate, in its ruling Executive and Legislative Committee. This
was raised to 20 per cent in 1979. The French Government also decreed in
1979 that no more than 80 per cent of candidates for local elections could be
of one sex. Mossuz-Lavau and Sineau argue that the proportion of women
candidates rose even in anticipation of this ruling (Mossuz-Lavau and
Sineau, 1981).
It is tempting to attribute sponsorship of women in politics to parties, and
other political institutions, on the 'Left'. But the evidence only lends
qualified support. In Britain women are more likely to be selected as
Parliamentary candidates by the Labour Party than the Conservative Party,
though their chances are highest of all with the Liberals. Labour women
MPs are also more likely than Conservatives to achieve government office.
In local elections, however, outside London, women do best in rural
Conservative authorities. In so far as it can be argued that the Democratic
Party is to the Left of the United States party system, I have come across no
evidence to suggest that it is more likely than the Republican Party to select
women candidates for its safe seats. Lovenduski and Hills point out that in
many West European countries parties of the Left, particularly communist
parties, are more likely to promote women than are conservative parties
(Lovenduski and Hills, 1981). In Sweden it is the Centre Party that has
given women the greatest share of party posts and candidacies (Eduards,
1981). And, of course, women's share of leadership positions is little
different in state socialist systems, though their representation in some of
the Central Committees compares quite favourably with their numbers in,
for instance, the British House of Commons.
But what about the contribution of women's organisations? There is a
lively debate about the merits of the women's sections within the British
Labour and Conservative parties. These exist at branch level, electing
delegates to higher level women's organisations and ultimately to the
Women's Annual Conference and National Women's Advisory Committee.
Their principal function is to provide an exclusive forum for women and, in
the past at least, they have espoused a very traditional view of women's
political role. More recently, particularly in the Labour Party, many have
been influenced by feminist ideas and begun to press more strenuously for
women's representation within the main body of the party. Even so,
opinions differ as to how far they promote women's influence in the parties.
On the one hand they could provide 'useful preliminary training and
experience for a subsequent career' but on the other the danger is that 'able
women may satisfy their aspirations within these associations where there is
less competition for prestige party positions, and thereby be diverted from
contemplating a career as an elected representative' (Curren, 1978, p. 12).
Women's sections may also encourage men in the party to persist in
reviewing women as politically different, and in some sense marginal. In
Norway and in Canada, feminist party members have been less reservedly
critical of the women's auxiliaries, but in the Australian Labour Party and
under the influence of women's liberation, these have helped to liberalise
policy on women. We have seen how in many Third World countries, and
even up to a point in communist states, the women's sections have been
used both to mobilise and to contain women's political activism. On
balance, it appears that women's sections are not the best focus for
women's political energies, but that, when imbued with feminist ideals, they
can still be valuable in pressing for greater female representation.
This brings us to the role of more explicitly feminist organisations. In the
United States, in 1971, a National Women's Political Caucus was formed,
together with sister caucuses in all the fifty states, 'to awaken, organise and
assert the vast political power represented by women' (Burrell, 1977). These
caucuses probably contributed to the increase in the numbers of women
state legislators in the 1970s, though there is less evidence of an impact on
Congressional recruitment. It is difficult to distinguish between the effect of
the caucuses and the broader influence of women's liberation, which has
also helped to boost women's political participation. In 1980, the 300
Group was set up to promote women's representation in the British House
of Commons. It has unfortunately already clashed with the less reformist
wing of the women's movement. Women's parties, with a similar object,
have also been formed in a number of countries, most recently in Canada,
but with little immediate success.
There are lessons that feminists can learn about narrowly political
strategies to increase women's political role, but this analysis has also
underlined the constraints upon that role imposed by women's present
domestic obligations and occupational patterns. How feminists can hope to
change these is a subject for later chapters.
A distinctive contribution?
It may be argued that we need to know more about the behaviour of women
politicians, before deciding whether, as feminists, we want to increase their
numbers. Do such women make a distinctive contribution to policy and
politics, and is that contribution compatible with feminist objectives?
Several writers have argued that we need to differentiate between types of
women politician in terms of their personal and political backgrounds.
Though each author offers a rather different classification, we can make a
very basic distinction between three sorts of women in politics. First are the
'male equivalents', the women who acquired political office through their
relationship to politically prominent men and who, with notable exceptions
like Margaret Chase Smith, the first woman to run for the United States
Presidency, could be expected to have traditional assumptions about
women's political role. Second are the great majority of women politicians
in modern societies, women who came into politics relatively late, after
bringing up their children and without a background of employment in one
of the professions that 'converge' with political office. Such women will
have a range of political styles and orientations. These can perhaps be
summarised in Diamond's distinction between the Traditional Civic Worker
and the Women's Rights Advocate. They are probably unlikely to be
politically very ambitious (Diamond, 1977). Finally, we may be witnessing
the emergence of a new breed of woman politician, who enters politics
relatively young and with a background of professional employment,
notably in law, and who though not necessarily single or without children
will have found ways, through the co-operation of an enlightened husband
or the ability to pay for professional child care, to prevent domestic
responsibilities impeding her career (Stoper, 1977). Such women will share
feminist values, if only to the extent that these are instrumental to their own
success. They will be more ambitious, more ready to put themselves
forward uninvited and more prepared to face political contest.
Despite the difficulties of generalising, it is still instructive to examine
these women for political style, policy orientation and attitude to women's
rights. Crudely, we could ask whether traditional sex-related differences in
behaviour, as far as these exist, carry over into the elite political arena or
whether women politicians, through the processes of selective recruitment
and secondary political socialisation within political institutions, come to
behave just like the men.
Existing studies show that women in politics vary both in the extent to
which they perceive style to be a problem and in their preference for a
'feminine', 'masculine' or somehow androgynous style. Diamond finds that
those women who opt for a feminine style are also those least likely to be
aware of the problem. Nearly always, however, women politicians avoid
behaviour adversely associated with the feminine stereotype, such as
emotionalism and flirtatiousness. They nearly always compensate for
women's supposed silliness by doing their 'homework' with extreme
conscientiousness. At the same time, some women who are by no means
'feminine' in their political ambitions are not averse to exploiting the
popular idea of womanhood in their public image. In Latin America, the
role of the 'supermadre' has been almost indispensable for aspiring women
politicians and, as Lynn and Flora suggest, may have been the means by
which those women reconciled themselves to their own ambitions (Lynn and
Flora, 1977). Mrs Thatcher has been happy to present herself as an ordinary
housewife, trying to balance her housekeeping budget and, more recently
as the nurse ministering a sick national economy who must be cruel to be
kind.
Women legislators have been described as a little less active than men, less
willing to speak up and less inclined to initiate. Vallance writes of 'a certain
sense of anti-climax' when reviewing the achievements of British women
MPs, mainly because of their ineptitude for self-advertisement (Vallance,
1979, p. 111). Women in India's state assemblies are particularly timid, but
this must be partly due to their male colleagues' unrestrained chauvinism
(Mazumdar, 1979). Women legislators have also been reproached for their
lack of ambition and amateurism. Kirkpatrick finds them to be rather more
moralistic than men, preferring to see politics as problem-solving rather
than as a power-struggle (Kirkpatrick, 1974), while Diamond's women are
averse to bargaining and resistant to lobbyists. The question is whether such
behaviour does reflect a genuinely different orientation to politics, or
whether it is a rationalisation of women's weaker political position. After

all, Diamond points out that lobbyists are less likely to approach women
politicians in the first place, because they are perceived as less powerful.
Again, Diamond notes the salience of women legislators' relationship with
their constituents, suggesting that the constituents find them approachable
and sympathetic. Githens argues that many women legislators would like to
play a specialist role in policy-making, but are forced, because of their lack
of appropriate political or occupational experience, into playing the
delegate role, representing the views and interests of their constituents
(Githens, 1977).
Are women politicians more 'liberal' or 'radical' than men? Hills points
out that in Britain's Parliamentary Labour Party during the Parliament that
ran from October 1974 to 1979, 12 per cent of women but only 6 per cent of
men were in the left-wing Tribune Group (Hills, 1981b). We are dealing, of
course, with tiny figures. In the United States, Diamond has shown women
state legislators to be slightly more liberal than men, for instance in their
views on how best to discourage riots and civil disorder. Gehlen also found
Congresswomen over the years 1968 to 1974 marginally more liberal than
Congressmen in the same political party, as indicated by interest-group
ratings and voting patterns (Gehlen, 1977). All authors emphasise however
that the differences are minor. In so far as they are significant, they may be
due to the bias of the recruitment process on the one hand and the women's
marginality on the other.
The difficulty of distinguishing between what women would like to do
and what they are obliged to do arises again when we turn to the policy
areas they specialise in. Their concentration on 'women's subjects' -health,
welfare, education, and more recently women themselves, and consumer
affairs - is universal. Only exceptionally does a ministerial appointment
deviate from this rule, for instance Barbara Castle's designation as
Transport Minister and then Secretary of State for Employment and
Productivity. How far is this a matter of choice? In Congress and the state
legislatures, those committees, as far as they are identifiable, that deal with
traditional feminine concerns have in the past included a disproportionately
high number of women, though such specialisation shows signs of erosion.
Congresswomen have also tended to concentrate on these subjects, when
introducing bills (Gehlen, 1969 and 1977).
Similarly, in the British House of Commons, Private Members' Bills
submitted by women have generally been of this kind. However Vallance
has compiled an 'index of specialisation', based on the proportion of
interventions in debates by women MPs, excluding ministers, concerned
with health, welfare, education or consumerism. In 1950 the index was 42
per cent, in 1964 29.3 per cent, and in 1974 39 per cent. Overall she
concludes that these women 'are not exclusively, even mainly, concerned
with women's affairs' (Vallance, 1979, p. 197). Women's affairs still
dominate the contributions of women speakers in the assemblies of such

different countries as Australia, the Soviet Union and India. Even so, this
may in part reflect, or anticipate the pattern of committee appointments
over which women legislators have little say.
The remaining question is arguably the most important. Do women
politicians promote women's rights? Once more, the evidence is
contradictory. Although individual British women MPs have always
campaigned valiantly on behalf of their sex, Vallance and Curren describe
the typical woman MP as seeing herself as an MP first and a woman second.
Curren has, however, found amongst women parliamentary candidates a
growing tendency to explain their own experience in social rather than
personal terms, that is a greater feminist consciousness (Currell, 1978).
Vallance too points to the emergence of a new solidarity amongst Labour
women MPs, largely stimulated by attempts to revise the 1967 Abortion
Act. As Chapter 6 will describe, this has played no small part in the major
legislative gains made for women during the 1970s. In the United States,
Kirkpatrick found that only three of the forty-six women state legislators
she interviewed did not support the Equal Rights Amendment, but generally
they were reluctant to campaign for women's rights partly because they
risked losing the political credit with their male colleagues they had so
painstakingly acquired (Kirkpatrick, 1974). According to Gehlen,
Congresswomen in the 1960s were more sympathetic to women's rights than
Congressmen. From the late 1960s, individual Congresswomen helped to
secure new legal rights for women in such fields as employment and
education. By the end of the 1970s a Women's Caucus had emerged, led by
the redoubtable Bela Abzug (who unfortunately lost her seat in the 1978
elections), and including all but three Congresswomen. Apparently, then, in
Britain and the United States during the 1970s women politicians did
become more consciously feminist and prepared to campaign for women's
rights, though of course it also became more politically acceptable to do so.
It remains to be seen how far the momentum can be maintained. In
Norway, Hernes and Voje find that women in 'corporate' political
institutions have a fairly high degree of feminist consciousness, with 18 per
cent of their sample in self-styled feminist groups (Hernes and Voje, 1980).
In Sweden, too, by 1980 women MPs were discussing ways of uniting across
party lines on women's issues (Eduards, 1981). Elsewhere there is less
evidence that women politicians are strongly committed to liberating their
sisters. Whether it is Canada, India or the Lebanon, on this question they
toe the party line.
It seems, in conclusion, that women politicians do not behave very
differently from men. Their differences in political style are at least partially
attributable to their lack of power. Similarly their apparent specialisation in
feminine areas of policy-making largely reflects the roles assigned to them
by male-dominated political institutions. Finally, while under the influence
of women's liberation, women politicians in Western democracies may be

growing more sympathetic with feminist values, they will not usually risk
their careers for them, and this is as likely to be as true of the new breed of
women in politics as of the earlier incarnations.
4
How Politics Affects Women
It only really makes sense to emphasise women's participation in public

politics if it can be shown that policy outcomes do affect women. This
chapter looks at the impact of public policy on women. The growing
literature that examines such policy in different national and historical
contexts makes clear that women, as a distinct group, have been
importantly affected. A comparative approach also suggests a possible
explanation for the form that policies towards women have taken.
The primary concern here is with the impact of 'male-dominated'
politics, and so analysis will be confined to developments prior to the
second wave of feminism in the late 1960s. The focus will be on the impact
of politics on women's status. Social scientists employ the term 'status' in a
number of different ways. Here, following Giele, it will be equated with
'life options' (Giele, 1977a, p. 4). This chapter examines women's options
in the following spheres: powers within marriage, control of sexuality and
fertility, rights and duties as mothers, control of wealth and income,
employment and education.
Non-Marxist and Marxist political scientists are increasingly agreed that
the political sphere is not simply instrumental to social forces, to groups or
classes; it has practices, resources and interests of its own and acts back
upon society. By what means has public policy impinged upon women's
status? Laws have often been passed which, while reflecting prevailing or
at least socially dominant attitudes, reinforced these attitudes by
articulating them, imparting definition and authority, and thus helped to
prolong them beyond what would otherwise have been their 'natural'
lifespan. For instance, France's Napoleonic Code included a clause
attributing all powers within marriage to the husband, which was not
revoked until 1938. At other times, however, such laws reflected not so
much dominant values embodied in practice as prevalent myths that were
contradicted by reality, so that in fact the laws changed women's status.
The law could also anticipate changing values, as for example Britain's 1967
Abortion Reform Law.
Usually the law or policy would be backed up by sanctions or the positive
107
distribution of resources. Thus in many countries in the past and still in

some today, procuring an abortion is a crime punishable by law. The law
regulates, through the use of sanctions, what women can do. It also
intervenes in women's access to resources; it can deny women rights to
property and income, or, as more recently, it can actually direct public
resources in ways that influence women's status, as in subsidies for nursery
provision.
Laws and policies have not only affected women's status directly. In the
past, indeed, it has often seemed that the law had little to say specifically
about women. Part of the reason was the importance attached to the
'privacy' of the family, within which women were largely confined.
Nowadays in Britain such privacy is increasingly absent as the Welfare State
authorises the intervention of social workers, magistrates and the police;
Wilson goes so far as to say that 'social welfare policies amount to no less
than the state organisation of domestic life' (Wilson, 1977, p. 9). Even so
Mcintosh argues that the state still 'intervenes' less conspicuously in the
lives of women than of men (Mcintosh, 1978, p. 256). As she rightly
concludes, this requires us to examine not only the direct effects of policies
upon women, but also the part played by the state 'in establishing and
sustaining systems in which women are oppressed and subordinated by
men' (ibid., p. 259). Such an approach reveals that apparent respect for
privacy has often in fact been 'coercive', as when the public authorities
refused to intervene in wife-battering. It also points us to the indirect
implications of present policies: for instance, the way in which social
security is administered in Britain tends to reinforce the wife's economic
dependence on her husband.
Politics and women's status in Britain
If these are the means by which policy has helped to shape women's status,
what has been the cumulative impact of politics and policies upon women?
The example of Britain over the last one and a half centuries, which is
relatively well documented, is a useful starting point.
Despite their different specialisms and approaches, writers on this subject
are in startling agreement. They show that, with only minor exceptions, the
cumulative effect of a vast battery of laws and policies was, directly and
indirectly, to reinforce women's dependence upon men and responsibility
for home-making and child-rearing. During the eighteenth and much of the
nineteenth centuries women lost all legal identity - including property
rights - on marriage, had little control over their own fertility and virtually
no redress against rape, were severely discriminated against in employment
and pay, were denied access to higher education and were deprived of all
rights to participate politically and as jurors. In the twentieth century the
HowPoliticsAffects Women 109
picture has of course become more complex: a growing number of policies

have promoted women's independence, legal, political and financial. At the
same time, policies associated with the development of the Welfare State
have seemed to undermine that independence and certainly to be predicated
upon women's 'traditional' domestic role. By the end of the 1960s
therefore, and before the full impact of the women's liberation move-
ment, the implications of public policies for women's independence were
somewhat contradictory. What was clear was that they still had not
challenged women's primary responsibility for the care of children and the
home. These points will be considered further, as we examine policies
affecting the six aspects of women's status distinguished earlier.
Women's status in Britain has firstly been influenced by the way that
marriage is defined and regulated, through statute, judicial decision and for
administrative purposes. Marriage has historically been the lot of the
majority of women; even nowadays, most women marry. For example, in
1973 approximately 90 per cent of women aged 25 to 44 were or had been
married.
Under eighteenth-century common law, a woman upon marriage lost her
separate legal identity. Blackstone wrote, 'the very being or legal existence
of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated
and consolidated into that of the husband under whose wing, protection
and cover, she performs everything' (O'Donovan, 1979, p. 136). Her
husband decided the education and religion of their children. Most
seriously, perhaps, the woman lost all rights to ownership or control of any
property, or income, she brought into the marriage.
Despite these incapacitating restrictions, the conventional view was that
the law did not interfere with the essentially private realm of marriage and
the family. Though the husband, as head of the household, was supposed to
provide for his family, this was not legally enforceable. The most oppressive
consequence of this compulsory privacy was that the wife had no legal
recourse against physical assault by her husband.
Marriage law has become steadily less harsh. Beginning with the
Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857, the legitimate grounds for divorce, have
widened. The 1882 Married Women's Property Act gave women 'legal
authority over the property they brought into the marriage. In 1886 women
became eligible for custody over their children following divorce, though
the subsequent judicial assumption that mothers should normally have
custody, given inadequate financial assistance, has proved burdensome in a
different way. Not until the 1970s were wives allowed a share of property
acquired during the marriage. Not until the 1976 Domestic Violence and
Matrimonial Proceedings Act were wives provided with some, albeit
limited, protection against violent husbands. Perhaps most important, as
we shall see, the administration of income tax, national insurance and
supplementary benefits has reflected, and still partly reflects, the
assumption of female dependence, which is increasingly belied by the facts.

In 1974, for instance, in over half a million couples the wife was the main
earner, while in a further seven million couples, where the husband was
under 65, the wife contributed around a quarter of the family budget
(O'Donovan, 1979, pp. 135-6).
The second major aspect of women's lives to be considered concerns their
control over their own bodies, or more specifically their sexuality and
fertility. Clearly this is importantly affected by the policies towards
marriage already discussed. We must also examine availability of birth
control, of contraception and abortion, as well as public policy on rape.
In the nineteenth century, birth control depended upon sexual abstinence,
primitive forms of contraception, backstreet abortions and a high natural
rate of infant mortality. Abortion was illegal; under Section 58 of the 1861
Offences Against the Person Act, its procurers were liable to imprisonment.
Though the sheath and diaphragm were in production by the 1880s, the
government would not permit public health authorities to provide birth
control information.
Birth control policy changed dramatically, before the 1970s, as a result of
political factors at least as much as technological innovations. Although
from the early nineteenth century neo-Malthusians, as well as socialists such
as Owen, had advocated contraception, it was Marie Stopes who, in the
1920s, began to make family planning respectable. As Lewis points out, one
of her most effective arguments was that it would contribute to the
improvement of the race by making mothers and babies healthier and by
controlling the fertility of women who were 'unfit' to have children (Lewis,
1979). Although in 1930 the Government accepted that birth control
information should be provided to married women on specific medical
grounds, it was not until 1949 that this was extended to all married women,
perhaps because of fears in the mid-1930s of a population decline. The
contraceptive pill, developed in the United States, became commercially
available by the early 1960s. Initially it was provided by family planning
clinics and family doctors, but the 1967 National Health Services (Family
Planning) Act authorised local authorities to give family planning advice
and appliances to anyone in need, and if necessary free of charge. As
Greenwood and King make clear, the present situation is far from ideal, yet
it represents an enormous improvement (Greenwood and King, 1981).
By the end of the nineteenth century doctors regularly performed
abortions when a woman's life was in danger. Legislation in 1929
recognised this, and in 1938 legal abortions were also permitted to
safeguard a woman's physical or mental health. In 1936 a small but
committed group of feminists formed the Abortion Law Reform
Association, whose pressures underlay a series of attempts, beginning in
1952, to reform the law by means of a Private Member's Bill. When,
assisted by the thalidomide scandal and a sympathetic Labour government,
How Politics Affects Women Ill
David Steel's 1967 Act was passed, it was still ahead of public and medical
opinion. In the 1970s, therefore, second wave feminism had to defend, not
to win, abortion law reform.
As writers like Brownmiller have emphasised, public policy towards rape
matters not only to the actual rape victims but to all women as potential
victims. It also matters because of the attitudes to women's sexuality, and
indeed their independence, that it implies and condones (Brownmiller,
1975). Although British law has long recognised it as a serious offence, in
practice it has proved extremely difficult to get a rape conviction. Even the
1976 Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act is unlikely to make it much easier.
Until the 1976 Act, rape was not a statutory offence but was governed by
the common law. In the early nineteenth century it was punishable by death.
This may however have been one reason for the very low rate of
convictions. In 1810, of twenty-four committed to trial on rape charges,
sixteen were not proceeded against, six were acquitted, two convicted and
one executed (Toner, 1977, p. 98). Although the death penalty was lifted in
1840, convictions remained rare. Rape victims were deterred by the
difficulty of persuading the police they had a case, by the requirement in
practice though not in law of corroborative evidence, by the defence's right
to cite the previous sexual conduct of the prosecutrix and by their own lack
of anonymity. Despite changing attitudes of women, police, jurors and
lawyers, in 1975 there were still I ,040 rapes recorded as crimes by the police,
though many more were reported and doubtless still more committed; 544
men charged with rape came before Magistrates' Courts, 321 were found
guilty and 241 imprisoned. In this respect then, policy towards women's
sexual self-determination had not greatly improved by the 1970s.
The third area of policy to be examined centres on women's role as
mothers and in the home. Here we find steadfast adherence to the
assumption of women's primary responsibility for housekeeping and
childrearing. In the nineteenth century there was no direct intervention in
this private sphere; rather policies, such as those we have examined on
marriage and divorce, served indirectly to reinforce such a role. During the
twentieth century policies have more directly confirmed it. From the 1930s,
and especially with the consolidation of the Welfare State, state supervision
of women as mothers and homemakers has increased through the agency of
health authorities, social workers, even school teachers. Mcintosh even
suggests that the vogue for 'community care' in the late 1960s was really
premised on the voluntary extension of women's nurturant role (Mcintosh,
1979, p. 170). On the other hand public policies have provided little
assistance to women seeking to combine these domestic responsibilities with
outside employment, through for instance day-care provision for children
or adequate maternity leave.
During the First World War, public nursery care increased ten-fold, first
to cope with evacuees and later to offset women's conscription into
industry. These 'war nurseries' however 'were all along intended to be

temporary devices and not to be taken as any foundation for post war
practice' (Riley, 1979, p. 105). Responsibility for their maintenance was
. subsequently transferred to the discretion of local authorities, so that by
1969 only 21,000 children had state day-nursery places, priority being given
to children of single mothers or 'problem homes'. By the 1960s provisions
for maternity leave within the public sector were widespread, and
particularly generous amongst white-collar workers, yet it was not until the
1975 Employment Protection Act, and under pressure to conform to
European Community guidelines, that improved maternity leave facilities
were extended to most full-time women workers. The possibility of paternal
leave, or shared parental leave, not surprisingly was never seriously mooted.
Public policy has also influenced women's income, both its extent and
whether women receive it directly. At least until the 1970s, that policy
clearly reflected and reinforced women's economic dependence on men, as
an examination of its impact upon women's earnings, taxation and income
maintenance will show. Firstly, during the nineteenth century, women's
earnings typically fell far short of what men received for comparable work.
In 1888 the TUC did call for equal pay, but this was mainly because of fears
of women's wages undercutting those of male workers. For the most part,
the male-dominated unions did not press the issue, particularly since, in
their negotiations with employers, they were demanding a 'family wage': a
wage for the male breadwinner sufficient to support his wife and children.
Whether or not they 'merely couched their arguments in terms which would
appeal to social reformers and some sections of the capitalist class in order
to further their own ends', this demand implied a highly dependent role for
married women, at a time when most women were expected to marry, and
was incompatible with the principle of equal pay (Land, 1980, p. 57).
During the two world wars, as women were temporarily drafted into
traditionally male occupations, Government paid lip-service to the principle
of equal pay, but no steps were taken to enforce it. In 1954, following the
report of a Royal Commission on Equal Pay and a campaign mounted by
feminist groups and women MPs, equal pay was legislated for women in the
civil service and teaching. During the 1960s, support for the principle of
equal pay for all women workers grew steadily in the unions, reflecting both
continuing fears that female wages could undercut male rates of pay and the
fact that women were the main source of new members. The Equal Pay Act
was not passed unti11970.
Secondly, from the introduction of income tax in 1799 until 1972, the
income of husband and wife was aggregated for tax purposes, and treated
as the husband's responsibility. Women, thirdly, have been affected by the
web of social security provision elaborated during the twentieth century. In
fact they were largely ignored by the 1911 National Insurance Act, while
between the wars 'throughout the social security system there was
discrimination against women and especially against married women'

(Wilson, 1977, p. 120). Eleanor Rathbone's campaign, waged for more than
twenty years, for a family allowance to be paid directly to the mother was
resisted by Conservatives and the labour movement alike. The Beveridge
Report of 1942, which set out the guidelines for the first 'universal' system
of national insurance, enshrined the economic dependence of married
women. It argued that, since 'during marriage most women will not be
gainfully employed, the small minority of women who undertake paid
employment or other gainful occupations after marriage require special
treatment differing from that of a single woman'. These women would not
normally be expected to contract into the system of benefits at all, but if
they did they would only be eligible for benefits 'at a redur.ed rate' (cited by
London Women's Liberation Campaign for Legal and Financial
Independence and Rights of Women, 1979, p. 20). The social security
system also penalised households diverging from the 'norm' of male
breadwinner and immediate dependants, such as the approximately half a
million fatherless families reported in 1971. In the 1970s, married women's
rights to pensions and to sickness and unemployment benefits were
substantially enhanced, but supplementary benefit still went to the husband
and, under the infamous 'cohabitation' rule, this principle was even
extended to unmarried couples.
The possibility of women's employment outside the home has been
indirectly affected by many of the policies already described. Public
policies, or their absence, have had a more direct effect on the types and
levels of employment open to women. Though their impact in the
nineteenth century was purely restrictive, they have more recently
contributed to a limited expansion of women's employment opportunities.
Beginning with the 1842 Mines Regulations Act, a succession of laws
during the nineteenth century limited the hours and occupations that could
legally be undertaken by women and children. As Humphries shows, they
were supported by a strange combination of interests, and for a complex set
of reasons, but one concern that was uppermost was to preserve working-
class 'family life' (Humphries, 1981). Alexander has also shown how
protective legislation was introduced into areas of competition with men,
rather than all employment (Alexander, 1976). The provisions of
accumulated protective legislation, which have been codified in the 1961
Factory Act, together with the 1920 Employment of Women, Young
Persons and Children Act and the 1936 Hours of Employment
(Conventions) Act, apply only to industrial occupations and do not cover
such areas of growing female employment as offices and hospitals. As a
consequence, feminists have always been divided on the desirability of
protective legislation (see Banks, 1981).
In the nineteenth century, but for much less humanitarian reasons,
women were also excluded from most of the emerging professions. Since
access to them required specialised education and training, from which

women, as we shall see, were debarred, this de facto male monopoly went
largely unchallenged for many decades. Around the turn of the century a
number of court cases were brought by women who had achieved the
requisite qualifications. These are discussed by Sachs and Wilson, and
typically pivoted on the curious question of whether even single women
counted as 'persons'. In case after case, the 'impartial' male judiciary ruled
they did not, a finding only overturned by the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council in 1929 (Sachs and Wilson, 1978).
Government and the law further contributed to women's employment
opportunities by their own policies of recruitment and promotion. Until
1946 married women were excluded from the pensionable establishment of
the civil service. The legal profession was for long united in its resistance to
female invasion, and women are still singularly under-represented in its
higher reaches.
Finally, public policy-makers have only very recently been prepared to
consider intervention in cases where sex discrimination is suspected in
private sector employment. The first proposal for legislation against it was
introduced in 1967 and then only as a Private Member's Bill.
We come lastly to women's opportunities in education. Though
government has contributed to a steady expansion in women's formal
education, feminists rightly remain critical of the conventional sex-role
assumptions that pervade policy-making in this field.
In the early nineteenth century, school education was provided chiefly by
the Church, charitable foundations and private fee-paying establishments;
secondary education was available primarily for middle-class boys. The
four English universities admitted no women students. During the 1860s,
feminists like Emily Davies waged a vigorous campaign for the expansion of
girls' secondary education, for women's teacher training- Queen's College
and Bedford College in London were founded for this purpose - and for
women's access to university education. As a result of their influence,
changing labour force requirements but also its interest in producing 'good
mothers', the Government, as it increasingly supervised and eventually
supplied primary and secondary education, assumed this should be for girls
as well as boys. In the meantime, by the turn of the century, several
universities were beginning to admit women students though Cambridge
refused to award women university degrees until 1948. Though women by
the early twentieth century appeared, formally speaking, to enjoy equal
opportunity in primary and secondary education, Byrne argues that in
tertiary education (and only approximately 9 per cent of girls go on to
higher education from school) they continue to be discriminated against by
local authorities who provide grants and by employers who authorise day-
release (Byrne, 1978).
The main feminist criticism is now of the informal assumptions of
How Politics Affects Women 115
educational policy-makers which contribute to women's continuing

underachievement. In Wolpe's phrase, the 'official ideology' of education,
from the regulatory Codes of the nineteenth century down as far as the 1959
Crowther Report and the 1963 Newsom Report, maintained that women's
education must prepare them for motherhood and domesticity (Wolpe,
1978). For instance, the Crowther Report urged that girls' education
anticipate 'the prospect of courtship and marriage' and that girls' 'direct
interest in dress, personal appearance, in problems of human relationships
should be given a central place in their education' (cited by Wilson, 1977,
p. 83). Such an ideology condoned, if it was not the sole cause of, the
differentiation of subjects for boys and girls, the hidden sex-role
assumptions in the language and content of the syllabus, the concentration
of women teachers in 'maternal' roles in infant schools or subordinate roles
in secondary schools and the sex-stereotyped careers advice offered to
schoolgirls. Any serious attempt to eradicate these more subtle educational
inequalities has been prompted only by the revival of feminism in the 1970s.
This brief survey of policies towards women in Britain has shown their
assumption and reinforcement of women's traditional role as mothers and
housewives. At the same time such policies assisted some widening of
women's life options in the twentieth century. Indeed, they may have played
some small part in the emergence of the women's liberation movement.
Explaining policy towards women: a comparative approach
To what extent have policies towards women in other parts of the world
resembled those in Britain? Under the influence of second wave feminism,
studies have proliferated, both of policies towards women in different
countries and of particular policy areas, although few are explicitly
comparative. It is therefore possible to compare the British experience with
findings elsewhere.
Such a comparison helps to identify the main factors shaping policies
towards women. One hypothesis has been that they are functional to, or
principally determined by, the particular type of economic system, in
Britain's case advanced capitalism. To begin with, then, we can look at
what has happened in another advanced capitalist society, the United
States.
The American experience
Nineteenth-century laws regulating marriage closely parallelled those in

Britain except that, because of the federal system of government, their
precise content varied from state to state. By the end of the nineteenth
century each state had passed a Married Women's Property Act, giving the
wife the legal right to own and control her separate property and earnings.
Otherwise, up until the 1970s, the law continued to assume the wife's
economic dependence upon her husband.
Turning to policies with implications for women's control of their own
fertility and sexuality, mistrust of state intervention, and decentralisation,
have helped to make birth control policy rather more oppressive than in
Britain. The federal Comstock Law of 1873, which prohibited the
importation, inter-state transportation or spread of information about
contraceptive devices, prompted similar laws in about half the states, many
of which still restricted their distribution and display as late as 1968.
Against a background of pressure from Planned Parenthood, led by
Margaret Sanger, from changing public attitudes and from the availability
of the pill, which was first approved by the Food and Drugs Administration
in 1960, the Supreme Court ruled in 1965 that the Constitution's 'due
process' clause included a married couple's right to privacy and therefore its
right to choose whether or not to use contraceptive devices. This right was
not extended to unmarried couples until 1972. In addition the Federal
Government has been unwilling to provide family planning as a public
service except, from the mid-1960s, for the poorest social groups; others
must rely upon the private sector. Abortion was banned by most s·tate
legislatures by 1900, partly as a result of the growing influence of the
medical profession and its drive to discredit 'unqualified' medical
practitioners. Not until the late 1960s did several states liberalise their
abortion laws and this was only condoned by the Supreme Court in 1973
(Gordon, 1977). The political system of the United States has also provided
severe obstacles to the implementation of abortion law reform. Policies
towards rape appear, however, to have broadly paralleled those in Britain,
though again with minor variations between the fifty states.
As in Britain, women's primary responsibility for child care and
housekeeping was in the nineteenth century presumed rather than assisted
by public policy. Though this presumption has continued to inform policy,
women have received even less support in their domestic role than in
Britain. Adams and Winston suggest that this is because, even more than in
Britain, 'American policy ... continues to presume certain fundamental
incompatibilities between women's marriage, motherhood and work roles'
(Adams and Winston, 1980, p. 8). In the first place, 'the US has the
distinction of being the only major industrialised country in the world that
lacks a national insurance plan covering medical expenses for childbirth and
is one of few governments in industrialised nations that does not provide
any cash benefits to working women to compensate for lost benefits' (ibid.,
p. 33). Secondly, public nursery provision has only been available during the
Depression and the Second World War, as well as, since 1962, for the poorest
families. Local authorities, too, provide a minimal home-help service.
Reviewing policies that affect women's income, we find that the

administration of income tax, social security, pensions and welfare has
closely resembled the British pattern in reinforcing women's economic
dependence. Several writers have shown how the welfare programme,
originating in 1935, encourages single mothers not to find work but to look
for a male supporter, while in the meantime the Welfare Department acts
like a 'traditional husband' (see, for instance, lglitzin, 1977; Kinsley, 1977).
However, the Equal Pay Act was passed as early as 1963, as a result of
pressure by unions and by moderate feminist organisations. Despite its
limited scope, it has been sympathetically interpreted by the courts. Indeed
Murphy attributed to it 'by far the best track record of any of the
programmes for women' (Murphy, 1973, p. 25).
Similarly, though in the late nineteenth century American women were
restricted in their employment opportunities by protective laws, and by
general judicial support for a male monopoly in most professions, by the
1960s public policy may have been rather more helpful than it was in
Britain. The first legislation to prevent sex discrimination was passed in
1964 when the criterion of 'sex' was added to Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act.
This clearly predated the emergence of women's liberation, though one
feminist Congresswoman, Martha Griffiths, helped to secure it and thought
it was only under pressure from the women's movement that steps were
taken to make its implementation more effective.
Education policies, finally, have probably been less discriminatory in the
United States than in Britain. 'Girls benefitted from the development of
public education that began around 1830. By 1890 there were actually more
girls enrolled in high schools than boys' (Giele, 1977b, pp. 308-9).
Moreover, 'by 1882 the higher education of American women was an es-
tablished fact ... in striking contrast to England' (O'Neill, 1969, pp. 43-4).
Even in the 1960s, while in Britain about one third of university students
were women, in the United States they were approximately one half. None
the less feminists have been swift to point out exactly the same insidious
forms of sex discrimination in the curriculum and organisation of
education.
This comparison of policies towards women in Britain and the United
States reveals, then, many similarities. However, American women have
perhaps been more fortunate in those policy areas affected by the
ideological commitment to equality of opportunity, education and,
recently, pay and employment. They have certainly been Jess fortunate
when policy is influenced by the widespread American mistrust of direct
intervention in family life and of social expenditure by government, for
instance in the areas of birth control, nursery and home-help provision,
maternity leave and welfare.
Policies in Sweden
Amongst contemporary advanced capitalist societies, the most striking

contrast in policies towards women must be between the United States and
Sweden. Sweden is clearly capitalist, in that the state does not significantly
intervene in relations of production in the private sector or maintain an
extensive industrial sector. Yet public policies towards women are more
enlightened than anywhere else in the world (if still, from a feminist
viewpoint, only a beginning).
The evolution of Swedish marriage law has in many respects adhered to
the American pattern, though as early as 1921 the Marriage Law provided
for the equal division of property between husband and wife, upon divorce.
But the principle of family privacy has never been so strong, partly because
bringing up children has been seen as a public responsibility. From 1924 the
Child Welfare Board, through its local agencies, has possessed extensive
powers of intervention in family relationships.
Birth control policies have diverged much more radically from the
American model. From the 1950s, county maternity clinics have been
obliged to provide information, advice and contraceptives virtually free to
all women over 15, regardless of their marital status. Abortion law reform,
which began in 1938 following a Royal Commission, progressed steadily up
to the 1975 Act which gave women almost entire 'freedom to choose' until
after the eighteenth week of pregnancy. The theoretical freedom of choice is
backed up by adequate public provision of abortion facilities. In addition,
Sweden is one of the two countries (the other is Denmark) outside Eastern
Europe which include rape within marriage in their criminal codes
(Brownmiller, 1975).
The greatest contrast is, however, in policies affecting women's role as
mothers and housekeepers. In 1931 the Government undertook to pay a
lump sum to each woman on the birth of her child, to cover extra expenses.
Over the years this provision was amplified, so as to enable a working
woman to stay at home for the first six months after the birth, with between
20 and 80 per cent of her normal rate of pay, depending upon how high it
was. We can also note, though strictly outside the period covered in this
chapter, Sweden's so-called Parental Leave scheme, introduced in 1974.
This entitles the mother, or father if he has custody, to a nine-month
allowance, beginning with the birth of the child. If both parents were
working, the maximum allowance is increased to compensate for one of
them staying at home and is up to 90 per cent of their pay. The parents can
also split the leave between them. Further, though some day-care facilities
for children were available earlier, the report of the Day Care Commission
appointed by the Government in 1965 resulted in the increase of day-care
places by over 500 per cent. Starting with the 1943 Social Home Help Act,
the Government also subsidised both local government and voluntary
home-help services, so that by 1980 approximately 10 per cent of young

couples made use of them.
Turning to policies affecting income, Sweden has not yet legislated for
equal pay but this is partly because by 1962 the peak business and labour
organisations, the SAF and LO respectively, had themselves negotiated an
equal pay policy. Indeed by 1965 the wage gap between the sexes was much
narrower than in the United States. Taxation and income maintenance
schemes have disadvantaged married women as in the United States. Even
so it is significant that the various sources of income maintenance for single
parents (usually women) are so generous that very few need to go on
welfare.
There was no legislation against sex discrimination in employment until
the 1970s, because the Government again preferred to leave such matters to
the representatives of business and labour. The reason, however, that the
Social Democrats, Sweden's dominant political party until the mid-1970s,
are still reluctant to ban sex discrimination is that they fear it would
preclude positive discrimination which they recognise as necessary.
Finally, since the 1960s the Government has seriously considered ways of
reducing sex-role stereotyping in schools, so that by the 1970s it was being
reported that 'Sewing and woodwork, as well as home economics and child
care are obligatory for both sexes', textbooks were being vetted for sexist
content and, in a pioneering scheme, the Government was selectively
training staff from each school and sending them back to initiate
programmes to broaden sex-role attitudes (Baude, 1979, p. 153).
It is easier to note the differences between policies towards women in the
United States and Sweden than to explain them. The immediate reason
appears to be the predominance in Sweden of a particular brand of social
democracy which, while committed to private enterprise, simultaneously
believes that the state should extensively intervene in the distribution of the
economic product, so as to minimise social inequalities. To this end, it
collects the fullest possible information; in fact it has been suggested that
the Swedish Government makes greater use of research findings than any
other (Adams and Winston, 1980, p. 40). Social democracy in Sweden has
also been influenced by feminist thinking, from the end of the last century,
as we shall see. But what more fundamental factors underlie these attitudes?
Different writers have variously pointed to Sweden's small, relatively
homogeneous population, and to the absence both of a fully fledged feudal
era in Sweden's history and, for a long time now, of an influential Roman
Catholic church. All these factors, together with the importance of female
labour in agriculture and relatively late industrialisation, may have
contributed to women's comparatively high status, and to the more broadly
egalitarian assumptions and practices in society.
It seems clear that while policies in the three advanced capitalist societies
examined here share certain basic trends - the liberalisation of marriage
laws, greater legal and material support for contraception and abortion,
measures to remove direct sex discrimination in employment and pay, and
expanding educational opportunities for women - they none the less differ
strikingly both in their commitment to these objectives and in their response
to women's burdens as mothers and in the home. An interesting footnote to
this discussion is women's experience in Nazi Germany. Of course, the
German economy then may not quite qualify as 'advanced' and it was,
moreover, initially in crisis. It is still difficult to explain Nazi policies
towards women simply in terms of the functional requirements or
consequences of the economic system. Admittedly, Nazi ideologies were not
entirely consistent in their view of women and their apparent objectives
diverged considerably from their actions. Even so, their policies represented
a remarkable drive to put the clock back, as embodied in their famous
slogan of 'Kinder, Kueche, Kirche'.
While Hitler and Goebbels might argue that 'women's proper sphere is
the family' on grounds of ideology, other Nazis stressed women's
traditional role for more pragmatic reasons. Above all they wanted to
increase the output of healthy Aryan babies. Measures to achieve these ends
were enacted primarily in the mid-1930s, before re-armament and then war
created new priorities. Women were encouraged to stay at home and have
children by the marriage loan scheme, eligibility for which at first depended
on the wife giving up her job, and by increased maternity benefits. At the
same time, birth control of any kind, at least for Aryans, was prohibited.
Employment of women in the civil service and several of the elite
professions was cut back. The Nazis did not fully realise their objective of
segregated education, with a more 'feminine', less academic curriculum for
girls, but they managed to reduce the proportion of women students from
18.9 per cent in 1932 to 12.5 per cent in 1934 (Stephenson, 1975).
Policies under state socialism
If we cannot demonstrate the absence of significant variations in policies

towards women in advanced capitalist countries, can we at least discover
consistent differences between these policies and those in industrialised state
socialist countries? (By 'state socialist' I mean here those polities in which
the economy is owned and directed by the state and where official ideology
is Marxist-Leninist.) Women's experience in these countries has been the
subject of a number of recent feminist studies, most of them fairly critical.
There are several reasons why, a priori, state socialism might be expected
to be to women's advantage. First, it entails severe restrictions on private
property. One does not have to follow Engels all the way to agree that in
capitalist societies the emergence of private property was associated with a
marked deterioration iri women's status. Second, state socialism is premised
upon full employment. At the least, therefore, it offers to all women the
possibility of economic independence, and also the likelihood of some kind
of assistance with their domestic responsibilities.
The third reason is the character of the official ideology. Marxism,
however rhetorically, has always been committed to women's
emancipation, and no plausible Marxist government can renege on that
commitment, though it might argue the class struggle should have priority.
Perhaps more important is the theme of egalitarianism in the ideology, even
if in practice state socialism seems to promote new kinds of inequality.
Official ideology could be helpful also in deliberately combating
traditional religions, which have prescribed a narrowly domestic role for
women. A final reason why state socialism ought to further women's
emancipation is that it is, initially at least, revolutionary. As such, it must
transform old attitudes and practices, including that bastion of conservative
thinking, the traditional patriarchal family and the role of women within it.
Lenin remarked that 'The backwardness of women, their lack of
understanding for the revolutionary ideals of the man, decrease his joy and
determination in fighting. They are little worms which, unseen, slowly but
surely rot and corrode' (Lapidus, 1978, p. 74). Not only will the
revolutionary movement need to break down traditional family roles, it
must seek positively to recruit women, together with other groups who are
marginal in terms of power, to the pre-existing social order.
Given these auspicious features of state socialism, its record as the
midwife of women's emancipation is distinctly disappointing. The
overwhelming evidence is that public policy in state socialist societies, not
only those which are industrialised, but also China, Cuba and Vietnam, has
promoted women's legal and economic independence, together with access
to educational and employment opportunities, but only in so far as they
accord with broader national objectives. On the other hand, governments in
these countries have often appeared reluctant to concede women control
over their own fertility, and have made little serious attempt to free women
from the 'double shift', either through 'socialising' domestic labour or
through encouraging men- to share domestic roles.
Women have universally benefited from the reform of marriage laws in
state socialist societies. The most dramatic of such reforms, though they
have yet to be fully implemented, were in China. The 1950 Marriage Law, in
addition to granting wives equal legal status, specifically outlawed the
widespread practices of polygamy, concubinage, child brides and marriage
by purchase. In Russia the legal position of most wives was also
immeasurably improved. Under new marriage laws, following the October
Revolution, the wife became a separate legal person, entitled to hold lands
in her own right and no longer obliged to reside with her husband. Divorce
became much easier; indeed for a brief period following the introduction of
the 1926 Family Code, it was obtainable by postcard. The Code also
recognised unregistered marriages. In their early revolutionary fervour,

many Bolsheviks actually anticipated the withering away of the family, to
be replaced by more communal forms of cohabitation and child-rearing.
From the 1930s, official attitudes towards the family took a decidedly
conservative turn, though they subsequently relaxed somewhat from the
rigidity of the Stalinist era. The basic legal independence of wives has not
however been questioned.
On the other hand, though women's access to publicly provided birth
control has generally improved under state socialism, there remain
significant, even sinister, qualifications. Socialist leaders, firstly, have been
anxious to dissociate themselves from neo-Malthusianism, or advocacy of
birth control by the rich to restrict the reproduction of the poor. Even in
China, where a massive official family planning programme is under way,
according to Adams and Winston care has been taken to justify it as a
means of enhancing family life rather than simply limiting population
growth (Adams and Winston, 1980, p. 41). Reports in The Guardian
suggest that the Chinese leadership may now finally have abandoned such
euphemisms, however (see for instance The Guardian, 31 August 1981).
Secondly, and more seriously, labour shortages in the industrialised state
socialist economies have prompted pro-natalist policies. Abortion was
legalised in the Soviet Union only because of the medical risks of illegal
abortions. A mounting official campaign against abortion in the 1930s
culminated in the 1936 Abortion Act which banned it outright. This was
probably due not only to emerging labour shortages, but also to the
regime's new concern with sncial stability, and possibly even to Great
Russian or Slavic nationalism. Following Stalin's death, abortion was
legalised again, but Heitlinger writes that 'it is still officially disapproved
of' (Heitlinger, 1979, p. 128). Some comfort may be derived, however,
from subsequent official denials that further restrictions will be imposed
(The Guardian, 4 June 1981). On the other hand, in 1965 Romania
outlawed all abortions, and access to them has been restricted in most other
East European states. In these circumstances, it is the more chilling that
modern methods of contraception are neither widely publicised nor
supplied except, apparently, in East Germany.
The record of policies affecting women's role as mothers and
housekeepers is more mixed. Women employed outside the home have
received considerable financial and child-care assistance, but the
assumption of their responsibility for housework has largely continued.
Heitlinger states that 'compared with the Western capitalist countries, the
social provisions for maternity and child care are key areas of privilege for
women in the state socialist countries' (Heitlinger, 1979, p. 108). As in
Sweden, these are considered legitimate objects of state intervention. In the
Soviet Union, family allowances were available only to families with three
or more children, but in 1981 it was officially announced that henceforth a
lump sum would be payable on the birth of each child (The Guardian, 7
September 1981). This brings Soviet policy in line with the well-established
practice of other East European states. More important, most East
European governments stipulate maternity leave and allowances second
only in generosity to those provided in Sweden. The women of
Czechoslovakia and East Germany can claim twenty-six weeks' paid leave
and take a further three years' unpaid leave without jeopardising their
position at work. Lapidus does however point out that implementation of
these rights rests with the trade unions, which are not always co-operative
(Lapidus, 1978, p. 128).
Day-care provision for children is also, comparatively speaking,
impressive. In the Soviet Union it is now available for most parents who
need it, in urban areas, but the most extensive provision is in East Germany.
Even so, Scott noted a disquieting tendency in a number of other East
European countries, and especially in Poland, to reassess the value of
nursery care for children under three years of age and to restrict its
expansion (Scott, 1974). This was probably mainly a response to the
declining birth rate, and also to the delayed impact of Western theories of
maternal deprivation. Still, even in China, where child-care provision is far
from comprehensive and fluctuates with changes in the political climate, it
exceeds public provision in the United States.
It is in the area of housework that least has been achieved. Marx and
Engels foresaw that such work would be socialised through the creation of
communal canteens, laundries and such, though they did not consider the
danger that such amenities would be largely staffed by women. In Russia in
the 1920s, and in China, particularly during the Great Leap Forward, from
1958 to 1960, this was the official policy. In both countries it was clearly
unsuccessful and though much of the reason lies in the inadequacy of
available resources at that time, it also reflects the reluctance of the Party
leadership to accord the policy priority. More recently the tendency in the
industrialised socialist states has been to emphasise the 'family cell'. In fact,
Lapidus suggests that economic development has given rise to a home-based
'consumerism'. Not only does public policy no longer explore more
communal forms of domestic life, but this consumerism places extra
demands on women's domestic energies and skills (Lapidus, 1978). Of
communist countries, it is only Cuba whose 1974 Family Code specifically
requires the husbands of women who go out to work to share domestic
chores, and Murray suggests that this is partly because Cuba cannot yet
afford to provide the most basic socialised services (Murray, 1979). In East
Germany, however, schools and the media have begun to encourage some
role-sharing at home.
Policies towards women's income in state socialist countries probably
compare favourably with those elsewhere, though information is less
abundant. In the Soviet Union, one of the earliest measures of the
Bolshevik government was to decree equal pay for equal work, and
successive revolutionary communist governments have followed its
example. Even so, disparities continue, not only in China, where obstacles
to implementation could be expected, but in Czechoslovakia where
Heidinger reports 'Despite the equal pay legislation, income discrimination
is practised against women who perform the same type of work as men
within the same qualification and tariff categories' (Heidinger, 1979,
p. 157).
The commitment of state socialist governments to full employment has
undoubtedly helped to raise women's status. In the Soviet Union, such a
commitment was formally declared immediately following the Revolution
but only became practicable in the 1930s. Indeed the shortage of male
workers, particularly during and after the Second World War, together with
the emphasis in production on quantitative rather than qualitative growth,
made full employment a necessity. Women now constitute over 45 per cent
of the workforce in the Soviet Union, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and
Bulgaria. They are, moreover, better distributed over the range of erstwhile
'masculine' occupations than in the West: for instance, 40 per cent of Soviet
engineers are women. But they still remain heavily concentrated in the more
feminine, or at least 'feminised' sectors and, within these, in sex-segregated
occupations. Few official steps have been taken to lessen these continuing
inequalities, except in East Germany which, facing a critical shortage of
skilled labour, has recently launched a scheme to increase the skills of
selected women workers. At the same time, most state socialist governments
maintain a list of 'protected' occupations. In Czechoslovakia, Scott finds
that by the mid-1960s the 'catalogue of jobs forbidden to women (not
merely to pregnant women who are protected by a much longer list) fills
several pages, and effectively excludes women from any but office jobs in
the building, iron and steel, chemicals and mining industries' (Scott, 1974,
p. 19). Scott moreover suggests that protection clauses were initially
disregarded, but that now they are invoked, ostensibly to protect the
welfare and health of mothers and young children but also to preserve male
job monopolies.
Women, finally, have benefited enormously from the development of
unified, coeducational systems of education in state socialist countries.
Until the 1970s at least, women's educational achievement in the Soviet
Union, as in the other industrialised socialist states, was well ahead of levels
attained in most Western countries. Even so, educational policies have
continued to encourage sex-role stereotyping, through for instance the role
assumptions in children's textbooks, the differentiation of subjects taught
to boys and girls and the male-dominated hierarchy of the teaching
profession. After school, girls still opt disproportionately more for
traditionally 'feminine' subjects at university, or for technical or vocational
training. Although this is largely their own, albeit conditioned, choice, there
HowPoliticsAjjects Women 125
is also 'substantial evidence that discriminatory admission policies persist'

in certain higher education institutions (Lapidus, 1978, p. 150). In
Czechoslovakia, when quotas are set for recruitment to different training
schemes, some, for instance in the fields of mining and metallurgy, are
exclusively reserved for boys. Scott suggests that these discriminatory
policies have increased in Eastern Europe, outside East Germany, from the
late 1960s.
State socialist policies, then, have provided many of the prerequisites of
women's emancipation, and yet have backed away from emancipation
itself. Indeed most East European states official policies reveal a more
conservative conception of women's role from the 1960s. It should be noted
incidentally that this has not gone unchallenged. Newspapers and journals
increasingly include articles and letters that express the discontent of women
oppressed by the double shift and aware of its inconsistency with official
ideology. None the less, the key question remains why the record of state
socialism has not been better.
I suggest that two particular political features of state socialism, in
combination, militate against women's emancipation. They are the ideology
of Marxism-Leninism and the extreme scope and centralisation of political
power and state authority. Although Marx and Engels acknowledged the
'woman question', their references to the sexual division of labour usually if
not always suggested that it was natural, as we have seen. They believed
socialism would liberate women, by bringing them into paid employment
and socialising domestic production, but neither they nor Lenin explicitly
contemplated domestic role-sharing between the sexes. Secondly, since
Marxist-Leninists have generally assumed that socialism will bring in its
train women's emancipation, as they understand it, they have discouraged
separate organisations or campaigning for feminist objectives, either in pre-
revolutionary communist parties or in post-revolutionary socialist states.
All energies must be channelled into the class struggle. Thirdly, although
Marxism-Leninism is ultimately an egalitarian ideology, in the period of
transition to communism it has dictated the necessity of a vanguard party
and a complex array of income differentials, which have the opposite
implication. White further suggests that, as the ideology of a certain kind of
development, which emphasises science and heavy industry, it has tacitly
elevated the status of traditionally masculine occupations and depressed the
status of predominantly female spheres, such as agriculture (White, 1980).
But these ideological features are oppressive to women only because
ruling Marxist-Leninist parties, or their leaderships, have largely
undisputed say in policies that cover most aspects of social and economic
life. This is good for women when it means full employment, equal
educational opportunities or child-care provision. But when governments
fail, for instance, consciously to undermine traditional sex-roles in school
curricula, or to provide free and legal contraception and abortion, the
political mechanisms for questioning these omissions are, if not entirely

absent, restricted and capricious. Women's organisations have been
sponsored by Marxist-Leninist leaders, but only to act as 'transmission
belts' to mobilise women into required forms of political and economic
participation. Even then the life of these organisations has been hazardous;
the Soviet Zhenotdel was folded in 1930, victim of Stalin's increasing
paranoia, and China's National Women's Federation was suspended in
1966 during the Cultural Revolution.
Returning to the original inquiry, what does a comparison between these
states and Britain, the United States and Sweden reveal about the sources of
policies towards women? We have seen that the general trend of such
policies towards liberalisation of marriage, a somewhat greater sexual and
reproductive autonomy for women and enlarged educational and
employment opportunities has characterised both communist and capitalist
societies. However, Sweden's policies have arguably more in common with
Eastern Europe, particularly East Germany, than with the United States.
This suggests firstly that in all these societies policies towards women reflect
certain common pressures. Secondly, these pressures do not simply derive
from the economic system, narrowly understood, though this plays a part.
It is time to look more systematically at the possible explanations for the
way in which politics shapes women's status. Despite the extent of the
literature on policies towards women, it is generally at a low level of
theorisation. No single study explicitly seeks to answer the questions posed
in this chapter, though the analysis of Marxist feminists, and of Adams and
Winston, is particularly useful. The argument that policies pursued are
functional to the economic system has been elaborated by a number of
Marxist feminists, in the context of advanced capitalist societies. Its central
thesis is that the state pursues policies requisite to the maintenance, in the
longer term, of the economic system, though in the short term it may over-
ride particular dominant economic interests. Changes in policies towards
women reflect the changing, or emerging, imperatives of the system, not
excluding the demands of organised labour. The family, and women's
traditional role within it, has been recognised as essential for the
reproduction of the labour force, physically and ideologically, while
expanding labour requirements and the utility of women's cheap labour
have dictated the sometimes conflicting measures to facilitate women's
employment outside the home.
This argument is presented in its most reductionist form by Wilson in
Women and the Welfare State, though it remains none the less a very useful
book (Wilson, 1977). She identifies the central function of the Welfare State
as the regulation and reinforcement of family life, so as to ensure the
reproduction of labour. David's account of the evolution of educational
policy is similar: 'the family and the educational system are used in concert
to sustain and reproduce the social and economic status quo. Specifically
they maintain existing relations within the family and social relations within
the economy - what has sometimes been called the sexual and social
division of labour' (David, 1980, p. 1). Mcintosh modifies this position a
little. She suggests that in capitalist society the state does sustain a specific
form of household - 'the family household dependent largely upon a male
wage and upon female domestic servicing' - so as to ensure the social
conditions of reproduction but acknowledges that this family system has its
own history and is not entirely suited for its function within capitalism. The
state has to reinforce and sometimes even stand in lieu of the family
household because it cannot substitute a more efficient system (Mcintosh,
1978, p. 255). Other recent Marxist feminist writers qualify this further. On
the one hand authors such as Barrett explicitly recognise the independent
role, in the generation of policies towards women, of the 'sex-gender
system' (Barrett, 1980). On the other, Riley warns against the assumption
that different state institutions share common goals. For instance, in the
early post-war period, British government policy toward nursery provision
reflected the opposing objectives of the Ministries of Labour and Health
(Riley, 1979). These authors also criticise excessively functionalist or
determinist accounts of the state's impact upon women. The attacks upon
the Welfare State of Mrs Thatcher's Conservative Government have shown
that the state, and particularly its welfare branches, is not inevitably
oppressive to women but can be the site of a sex-based as well as a class
struggle, through which valuable advances are made (see Barrett, 1980,
p. 246; Riley, 1981).
Some Marxist feminists seek to combine Marxist and radical feminist
analyses. Though the insights of the radical feminists are often illuminating
and far-reaching, as far as policy-making and the state are concerned they
have tended to remain as insights with little systematic exposition. Firestone
and Millett understand politics to be centrally about patriarchy, and a
traditional means of subordinating women to male interests. Academic
adherents to this viewpoint are rare. Hanmer argues that the modern state is
based upon male violence, although this is partly mediated by ideological
and economic mechanisms (Hanmer, 1978).
Barker in her analysis of the regulations of marriage and Delazay in his
case-study of divorce rulings in France both imply, following Delphy, that
since the results coincide with the interests of husbands, these policies -
both laws and their implementation - serve to buttress the economic
exploitation of women by men in the home (Barker, 1978; Delazay, 1976).
The thesis that policies towards women reflect male interests is more than
plausible. There are none the less difficulties with it, stated so baldly.
Firstly, it is not always easy to disentangle the interests of men from those
of other dominant classes or groups. For instance, Barrett points out that
the state's apparent support, in twentieth-century Britain, for the family
system as identified by Mcintosh could be construed as being in the
interests of capital, of men, or both (Barrett, 1980, p. 242). Secondly, there

are some policies, such as the admission of women to university education,
or the encouragement of family planning, that do not appear so directly to
underpin male dominance.
The role of male interests
At this point, drawing upon both the analysis of policies towards women in
capitalist and state socialist societies that has preceded, and the perceptions
of Marxist and radical feminists, I should like to offer some preliminary
hypotheses concerning the origin of these policies. I suggest, in the first
place, that the policies reviewed over the previous pages were not all
primarily concerned to ensure male dominance; they often had other
immediate objectives. However, they reflected male dominance to the
extent that they incorporated its assumptions and did not permit any real
threat to institutionalised male supremacy in all the societies concerned.
The role of assumptions of male dominance requires little elaboration. As
we saw, such preconceptions of women's proper place and functions,
particularly their responsibility for the care of children and the home, which
is perhaps the basis for current sex inequality, were not questioned by
policy-makers until the 1970s, and then only occasionally. The protection of
male dominance is also evident in the policies we have studied. Further
illustrations from women's experience during wars and revolution make the
point even more clearly. A number of feminist accounts show how the
necessary mobilisation of women and expansion of their roles and
opportunities was always kept within safe bounds. It was regarded,
sometimes explicitly, as temporary, and withdrawn in the aftermath as soon
as it clashed with other priorities.
We saw this, earlier, for Britain during the Second World War. Skold
similarly describes how, in the shipyards of Portland, Oregon, during the
same war, women were encouraged by new government-sponsored training
and recruitment programmes, and how by 1944 they totalled 28 per cent of
the workforce. But they remained largely confined to less skilled work, in
sex-segregated occupations, and were rarely promoted to supervisory
grades. As the war ended, cancelled contracts led to extensive lay-offs,
which included most of the women workers, although surveys indicated that
the majority of them wanted to stay on. The hastily assembled creche
facilities were wound down and 'women were pushed back into "women's
work", whether in the home or in traditionally female-employing
industries' (Skold, 1981, p. 68).
Chapter 3 has already described how, during the Russian and the Chinese
communist revolutions, though women were extensively mobilised, their
access to leadership positions was limited and temporary. The post-
revolutionary policy-makers gave little priority to combating the reassertion

of patriarchal values, except when these contradicted their own policy
objectives (Salaff and Merkle, 1970). A similar story can be told of women
in the revolutions of Cuba and Vietnam. The most blatant recent example
of manipulative mobilisation must be the Iranian revolution. Women
played a prominent, some would say an essential, part in the successive
demonstrations that undermined the Shah's rule. Yet within a month of the
Revolution of February 1979, the new government suspended the Family
Protection Law, which had limited polygamy and entitled women to sue for
divorce. The ban on abortion was confirmed, coeducation was outlawed
and those women who resisted Khomeini's decree that they wear veils at
work were sacked (Tabari, 1980).
The role of state needs
If the first element of an explanation of how policy affects women is the

role of dominant male assumptions and interests, it is still insufficient on its
own. For it is clear that the effect upon women of particular policies has
often been incidental to their perceived objectives. This is, of course, in one
sense the ultimate confirmation of the male dominance thesis that women's
interests are never an end in themselves. However, it also requires us to
identify those other policy constraints or targets that have most consistently
shaped the political construction of women's options.
Here it may be useful, despite the obvious risk of over-simplification, to
distinguish between what could be called state interests, or needs that are
common from one state to another, on the one hand, and the features of
particular political systems which modify them, on the other. In the
remainder of this chapter I want to develop this suggestion.
Before doing so, it may be helpful briefly to indicate what is meant by the
state, and its relationship to politics. If politics is understood here in its
public sense, as the conscious activity through which issues perceived to be
of concern to the whole community are resolved, then the state post-dates
the emergence of politics and is not coterminous with it. Rather, a minimal
definition of the state would be a 'centralised, hierarchical organisation
which plausibly claims ultimate control over the use of force within a given
territory' and which possesses some command over resources and
administrative capacity (Whitehead, 1975, p. 1). Such a definition does not
convey the important variations between states, in their degree of
centralisation, their reliance upon force for their authority and the
resources and administrative mechanisms at their disposal. It also leaves
open for the moment the question of the relationship between the state and
classes and interests within society. What is clear is the centrality of the state
to modern politics. By now the whole world is divided into states whose
boundaries are internationally recognised. Though with obvious exceptions

and qualifications - for instance, civil wars or attacks on the public sector
by right-wing governments - there has been a tendency for state institutions
everywhere to grow in scale and the scope of their interventions and
increasingly to arrogate to themselves authoritative political decision-
making powers.
One must guard against reifying the state. However, Skocpol
convincingly argues that every viable state must have certain interests of its
own, separable from or at least not reducible to the interests of any
dominant social category (Skocpol, 1979). These interests could be defined
as arising from the requirements of its own survival on the one hand, and
from its possession of a partially autonomous institutional and resource
base on the other. This is not to say that the state exists in any Hegelian
sense as a transcendental will. But those who rise to positions of authority
within the state structure will find themselves caught up and constrained by
these state imperatives.
I suggest further that three foremost state needs are, first, the promotion
of economic prosperity or growth, which will be a source of revenue and
contribute to the second, a secure international position, and the third,
internal political order or s1.ability. These three imperatives will not receive
equal attention at any given time, nor are they always mutually compatible;
economic development, for instance, could undermine political order.
Moreover, they will not necessarily have convergent implications for
women's status. But, in the discussion so far we have repeatedly seen how
women's interests have been subordinated to one or other of them.
Some states are much stronger than others. Indeed, it is interesting
that not only have writers like Whyte associated the subordination
of women with increasing social complexity, including the emergence
of a differentiated state structure (Whyte, 1978), but that some feminists
have suggested a more direct connection between male dominance and
the rise of the state. Reiter, for instance, speculates that, while in pre-
state societies, kinship systems within which women often wielded great
power played a central role, 'With the rise of state structures, kin-based
forms of organisation were curtailed, sapped of their legitimacy and
autonomy in favour of the evolving sphere of territorial and class-specific
elites ... women were subordinated along with (and in relation to) kinship'
(Reiter, 1977, p. 9). Dobash and Dobash draw on English history to argue
that 'In order for the State to emerge as the dominant institution of power
in society, it had to displace the large feudal households as the main
political and economic institutions of society.' The state needed
simultaneously to deflect loyalties on to the Crown and the nuclear family.
But it also needed to foster, within the family, relations of authority and
deference which had earlier characterised the large feudal households and
which 'were believed to be the very patterns of mind and habit necessary to
HowPoliticsAjjects Women 131
achieve obedience and allegiance to the State' (Dobash and Dobash, 1980,
pp. 48-9).
Whether or not the state's emergence necessarily caused or reinforced
women's oppression, its growth certainly assisted it. For whereas public
policies, at state level, severely restricted women's role, in medieval and
even later times, the machinery of the state was inadequate to ensure
compliance. O'Donovan, for instance, suggests that while according to
English Common Law in the early eighteenth century women upon
marriage lost their separate legal identity, the local Borough courts were
often willing 'to indulge in legal fictions' in order to circumvent this
restriction. As the independence of local courts diminished and with the
passage of Lord Hardwicke's Act in 1753, which required the public
registration of marriages, such flexibility was no longer possible
(O'Donovan, 1979, p. 138).
Most important, the growth of the state led to the increasing salience, or
at least the more effective pursuit in public policy of the state needs I have
identified. What implications have these had for women? A proper answer
would require a full-length study. What follows is simply meant to indicate,
drawing on the earlier analysis, how one might go about finding it.
The first object of state policy, I suggested, must be economic prosperity
or, more recently, economic growth or development. The precise
requirements of the economy, or at least the way these are perceived, will
vary not only between different 'levels' and types of economic system but,
in the short term, between similar systems. Moreover, political values, and
not least assumptions about the legitimate scope of state intervention, will
influence state policies in response. The consequences for women are then
complicated and subject to variation. But we may find some indication by
looking at specific policy areas.
One major component of a modern state's economic policy is likely to be
its attitude towards employment. How does this affect women? The United
States Government has, except at times of war and during the Depression,
seen its role in ensuring a 'healthy' economy largely as the negative one of
interfering as little as possible; at most, as Adams and Winston point out,
its policies have been 'reactive', responding to rather than initiating
economic development. Accordingly, even Democratic administrations
have tolerated high levels of unemployment, with obvious consequences for
the employment of women. On the other hand, full employment may be the
'single most important policy goal that contributes to government
programmes to alleviate women's dual burden' (Adams and Winston, 1980,
p. 176), as for instance in Sweden and China. Alternatively, or
supplementing this commitment, official policy may seek to remedy a
labour shortage, as in East Germany, by policies that enable women more
easily to combine domestic responsibilities with outside work. At an
extreme, as again in East Germany and, temporarily, in Cuba, labour
shortages may even lead the political leadership to encourage domestic role-
sharing.
A policy of full employment helps women find jobs but, in the absence of
additional policies to increase the range of women's employment
opportunities, its benefits are limited. Even in communist states, concern
with maximising productivity in the short term has taken precedence over
efforts to recruit women into the most 'productive' and high status
occupations. Cost considerations have also reinforced criticisms of nursery
education in several East European states, from the late 1960s, while in
China Adams and Winston report a reluctance to spend more on nursery
provisions than working women contribute to production. That full
employment bears no necessary relationship to women's range of job
opportunities is paradoxically demonstrated by the fact that it is in the
United States that government and the law have shown the greatest
willingness to combat discrimination in employment. This can even be seen
as an extension of the laissez-faire approach to one of actively intervening
to remove market imperfections.
Differing employment policies also have implications for education and
manpower objectives. No simple relationship can be traced between
women's employment and the evolution of educational policies for women
in Britain or the United States. In state socialist societies, however, one part
of the rationale both for the expansion of women's education and for its
limitation has been their preparation for entry into the labour force.
Related to this, the absence in the United States of an effective employment
policy has compounded women's disadvantage in the competition for jobs.
In Sweden, on the other hand, publicly funded training or retraining is
available to anyone 'who is unemployed or in danger of becoming
unemployed and who cannot find a job within his or her current
qualifications' (Adams and Winston, 1980, p. 186).
A second important way that the state's economic objectives can affect
women is through their implications for population policies, which are
closely associated with employment policies, in the longer term. In the
1930s, a marked decline in the birth rate in several European countries,
including Britain, Sweden, Germany and France, raised fears that their
long-term social and economic development would suffer. Though no
major policy change resulted in Britain, these fears may have contributed to
the Government's reluctance to disseminate birth control information. In
the other three countries, material incentives to motherhood were increased.
However, while in France and Germany measures were also introduced to
discourage women from outside employment, in Sweden the Social
Democratic coalition defeated a proposal to deny such employment to
married women. Instead, impressed by the findings of Alva and Gunnar
Myrdal that women at home were no more likely to have children than those
at work, and that it was the poorest families who were having the fewest
children, it chose to include married women in its commitment to a policy

of full employment.
Again, we have seen that in several East European nations, the recent
decline in birth rate has led policy-makers not only to increase incentives for
motherhood, but to interpret protection laws more literally, to question the
value of nursery care and, most seriously, to restrict if not prohibit outright
access to birth control facilities. On the other hand, East Germany, in part
because its immediate labour shortage is so acute, has chosen to increase
nursery provision, improve women's employment opportunities and make
birth control facilities freely available. Economic development may of
course also be seen to require the limitation of population growth, as in
India, China and Japan. The implication of such a policy for women's
status is not obvious and relevant studies are scarce. Although it might be
expected to enlarge women's opportunities to pursue roles other than, or in
addition to, those of mother and housewife, it may also entail a restriction
oftheir sexual freedom, as Pharr suggested for Japan (Pharr, 1977, p. 246).
The second objective of state policy is national security. Its consequences
for women are again complex, arising in particular from its reflection in
population and defence policies. Pro-natalist policies not only reflect actual
or anticipated labour shortages but simultaneously, or exclusively, more
nationalist or imperialist preoccupations. This was demonstrated most
blatantly in Nazi Germany, but a more recent example has been the policies
of post-war France where 'It became patriotic to have large families, since
the nation needed an expanding population to regain its power in Europe
and to guard against attack from the enemy.' Family allowances (the larger
the family, the more per child), housing policies to assist young couples, the
'salaire unique' or allowance for mothers who did not go out to work and
the continuing ban on contraception and abortion, were all instrumental to
this end (Silver, 1977, p. 286).
Lapidus argues that a current concern of Soviet leadership is the effect of
a declining birth rate on the Soviet Union's international standing:
Perevedentsev's view that 'a country's position in the world, all other
things being equal, is determined by the size of the population', is
unlikely to be confined to demographers. Frequent comparisons of Soviet
population trends with those of the Uuited States, Japan and China
indicate a serious preoccupation with the strategic implications of
population dynamics and prompted one recent suggestion that the Soviet
leadership adopt as its goal the maintenance of a constant ratio between
the size of the world population and that of the USSR. (Lapidus, 1978,
p. 295.)
Besides attempting to regulate the size of the population, policies may be

aimed at raising its quality. It was recruitment for the Boer War in 1899 that
revealed to policy-makers 'the physical puniness and general ill health and
debility of the British worker'. An Interdepartmental Committee on
Physical Deterioration accordingly recommended that mothers should be
educated in child care and daughters in cookery and dietetics (Wilson, 1977,
p. 101). Nazi leaders in Germany were particularly concerned for the health
of potential mothers, a concern, suggests Rupp, that helped to reconcile
many women to the regime (Rupp, 1977). Even in the United States, well
into the twentieth century women were not only 'protected' from certain
kinds of employment, but 'exempted' from various civic duties, according
to the law courts, 'in order to preserve the strength and vigour of the race'
(Cook, 1977, p. 356).
Concern with national security also dramatically affects women through
policies designed to provide defence, particularly in wartime. Feminist
anthropologists have debated whether women's status in primitive societies
rises or falls at time of war; the fact that women take on formerly
masculine economic roles may be cancelled out by the heightened esteem
accorded the masculine martial virtues (see, for instance, Sanday, 1974).
During the two world wars the contending states were bound to mobilise
women into occupations left by men and expanding armaments production.
Even in Nazi Germany, to the Fuhrer's dismay, women had to be urged
back into industrial production and in 1943 compulsory recruitment was
introduced, albeit with only limited success. By 1945 women constituted
more than 56 per cent of the Soviet Union's industrial workforce and the
'higher educational institutions became almost entirely female' (Lapidus,
1978, p. 115). Their opportunities for taking on senior political and
economic roles also expanded enormously. Supporting communal child-
care and catering facilities, already much more generous than in Britain or
the United States, were rapidly increased. These examples, together with the
experience of women in Britain and the United States, cited earlier, suggest
that mobilisation for war demands changes in women's role that must
enhance their status and to that extent run counter to male interests. Still, I
have already emphasised the limitations to such role changes; not only is
mobilisation carefully channelled and often explicitly described as
temporary but propaganda may play upon more traditional images of
women. Shover relates how in Britain the image of 'womanhood' was
manipulated to 'sell' the First World War. Women were portrayed
simultaneously as the dependants at home in need of protection, as the
slightly provocative 'girl next door' who expected men to enlist, as the
sensual symbol of the nation, and even as the spirit of war and the symbol
of the wicked enemy. The real victims of the propaganda were men, but it
also confirmed a traditional conception of 'femininity' (Shover, 1975). In
the Soviet Union during the Second World War, the state, at the same time
as mobilising women, was pursuing policies that reinforced traditional sex
roles, including not only an end to coeducation (fortunately later revoked)
but sex segregation in concentration camps. Indeed Wilson's comment on

the impact of the Second World War in Britain seems to have more general
bearing: war 'has reinforced the conventions, while purporting to offer new
freedoms' (Wilson, 1977, p. 127).
The third imperative of the state is political order or stability. Political
stability depends partly upon coercion; in fact, one writer has argued that
even a political system reliant exclusively upon terror can be stable (Walter,
1969). Usually it additionally requires some kind of persuasion, whether
through socialisation or appeals to more rational self-interest. Of course,
both coercive and persuasive capacity in turn" depend in good measure upon
the state's ability to ensure economic prosperity and a secure international
position.
The state has customarily perceived the family as a bulwark of social and
political stability. The family has an important socialising function,
transmitting if not attitudes of positive support for the existing regime, at
least a tendency to accept authority and to adhere conservatively to the way
things are as normal. A family system also helps to ensure that children, and
to a lesser extent the sick and the old are looked after; at the same time it
engages the head(s) of the household into the existing system, so as to be
able to provide for their own.
Earlier the argument was cited that the emergence of the state required
the strengthening of the patriarchal nuclear family. It can plausibly be
argued that in Britain the framers of the Employment Protection laws
feared that women's employment in arduous work over long hours could
undermine working-class family life, and hence social stability.
Furthermore Wilson, amongst others, has drawn attention to the role of
Britain's contemporary Welfare State in shoring up the family household
system which, in so far as it assists in the ideological as well as the physical
reproduction of economic relations, is clearly a force for political stability.
Although this family system is no longer strictly patriarchal, it is still
premised upon women's main responsibility for child care and the home.
It is also noticeable that while revolutionary movements have attacked
patriarchal family systems, once in power their leaders have regularly
reasserted, as the fundamental social unit, the family based upon a
traditional division of labour. Though during the first French Revolution,
proposed family reform was mild by later standards it was still a real
advance for women. Pope describes the retrograde efforts of the framers of
the Napoleonic Civil Code to buttress 'institutions that assured the stability
of the State', including a severely patriarchal family (Pope, 1980, p. 221).
After the experimentation in the Soviet Union of the 1920s, Stalin shored up
the nuclear family, now transmogrified into the 'ideal socialist family',
arguing that instead of withering away it would strengthen with the
strengthening of socialism itself. Lapidus cites Trotsky's comment in 1936
that 'the most compelling motive of the present cult of the family is
undoubtedly the need of bureaucracy for a stable hierarchy of relations and

for the disciplining of youth by 40 million points of support for authority
and power' (Lapidus, 1978, p. 112). Even during China's first Five Year
Plan, from 1951 to 1956, the Party moderated its attack upon the
traditional family because any ensuing political instability might jeopardise
the economic programme.
I have shown some of the main ways in which policies towards women
have been shaped by these three over-riding state needs. On their own, these
needs only reveal relatively constant variables in policy towards women;
they cannot explain variation. (It is interesting to note here that Sweden,
where women's status is comparatively high, has been, at least recently,
neither militaristic nor excessively nationalistic, and with its small compact
territory and quite homogenous population faces few real problems of
political stability.) In order to explain the variations in women's experience
we have to show how these state needs are refracted through the particular
characteristics of the political system.
The most relevant of these political differences have been implicitly
identified in the preceding analysis but should briefly be mentioned here.
Foremost is the nature of dominant interests within the polity. Though I
have argued against any simple reduction of the state's motivation to the
interests of a dominant class, sex or race, it is clear that the state - or the
people who occupy its leading offices - is not impartial. In Britain, the
interests of the capitalist class have been constantly evident in policies that
affect women, as Marxist feminists have shown. For instance, it was above
all the capitalist class that feared the break-up of the working-class family in
the nineteenth century. In the 1920s the acceptability of birth control was
strengthened by eugenic arguments within which the self-interest of the
middle-class was unmistakeable. Capitalist interests were most starkly
apparent, perhaps, in the United States where they have contributed to the
state's willingness to tolerate high levels of unemployment and to its
reluctance to fund public services, both of which, we have seen, have
serious consequences for women's status.
Racial interest has also shaped policies towards women. The clearest
example has been in Nazi Germany where the Government simultaneously
urged Aryan women to breed and went to horrific lengths to prevent Jewish
women from doing so. Hecht and Yuval-Davis suggest that Talmudic law
continues to regulate marriage in Israel, although most Israelis are not
religious, because women are 'the bearers of the national collective'; the
sole criterion of being Jewish is to be born to a Jewish mother (Hecht and
Yuval-Davis, 1978). Again, despite the prevailing pronatalism in the Soviet
Union, Lapidus detects efforts to reduce fertility in the Moslem regions,
where the soaring birth rate threatens the hegemony of the Slavic groups
(Lapidus, 1978, p. 298). Organised religion can also exert enormous
influence, direct and indirect, on policies towards women. Most of the great
religions are infused with patriarchal assumptions. The political implication

for women of organised religion is most visible in the veritable theocracy
that Iran has become. But even in modern European states, such as Italy or
Ireland, the Roman Catholic Church has until very recently virtually
determined policy in such areas as marriage, contraception and abortion,
through its hold on people's minds, but also because of the catholicism of
the main political parties and the Church's network of social welfare
organisations (Porter and Venning, 1976).
The second relevant consideration is the extent to which governmental
power is centralised and political power is concentrated. In the United States
many aspects of policy affecting women, such as those concerning abortion,
rape and marriage, were for a long time left entirely to the discretion of
state legislatures, and even now show considerable variation. As we shall
see, the degree of centralisation has implications for feminist tactics. The
decentralisation of governmental authority between Congress, the Presi-
dency, the judiciary and the fifty state legislatures, together with the explicit
and legitimate competition between different interests and groups for political
influence, have provided feminists with a tremendous range of access points
and alliance strategies, but have at the same time tended to produce extremely
gradual, consensual policy changes. In Britain, where government is relatively
centralised though political power is not, there is little choice about the focus
of political pressure, though a number of strategic alliances are possible. On
the other hand, policies that emerge need not be so 'incremental'; they may
even anticipate and help to mould public opinion, as with the 1967 Abortion
Act. When, as in the Soviet Union, both government and power are highly
centralised, the disposition of those in authority becomes the more crucial.
Third, related both to the centralisation of power and to the character of
dominant interests, is the scope of government; we have seen the contrast in
this respect between Sweden and the United States. Even during economic
recessions, as Adams and Winston point out, the usual response of United
States governments has been to cut taxes, thus keeping down the level of
social expenditure. The vast scope of government in the industrialised state
socialist countries, on the other hand, means that when they do espouse
policies, such as full employment, which are beneficial to women, these can
actually be implemented.
These three political variables hardly exhaust the list of those that could
be considered relevant, but are perhaps the most significant. Chapter 6 will
further illustrate their implications for feminist stragegy and tactics. But
before concluding this discussion, it must be noted that I have deliberately
so far largely discounted the impact of feminism itself. Well before the
revival of feminism in the 1960s, the women's movement left its mark upon
policies in the fields of marriage law, birth control and women's
employment and education. In the following two chapters, the impact and
potential of feminism will be our central concern.
5
The Politics of the Women's
Movement
Any account of the relationship between women and politics, in

contemporary Western societies at least, must assign a central place to the
women's movement. Earlier chapters have touched on its implications for
women's political participation and for policies affecting women; now it
must be examined more closely. Despite the movement's value and
achievements, even because of them, this examination must be up to a point
detached, pointing out weaknesses as well as strengths, the more so as we
enter a time which is perhaps less hospitable to its aims.
For the purposes of this book, feminism was defined as broadly as
possible. Similarly the term 'women's movement', though it may imply
rather more structure and interaction, and though by definition it tends to
exclude men except as outside supporters, is understood here to cover the
full range of self-styled 'feminist' ideological positions. I have already
suggested that in the late 1960s the new radical feminists were associated
with a specific platform of 'women's liberation'. This raises the question of
the relationship between women's liberation and the women's movement.
Many commentators use both terms interchangeably to describe second
wave feminism. Radical feminists have wanted to reserve its usage only for
revolutionary feminism, since they believe that it is only through
revolutionary consciousness and activity that women can be truly liberated.
'Reformists' have challenged this monopoly. For instance Jo Freeman,
author of the best systematic history of second wave feminism in the United
States, The Politics of Women's Liberation, and a NOW (National
Organisation of Women) activist, argues that in the context of the women's
movement, a distinction between 'radical' or 'revolutionary' and
'reformist' is more difficult than usual to apply. She suggests that radical
aloofness from the system can end up in a kind of powerless introversion,
while more system-oriented and gradualistic groups may 'have a platform
that would so completely change our society, it would be unrecognisable'
(Freeman, 1975, p. 50). Accordingly, she proposes that 'women's
liberation' should be understood to include all activities that seek radically
to widen the life options open to women, in this latest phase of the women's
138
ThePoliticsofthe Women's Movement 139
movement. These definitional problems are significant but they can hardly
be settled by academic fiat. For this reason, the present chapter will not
equate women's liberation with the women's movement from the 1960s but
will recognise that its boundaries, though not its core, are a subject of
dispute.
The 'first wave' of feminism
No attempt is made here to summarise the vast literature dealing with the
women's movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Readers who are interested in this important area will find especially useful
the bibliography provided by Banks (1981). The present discussion must
confine itself to a brief historical account and examination of some of the
main generalisations made about the movement's origins, social
composition and ideology, and which are relevant to feminism today.
The first concerted political demands for women's rights were made
during the French Revolution and the first systematic feminist treatise was
Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women, published in
1792. But, in England, as early as the seventeenth century individual
middle-class women were advancing arguments, based on recognition of
women's subordination, for greater equality between the sexes (see
Mitchell, 1976).
A substantial feminist movement, however, first began in the United
States where women involved in the movement to abolish slavery, in the
1830s, drew inferences for their own situation. Three hundred women and
men attended the famous convention at Seneca Falls in 1848, at which were
adopted the far-reaching Declaration of Sentiments and twelve resolutions
including a commitment to women's suffrage. Following the American
Civil War, the political rights nominally secured for blacks were not
extended to women. As a result, feminists increasingly, though not to start
with exclusively, focused on the suffrage issue. Two main suffrage
organisations emerged: the National Woman Suffrage Association, led by
Elisabeth Stady Canton and Susan B. Anthony, which retained for some
time a broad radical analysis and programme; and the American Woman's
Suffrage Association, in which Lucy Stone was prominent, and whose
orientation was always narrower and more conservative. At the same time
'social feminism', to use O'Neill's term for women's involvement 'in
reforms or philanthropies that directly benefited women, or were of special
interest to women' (O'Neill, 1969, p. 33), grew phenomenally, though they
frequently took a socially conservative form, as in the activities of the
Women's Christian Temperance Union. By the 1880s even the NWSA was
becoming more respectable and in 1890 it merged with the AWSA to form
the National American Woman's Suffrage Association, whose focus was
almost exclusively women's suffrage. In the first two decades of the

twentieth century, more militant and less socially conservative elements
resurfaced within American feminism. Social feminists were involved in the
attempt, albeit with limited success, to unionise women workers, in the
settlement movement and in the campaign for birth control. Socialist
feminism was making its appearance amongst the radicals of Greenwich
Village and in the writings of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The suffrage
movement itself entered a more militant phase. The combination of Carrie
Chapman Catt's skilful leadership of NA WSA and the more aggressive
campaign, inspired by Britain's suffragettes, of Alice Paul's Woman's
Party eventually secured in 1920 the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment,
which entitled women to vote in national as well as state elections. But now
the majority of women activists, as well as the public at large, presumed
that the emancipation of women had been achieved, and those feminists
who wanted to use the vote to achieve further reforms could not agree on
goals or strategies. As a result, and against the background of political
repression in the 1920s, feminism subsided though it did not disappear.
In Britain, also, feminist ideas spread amongst middle-class women in the
1840s. The first recognisable woman suffrage pamphlet was in 1847 by
Anne Knight, a Quaker, and the first suffragist organisation, the Sheffield
Association for Female Suffrage, was formed in 1851. But as an organised
movement, feminism emerged in the mid-1850s, nearly a decade later than
in America. To begin with it centred on a small group of women based in
London, in Langham Place, which sought to improve married women's
legal rights, and women's employment opportunities. The suffrage question
came to the fore from the mid-1860s, and particularly following the defeat of
J. S. Mill's attempt to get women included under the provisions of the 1867
Reform Act. This led to the formation of the National Society for Women's
Suffrage. At the same time social feminism began to flourish, taking forms
similar to those in America. Temperance was rather less of a feminist issue,
however, while prostitution, through Josephine Butler's campaign against
the Contagious Diseases Acts, was more prominent. The British Women's
Trade Union League, originally founded by Emma Paterson in 1873, was
more successful than the American initiative it inspired, particularly after
1903, when Mary MacArthur took over its Secretaryship.
The suffrage movement, now under an umbrella National Union of
Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) and inclined towards the Liberal
Party, was making little headway, meanwhile. Emmeline Pankhurst, one of
its leaders, left first to join the new Independent Labour Party (ILP), and
then in 1903 to found the militant Women's Social and Political Union
(WSPU). When in 1904 Parliament talked out the Women's Suffrage Bill,
with little resistance from either the ILP or the Labour Representation
Committee, Mrs Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel withdrew from this
alliance with the Left. She launched the WSPU into its famous campaign of
The Politics of the Women's Movement 141
direct action which, by 1910, and in the face of apparent Parliamentary

stalemate, escalated into wholesale attacks on property, directed from an
underground centre in Paris. These tactics did not have the support of the
more moderate NUWSS or of Mrs Pankhurst's other daughter, Sylvia,
campaigning for suffrage amongst the working-class women of London's
East End. Feminists were further divided on whether or not to support
involvement in the First World War. Even so feminism at the end of the war
was still vigorous. As in America it was winning the vote that diffused its
energies. Since this came in two stages, with suffrage granted to women
aged 30 or over in 1918 but not to all adult women until 1928, Banks
suggests that there was more life in British feminism in the 1920s (Banks,
1981, pp. 163-4).
As this brief outline indicates, there were striking similarities and
significant differences between the American and British movements. The
American movement gathered momentum earlier and involved many more
women. O'Neill suggests that as British feminism grew more militant,
American feminism became less so, apart from its brief reinvigoration in
the first decades of the twentieth century (O'Neill, 1969, p. 81). Banks,
moreover, argues that 'equal rights' feminism was always stronger in
Britain than in the United States, while socialist feminism played little part
at all in the American movement.
A number of observations have been made about this first wave of
feminism which are of relevance and interest to feminism today. First, there
is widespread agreement that it arose from the conjunction of changes in
women's social position, associated with the rise of industrial capitalism,
with new ideologies of equality. The main catalyst for feminism was, in
Goode's words, 'the gradual, logical, philosophical extension to women of
originally Protestant notions about the rights and responsibilities of the
individual' (Goode, 1963, p. 56). Out of seventeenth-century liberal
protestantism developed the influential doctrine of the 'natural' equality of
men, which however excluded women. The contradiction is exemplified in
the thinking of John Locke. As Brennan and Pateman point out, the
equality in nature that Locke supposed men to share was by implication
abstract and moral, since he acknowledged differences in physical and
mental endowment. Yet he presumed that, even in 'nature', women were
unequal, because of their physical and mental differences (Brennan and
Pateman, 1979). However, several of the 'philosophes' of the French
Enlightenment, for instance Diderot and Condorcet, were more logically
consistent and sympathetic with women's rights. Feminist thinkers were
also influenced by the practical realisation of radical natural rights doctrine
in the American and French Revolutions. Indeed, Mary Wollstonecraft's
book was published during the French Revolution, while the Seneca Falls
Declaration was directly inspired by the American Declaration of
Independence (Banks, 1981, pp. 28-9).
Banks suggests that a subsidiary ideological influence, at least in the

United States, was the evangelical movement of the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries. Great numbers of women undertook
proselytising and good works. In particular the campaigns to convert
prostitutes and promote temperance, as early as the 1830s and 1840s, were
perceptibly acquiring feminist overtones, as they attacked the sexual double
standard and condemned male drunkenness.
The emergence of liberalism can itself hardly be divorced from the early
development of capitalist relations. But, most importantly, the readiness of
some women to apply equal rights doctrines to themselves stemmed from
the impact of industrial capitalism upon their role and status.
Industrialisation, firstly, removed many traditionally female functions
from the home. Potentially this freed married middle-class women at least
from many former domestic responsibilities and undermined the logic of
their confinement to an increasingly narrow domestic sphere. But their
husbands' conspicuous display of the new wealth entailed the idealisation of
the unproductive, passive Victorian female. In the meantime, reduced
production in the domestic sphere, and the resulting increased reliance on
money to acquire the necessities of life, forced large numbers of single,
middle-class women to seek employment in one of the narrow range of
socially acceptable occupations available, often in unpleasant and
humiliating conditions. Most oppressed, of course, were working-class
women who, despite the opposition of working-class men and the pious
regrets of Victorian reformers, were increasingly obliged to labour in
factories and domestic service; simply as women they suffered lower wages
and other forms of discrimination, while as housewives they endured the
additional burden of the double shift.
One consequence of these social changes, emphasised by Linda Gordon,
was the declining birth rate. Although some have attributed the decline to
feminism itself, it was already apparent in the early nineteenth century and
probably reflected both diminishing infant mortality and the fact that for
non-agricultural families large numbers of children were no longer
'economic' (Gordon, 1977). The implications of this trend for feminism are
much disputed, but it seems probable that it played a contributory role.
The origins of feminism in the nineteenth century help to explain its
second much-remarked feature. Commentators agree that although,
particularly in England, working-class women often lent their active
support, it was educated middle-class and upper-class women who first
launched and subsequently dominated the women's movement. They were
the women most acutely conscious of 'the gap between women's narrowed
sphere and men's expanding one' (O'Neill, 1969, p. 17). They had the most
time and frustrated energies to commit.
Though it is sometimes implied that these early feminists focused on
women's rights, above all suffrage, to the exclusion of other concerns it is
usually recognised that nineteenth-century feminism comprised a

considerable range of activities and perspectives. O'Neill's principal
distinction is between women's rights and social feminism, as he defines it.
Perhaps more usefully, Banks identifies three main strands. The first, equal
rights feminism, she depicts as the direct product of the Enlightenment.
Strong in both countries, but especially in England, it minimised the
intrinsic differences between the sexes, and sought sexual equality in such
contexts as marriage law, education, employment and the vote. The second
element was evangelical feminism which, as we have seen, developed out of
the evangelical movement. Rather than seeking to improve their own
position, its adherents sought to protect and morally reform those less
fortunate than themselves: working-class or 'fallen' women, children, the
poor. They came in time to emphasise women's moral superiority but based
on their traditional role as mothers and housewives. To this extent
evangelical feminists espoused a socially conservative philosophy. Socialist
feminism, the third strand, featured little in the United States and even in
Britain was less influential than equal rights or evangelical feminism.
However, drawing on several, though not all, of the early socialists - Saint-
Simon and Fourier, Thompson and Owen- as well as on Marx and Engels
themselves, it was the most whole-heartedly feminist of the three traditions.
It questioned current forms of marriage and the family, and advocated
collectivisation of child care and housework.
There were two further noteworthy corollaries of this diversity. One is
that these early feminists between them covered much of the theoretical
ground to be traced subsequently by the women's movement of the 1960s
(see, for instance, Sabrowsky, 1979). While mainstream feminism was more
circumspect, individual feminists variously asserted such currently familiar
claims as the equality of the sexes, the moral superiority of women, the need
for separate women-only feminist organisations, the previous existence of a
matriarchy, the comparability of women's sex drive with men's, and
women's need both to be economically independent and to avoid the trap of
marriage and children. On the other hand, it is argued that the first wave
feminists did not really question the sexual division of labour within the
home (even socialist feminists assumed women would undertake 'collective'
child care and catering). Nor did they adequately face up to female
sexuality; for instance, they advocated self-control rather than
contraception, at least until the 1910s.
This diversity also threatened disunity. It is frequently suggested that the
cause of suffrage imposed a spurious unity on what was not one but in
reality several women's movements. Not only were there divisions latent
between equal rights, evangelical and socialist feminism, but within these
strands there were further differences of interest as well as of tactics. For
instance, in the United States Elisabeth Stady Canton wanted to restrict the
vote to educated women, and by the 1890s many suffragists were even
arguing that white women should be enfranchised so as to maintain white

supremacy (Banks, 1981, p. 141). In Britain the suffrage movement split in
1889 on the question of 'coverture', on whether the vote should be claimed
simply for single and widowed women, or also for married women who
were, according to legal fiction, represented by their husbands (Morgan,
1975, p. 16). Banks describes the apparent lull in feminism from the 1920s,
with the achievement of woman suffrage, as 'a splitting into its constituent
parts' (Banks, 1981, p. 150).
First wave feminism was important for the second wave, both for what it
bequeathed by way of achievement and example and as a source of lessons
for the future. Its achievements were considerable. Although with hindsight
it is easy to see that feminists expected too much from woman suffrage,
winning the vote was not a purely symbolic victory. At the least if it had not
been won then it would have remained as a hurdle to be cleared in the
future. But feminism achieved much more than the vote; its pressures
contributed to the expansion of educational opportunities for women in
Britain, to enhanced rights for married women and unmarried mothers, as
well as to improved maternity and child welfare provision in both countries.
Perhaps most important of all it went some way towards establishing the
legitimacy of women's claim to equal treatment. Henceforth the
battleground would be less that claim's validity than its implications.
The second obvious legacy was its example. Its inspiration to feminism
today is. clear and acknowledged in the American literature, though, as
Wilson points out, English feminists have been slower to rediscover their
historical roots (Wilson, 1980, pp. 197-8).
Finally, this phase of feminism provided a number of valuable lessons. It
warned against the temptation to counter the centrifugal pressures of such a
diverse movement by concentrating on a single concrete goal like suffrage -
today's equivalent might be the Equal Rights Amendment. At the same time
it showed that in the bid to broaden its appeal and maximise tactical
openings, feminism could become so respectable or instrumental as to lose
its radical apprehension of future possibilities. This was true, in their
different ways, of each of the three traditions identified by Banks.
Evangelical feminism idealised women's traditional maternal qualities,
equal rights feminism pursued rights that in practice only middle-class
women could enjoy, while socialist feminists relied upon the achievement of
socialism to end women's oppression. Though there are always limits to
what history can teach, and the context of feminism has changed almost
beyond recognition, these lessons retain their relevance.
The origins of contemporary feminism
Following this first phase, feminism was never fully extinguished. Its
present revival has stimulated new interest and research concerning the
intervening years. As a result, the picture now appears both clearer and
more complex.
As already noted, during the 1920s the development of American and
British feminism diverged. Following the achievement of suffrage in the
United States, it was primarily the Woman's Party, with moreover a
declining membership, which pursued equal rights and specifically an Equal
Rights Amendment. The larger NAWSA, which became the League of
Women Voters, concentrated on women's civil education, and through the
Joint Congressional Committee worked for welfare legislation, especially in
the field of maternity and infant care. By the mid-1920s, the surviving
movement was rent by the issue of protective legislation, which 'welfare'
feminists believed to be essential to women's interests and threatened by the
Equal Rights Amendment proposal.
In Britain, the WSPU rapidly disintegrated after 1919. But the NUWSS,
now renamed the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizens, continued
to press for equal rights. The drive to extend the vote to women under 30
was central to this activity but, with considerable Labour Party support,
feminists also secured a significant extension of women's rights. For
instance, women obtained equal rights to divorce and custody of children.
Though feminists also pursued welfare goals, these were not initially seen to
clash with equal rights. Only at the end of the decade did the movement
split, as in the United States, on the issue of protective legislation.
By the 1930s, in both countries, more militant and equal rights feminism
was in abeyance. In its place prevailed what Banks dubs 'welfare feminism'
and Wilson 'reasonable feminism'. In the tradition of evangelical feminism,
this emphasised women's maternal role and the contribution this enabled
them to make to social welfare. During the Depression it supported policies
to alleviate poverty, as in the New Deal. Particularly in the United States,
feminists were also drawn into the peace movement. Though this brand of
feminism played a further limited role, in the 1920s and 1930s, in the birth
control movement, birth control was itself becoming an increasingly
respectable and non-feminist issue.
Following the Second World War, Wilson argues that in Britain most
feminists came to believe that a new society, in which the equality of the
sexes was institutionalised, had arrived. Moreover they accepted that in
building this society women were naturally fitted for the primary child-
rearing and homemaking responsibilities, albeit in the context of a marriage
now conceived of as a 'partnership'. Women should work outside the home
only before and after that part of their lives demanding full-time
commitment to the needs of their young children (Wilson, 1980). In the
United States too, the widespread assumption was that women already
enjoyed equal rights. Strident feminism was effectively ridiculed, as a new
and oppressive 'feminine mystique' held sway (Friedan, 1963). With the
exception of organisations like the National Woman's Party in the United

States and the 6-Point Group and the more militant Women's Freedom
League in Britain, which persisted into the 1960s, less respectable forms of
feminism 'led an underground or Sleeping Beauty existence in a society
which claimed to have wiped out oppression' (Wilson, 1980, p. 187).
How then do we explain the resurgence of militant feminism in the 1960s?
Feminist authors give this question perhaps less attention than it deserves,
in view of its obvious implications for the movement's future. As far as they
do discuss it, they are generally agreed which factors are most relevant, even
if they differ in their emphasis. It is useful here to distinguish three levels of
causality. First are those aspects of women's situation that predisposed
them to recognise their own oppression. Second are those factors
facilitating the revival of feminism, both ideological developments that
helped to legitimise it and the existence of social and organisational
networks that it could 'co-opt'. Finally are the specific events that triggered
the revival.
Most accounts suggest that in the 1950s the contradictions in women's
actual role and in normative conceptions of that role multiplied and
intensified. On the one hand was the inherited belief that women had
achieved equality; at the same time, in Britain, this was translated under the
aegis of the Welfare State, into equality but difference, while in the United
States the 'feminine mystique' told women that their self-fulfilment lay in
the realisation of what made them different, their femininity. But this
normative emphasis upon women's domestic role was in turn contradicted
by the increased production of labour-saving domestic devices and more
crucially by the availability of reliable and relatively untroublesome means
of contraception, which allowed women both to limit and to space their
families. It was further contradicted by the increasing numbers of women,
and especially married women, drawn into outside employment by the
manpower shortage, and incidentally discovering that equality did not mean
equal pay or job opportunities.
Women, then, whether at home or in outside employment, experienced
acute contradictions. In many respects these echoed the circumstances
surrounding the emergence of feminism in the nineteenth century. They can
similarly be sited in the social consequences of industrial capitalism, though
its imperatives operated rather differently. The really new ingredient was
the breakthrough in contraceptive technology. Indeed Firestone sees this
latest wave of feminism as 'the inevitable female response to the
development of a technology capable of freeing women from the tyranny of
their sexual reproductive roles' (Firestone, 1970, p. 37). It certainly
accounts for many of the most radical theoretical departures, including her
own. But though these new forms of contraception were potentially
liberating for women, they also, with the advent of permissiveness in the
late 1950s, left women perilously open to male manipulation. Midge Deeter
is an anti-feminist writer, advocating a traditionally confined, home-

centred role for women, but there is more than a little insight in her
diagnosis of women's liberation as a 'new chastity' or 'a cry for the right of
women to step back, retire, from a disagreeable involvement in, and
responsibility for, the terms of sexual equality with men' (Deeter, 1973,
p. 95). She is unsympathetic, of course, because she does not recognise the
extent to which women's sexual 'liberation' was into a sexuality defined and
determined by the needs of men.
Though countless women experienced these role-strains, Freeman argues
they were most acute for middle-class, highly educated women whose sense
of relative deprivation vis-a-vis their male peers was greatest. In the early
post-war years women's academic achievement in the United States had
plummeted, until in 1950 they only accounted for 24 per cent of bachelor
and first professional degrees; in the 1960s it picked up again and in 1968
their share was 43.5 per cent. No such dramatic increase in the proportion
of first degrees going to women occurred in Britain, where in 1970 women
accounted for only 30 per cent of undergraduates, but their absolute
numbers still grew with the expansion of higher education in the 1960s. The
numbers of highly educated women in both countries were significantly up
by the late 1960s.
Rossi further suggests that unattached women play a central role in a
women's rights movement, because of their relative independence from men
and because the supposed advantages of women's traditional role have least
relevance for them. Writing in 1971, she points out that 'Since 1960, the age
at marriage has moved up, the birth rate is down to what it was in the late
1930s, the divorce rate is up among couples married a long time' (Rossi,
1971, p. 66). Whether we follow Rossi or Freeman, the implication is that
by the 1960s that sector of womankind most predisposed to recognise its
own oppression was expanding.
But the breakthrough to militant feminist consciousness required, as in
the nineteenth century, an ideological catalyst. The 1950s accent upon
hedonistic consumption paved the way, by encouraging women to demand
pleasure and sexual fulfilment for themselves. It was, though, the critique
of this short-lived 'never had it so good society', provided by the New Left,
together with specific arguments for black liberation in the American Civil
Rights campaign, that gave feminism its new voice. The New Left argued
that behind formal political equality and material affluence lay the
concentration of political power, economic inequality and alienation. Most
relevantly for women, the New Left demanded the 'liberation' of the
human personality, through social and political action, as expressed in the
slogan 'the personal is political'. This contrasted with the belief, prevalent
in the 1950s, that individual problems required individual, even
psychotherapeutic, solutions. Finally, those young women actively involved
in Civil Rights could hardly fail to recognise, as in the 1840s, the parallel
between the plight of blacks and their own experience: 'Women are the
niggers of the world.'
There remained two further conditions, the existence of social networks
that feminism could co-opt and specific triggering events. These are best
discussed in the context of an outline of the development of second wave
feminism. Given that accounts of this development are strongly coloured by
their author's experience and ideology, it is scarcely possible to present an
'objective' version. But I shall indicate the main sources consulted, and in a
later section return to the question of how such 'facts' are to be interpreted.
Women's liberation in the United States
It is widely agreed that second wave feminism in the United States

consisted, at its inception, not of one movement but of two, each with its
own distinct origins. The first, chronologically, was the 'Older Branch',
whose founders were also, typically, older than those of the later move-
ment. Banks emphasises the continuity of this branch with the tradition
of equal rights feminism, kept alive by a few gallant women's organisations
and especially by the National Woman's Party. Freeman identifies
two key events which both triggered the formation of this branch and
provided it with a co-optable network. In 1961, on the suggestion of Esther
Petersen, Director of the Women's Bureau, a governmental agency
established in 1920 and imbued with 'welfare feminism', President Kennedy
instituted a Commission on the Status of Women. This body produced a
report, American Women, which, together with subsequent publications,
documented the extensive remaining inequalities in women's status and
opportunities, and prompted the formation of similar commissions in each
of the fifty states. The work of these commissions 'brought together many
knowledgeable, politically active women who otherwise would not have
worked together around matters of direct concern to women' and 'created a
climate of expectations that something would be done' (Freeman, 1975,
p. 52). Then, in 1964, the criterion of sex was added to Title 7 of the new Civil
Rights Act, which prohibited discrimination in employment. (Its inclu5ion
had been proposed by Representative Smith with the object of persuading
the House to drop Title 7 altogether, but his attempt backfired.) To
administer the Act, an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was
established. Because its leadership appeared at first reluctant to tackle sex
discrimination, feminists within the Commission privately encouraged the
formation of a women's lobby outside to pressurise it.
A further stimulus was the publication, in 1963, of Betty Friedan's The
Feminine Mystique. Together these events triggered the creation of NOW
(National Organisation of Women) in 1966, which has ever since played a
central role in the women's liberation movement. Under its first President,
Friedan, NOW adopted a conventional pattern of organisation, with formal

rules and a hierarchy of offices, and it concentrated its energies on lobbying
government. Though primarily oriented towards equal rights, its platform
however has always included more 'radical' elements, reflecting in
particular its changing relationship with the women's movement as a whole.
Thus the Bill of Rights adopted at its 1967 Conference demanded not only
measures to increase equal employment opportunities but also, more
contentious at the time, the legalisation of abortion. The abortion issue
eventually led to the withdrawal of NOW's most conservative members,
who formed, in 1968, the Women's Equality Action League, which
concentrates on legal and economic aspects of equality of opportunity. At
the same time a group of lawyers pulled out to found Human Rights for
Women, whose rationale is the assistance of sex discrimination cases.
Meanwhile, from NOW's other flank a number of 'radicals', reacting
against what they perceived as its excessively centralised and elitist
organisation, fed into the movement's emerging 'Younger Branch'.
Despite these secessions, both the membership and the central offices and
staff of NOW continued to expand. By 1973 it had 500 local chapters and a
claimed membership of 50,000, though links between the organisation's
centre and the local units, even with the establishment of rudimentary
regional-level structures, were and have remained poor and conflict-prone.
In 1972 NOW launched its own highly influential journal, Ms, under the
editorship of Gloria Stiehm. All the while, NOW's platform grew more
radical, partly in response to the pressures of the younger branch, so that
for instance by 1973 it was supporting the decriminalisation of prostitution
and the rights of lesbians.
The other important initiative within this older branch was the
formation, in 1971, of the National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC). As
we have seen, its primary objective is to promote women's participation in
national and state-level political institutions, but it also lobbies for federal
action on the status of women.
Before further tracing the evolution of the older branch, we must turn to
its younger sister, born in rather different immediate circumstances. The
trigger to its formation was young women's experience within the Civil
Rights and New Left movements. As already noted, these movements
provided both a legitimisation and a parallel for women's aspiration to
meaningful equality. More concretely, Evans describes how the young
women who joined them, often at considerable personal sacrifice, acquired
a degree of influence and the 'social space' to realise new possibilities of
self-development, but at the same time came up against the barriers posed
by their male colleagues' chauvinism, most famously expressed in Stokely
Carmichael's sneer, 'The only position for women in SNCC is prone'. In
the face of this 'threatened loss of new possibility' two women in the
Southern-based Civil Rights campaign issued a pamphlet in 1965, Sex and
Caste: a Kind of Memo, in which they likened the oppression of blacks to

their own, though without suggesting anything could be done about it. They
helped to articulate and focus a growing awareness amongst radical women.
When, at the 1967 National Conference for the New Politics in Chicago,
women's issues were ruled out of the agenda, a number of outraged women
decided to form their own group and circulated an address 'To Women of
the Left'. By the end of the same year, such women's groups were
mushrooming, based on the co-optable social network of women's contacts
within the Civil Rights and New Left movements. By the end of 1968, they
could be found in most major cities (Evans, 1979).
Reflecting its different origins, the younger branch was simultaneously
more 'radical' and less organised than its sister. Forcefully, if unsubtly, its
founding groups like New York Radical Women, and its offshoot,
Redstockings, argued that sexual oppression constituted the fundamental
hierarchy, which could only be overthrown by a feminist revolution.
Though, to begin with, some members were reluctant to make a complete
break with groups in the New Left, for which they were dubbed 'politicos',
the main thrust of this analysis, reinforced by the example of black power,
was to complete organisational separateness from men. It also fuelled a
revulsion against male-dominated conventional politics and, within the
younger branch itself, against 'masculine' organisation and hierarchy.
Finally, it assumed a central role for consciousness-raising, through which
women could relate their personal experiences to universal sexual
oppression and, by learning together, acquire a revolutionary solidarity or
sisterhood. While at the outset the impetus in terms of ideas, example
and actual advice originated with groups in Chicago and New York, this
branch was extremely decentralised, fragmented and fluid. Such formal co-
ordination as there was came from the national conferences held
periodically from 1969, and from the branch's numerous journals,
newsletters and other publications.
The younger branch initially resisted the label, pinned on it by the media,
of women's liberation but soon came to claim exclusive right to it. Yet
almost immediately, according to the radical feminist authors of Feminist
Revolution (Redstockings, 1978) and to Bouchier, a process of
'deradicalisation' began (Bouchier, 1979). For reasons to be discussed later,
consciousness-raising had by the early 1970s lost its central place in the
groups' activities. As a result, some groups simply dissolved, but
increasingly others turned their energies to local and specialised feminist
projects. Freeman cites, for instance, a survey in the spring of 1973 which
'found roughly: 163 publications; 18 pamphlet publishers and/or printing
co-ops; 23 rape squads; 5 film co-ops; 116 women's centres; 35 health clinics
or projects; 6legal services; 6 feminist theatre groups; 12liberation schools;
18 employment services; 12 book stores - and 3 craft stores' (Freeman,
1975, p. 119n). Its critics charged that this changed emphasis often took the
form of 'cultural feminism', defined by Brooke as 'the belief that women

will be freed by an alternative women's culture'. Women's centres in
particular acquired primarily a social function, encouraging friendship
between women rather than outward-directed politics (Brooke, 1978).
A second change, described by Bouchier, was the increasing moderation
of the branch's key publications. Thus the first two volumes of the Annual
Notes were edited by Shulamith Firestone and were correspondingly
radical, but in 1970, under her successor Anne Koedt, many of the most
militant pieces were edited out. Thirdly, this branch was weakened by
continuous conflicts both internal and with extraneous political tendencies.
From 1970 to 1972 it resisted, in the main successfully, the attempt by the
Young Socialist Alliance, offspring of the Socialist Workers' Party (no
relation of its British homonym), to take over a number of women's
liberation groups. It also had to contend with the vanguardist claims of the
newly emergent tendency of political lesbianism. These claims probably
accelerated in turn the articulation of a distinct socialist feminist position by
the mid-1970s, many of whose adherents were former politicos. By 1975,
the younger branch, internally weakened, milder in tone and increasingly
overlapping in membership and activities with the older branch, was losing
much of its distinctive character.
The extent to which the two branches have subsequently merged is none
the less a matter of dispute. Writing in 1975, Freeman cites the increasing
youth of NOW's membership, the radicalisation of its programme and the
growing tendency for members of younger branch groups simultaneously to
join NOW for more 'pragmatic' activities, as evidence that NOW has
become 'very much an umbrella group for all kinds of feminists' (Freeman,
1975, p. 93). Similarly it could be argued that the campaign to promote state
ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (discussed more fully in
Chapter 6) which really got under way in 1974, and now draws in the whole
range of feminist groups and individuals, has helped to blur the differences
between radicals and reformists. On the other hand, there are signs of a
revival of distinctively radical feminism; it is apparent in publications like
Feminist Revolution and in the new militant campaigns against physical
violence to women. There was evidence, too, of the continuing diversity of
ideological positions within the movement at its National Conference at
Houston in 1977, which was variously seen by commentators as a disaster or
as the manifestation of robust political health. What seems to have
happened then is not so much the merger, under the auspices of NOW, of
the two former branches, as simply the shift of NOW to a more central
position in the ideological spectrum, within a movement that remains a
bewildering flux of ideological tendencies, social types and activities but
includes a continuing opposition between reformist and anti-system
orientations. NOW and the ERA campaigns can, at times and for specific
purposes, bridge these divisions but they are also shaped and limited by them.
Women's liberation in Britain
Currell's assertion that the genesis of the British women's liberation

movement 'may be traced to the US' needs considerable qualification
(Curren, 1974, p. 114). Feminism had deep roots in Britain, and never really
died, any more than in the United States. Women in post-war Britain
experienced, like American women, a malaise which surfaced, for instance,
in the formation in 1962 of the National Housewives Register to relieve the
isolation of young housebound married women. In the 1960s, many
younger women, especially students, were involved in radical politics, first
the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, later in New Left student politics,
the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, and the revitalised Marxist parties. In all
these arenas, like their American sisters, they discovered both new political
aptitudes and male resistance to their exercises. It was, in fact, the Women's
Peace Groups who organised the commemoration of 50 years of women's
suffrage, in 1968, which Wilson identifies as 'some sort of catalyst' to the
emergence of women's liberation in Britain (Wilson, 1980, p. 184).
A second important indigenous forerunner of women's liberation, and
this time without an obvious American counterpart, was the increasing
militancy of working-class women. In 1968, Mrs Bilocca led a campaign in
Hull for higher safety standards for trawlermen; the hostile response it met
with prompted the formation of an Equal Rights Group in Hull. At the
same time Rose Boland organised a strike of women machinists at the Ford
works in Dagenham which triggered a spate of female industrial militancy
and the creation, in 1969, of the National Joint Action Committee for
Women's Equal Rights, a significant symbol, if short-lived. It drew the
attention of Marxist groups, like the International Marxist Group (IMG),
ever vigilant for ways of mobilising the working-class.
The decisive trigger was the example and arguments of the revived
women's movement, not only in the United States but in West Germany,
which reached Britain in the latter part of 1968. Rowbotham, amongst
others, has described how when women's liberation 'burst' upon her, it
suddenly made sense of the inchoate resentments and frustrations building
up in her as an International Socialist (IS) activist. Women from IMG, IS
and other socialist groups established socialist women's groups from the
beginning of 1969 and produced their own newspaper, Socialist Women.
The first women's liberation groups were formed, in the same year, in the
London area, by women from a range of backgrounds including Marxist
groups, the American Movement itself and the Vietnam Solidarity
Campaign. These formed the basis for an overarching London Women's
Liberation Workshop, co-ordinating, at its peak, some seventy local
groups, and with its own journal, Shrew. However, the establishment of a
national women's liberation movement is conventionally dated from the
first national conference, held in Oxford, in February 1970. This adopted a
programme of four demands: equal pay, twenty-four-hour nurseries, free

contraception and abortion on demand (Rowbotham, 1972).
If second wave feminism arose rather differently in Britain, than in the
United States, its subsequent development has likewise diverged
considerably. Perhaps the principal differences have been the absence of
any organisational equivalent to NOW and the much greater influence of
Marxist feminism. As in the United States, women's liberation groups, once
seeded, grew with amazing rapidity. It has been suggested that local groups
placed rather less emphasis than in America on consciousness-raising and
moved more immediately into specific feminist projects (ibid., p. 97). These
covered a range of activities comparable to those cited for the United States.
Indeed the provision of refuges for 'battered wives' was a British initiative
which American women only took up in the latter part of the 1970s. But,
like the younger branch of the American movement, the British groups
lacked a continuous co-ordinating mechanism, other than annual
conferences and publications, particularly Spare Rib, launched in 1972.
Even the London Workshop had folded by 1973. At the 1975 Conference at
Manchester, it was agreed to delegate to a committee, between conferences,
responsibility for planning the next conference. This committee, known as
WIRES (Women's Information, Referral and Enquiry Service), was,
however, instantly suspected of 'power-grabbing' intentions and its terms
of reference have been severely circumscribed (Spare Rib, May 1978).
Despite the absence of a national co-ordinating body, two relatively
successful campaigns were nationally co-ordinated. The proliferating local
women's refuges formed the basis, in 1975, for a National Women's Aid
Federation which provides some limited co-ordination for the member
groups and acts as an effective lobby on government. Also set up in 1975
was the National Abortion Campaign (NAC), which has certainly
contributed to the continuing successful defence of the liberalising 1967
Abortion Act.
As in the United States, the movement has been conflict-prone.
Disagreement centred first on the role of political lesbianism. This reached a
head at the 1974 Conference, when it was proposed that the movement
adopt as its sixth demand (the fifth was for legal and financial
independence) an end to discrimination against lesbianism. The proposal
was finally accepted. The second, more fundamental conflict has been
between radical feminists and socialist feminists. As we have seen, socialist,
and specifically Marxist, feminists were almost the 'midwives' of British
women's liberation and, more even than the American politicos, they have
since sought to bridge the theoretical and practical gap between Marxism
and feminism.
Marxist feminists, as feminists, have been involved in consciousness-
raising and the whole range of feminist projects. For instance, they have
been very active in the NAC. At the same time they have been deeply
concerned, in theoretical writings and study groups, to 'marry' Marxism

and feminism. They have also made more sustained efforts to reach
working-class women, than the other feminist tendencies. One vehicle for
these efforts was the Working Women's Charter. Drawn up in 1974 by a
sub-committee of the London Trades Council, the Charter, though
moderate by radical feminist standards, incorporated many feminist
demands and was designed as a minimum programme to be put to trade
unions. Marxist feminists played a leading role in setting up a number of
local Working Women's Charter groups to discuss the proposals and get
local unions to adopt them. Even so, these groups were not entirely
successful in reaching and involving women manual workers and, as the
original demands were taken up by the TUC, the groups faded out
(Lawrence, 1977).
The conflict between radical and socialist feminists first surfaced at the
1973 Conference. Subsequently, militant radical feminists came to call
themselves 'revolutionary feminists', following the circulation in 1977 of
Sheila Jeffrey's paper 'The Need for Revolutionary Feminism'. They
insisted on total separation from men and women's organisations, at the
same time distinguishing their position from that of the women they called
'cultural' feminists (Coote and Campbell, 1982). It was these revolutionary
feminists who came into collision with socialist feminists at the 1978
Conference in Birmingham. They proposed that all the six existing
movement demands be scrapped and replaced by a seventh against violence
to women. A bitter dispute ensued and no national movement-wide
conference has been held since. Instead there have been a number of
regional conferences, together with conferences not only for revolutionary
feminists or for socialist feminists, but for a wide range of feminist
groupings or tendencies, such as Anarchist Feminists, Black Women and
Young Women.
The movement elsewhere
Though this chapter concentrates on feminism in the United States and

Britain, something must be said about the movement elsewhere, both to
demonstrate its international spread and to suggest some interesting points
of variation. From the middle of the nineteenth century, feminist
organisations could be found in such diverse locales as Scandinavia, France,
Germany and even China, though they were primarily characteristic of
developing Western societies. The second wave of feminism has extended
even further. In the 1970s new feminist groupings emerged in most West
European democracies, including France, West Germany, Italy, Holland
and the Scandinavian countries, as well as in the old Commonwealth
nations of Australia and Canada. By the end of the 1970s, feminist activities
were also reported in Greece, Spain and India. Pharr doubts whether
developments in Japan could yet be said to amount to a women's liberation
movement (Pharr, 1977, p. 48). As we have seen, prospects for such a
movement remain severely limited in state socialist polities. In Latin
America, Chaney concludes not only that there is little sign of new feminist
organisation but also that 'it is unlikely to emerge in the near future'
(Chaney, 1979, p. 76). None the less Spare Rib regularly reports specific
feminist campaigns, especially in such countries as Mexico, Brazil and Peru.
The development of second wave feminism in West Germany presents
both similarities and contrasts with the British and American experience. A
relatively strong feminist tradition, going back into the nineteenth century,
was obliterated by Nazism and its sequel. The post-war generation of
women in the Federal Republic were peculiarly apolitical until the 1960s.
The new feminism evolved directly out of the student movement, at the end
of that decade, although it is conventionally dated from the campaign to
liberalise abortion, founded in 1970. From the outset it was dominated by
the radical feminist tendency, and sought to distinguish itself from both the
Marxist and New Left groups that spawned it and from the few isolated
'reformist' feminists. This entailed mistrust of conventional politics, the
proliferation of feminist projects - though Schlaeger suggests that
initiatives for self-help, reflecting perhaps German political culture, have
been relatively weak - and an emphasis on issues like abortion that concern
women's control of their own bodies. Given the premium on consensus and
respectability in German politics and the media, it also meant that the
movement's direct influence was limited. This situation has not
dramatically changed. Movement membership has remained relatively small
and fragmented, its achievements modest. Even the adoption of a more
liberal abortion law in 1972 was qualified by the Federal Court's addition of
four conscience clauses. All in all, Schlaeger concludes that the movement
has not been a force to be reckoned with in German politics (Schlaeger,
1978). At the same time it has clearly contributed to a gradual but
significant change in women's attitudes and expectations. Hall suggests that
the main political parties have begun to respond to these changes in their
recruitment to party office and in their policies. Such a development may be
hastened by the formation in October 1979 of a Women's Party, but it is
too soon to tell (Hall, 1981).
The movement in France has been more influential, perhaps - even
though Banks describes France as 'characterised by the absence of a
feminist movement' (Banks, 1981, p. 262)- but still limited in comparison
with developments in Britain and the United States. Its distinguishing
features have been, first, its tendency to intellectualism and, second, the
bitterness of its internal struggles, often revolving around particular leading
personalities. Following the war, France enjoyed its own variant of
reasonable feminism, for instance in the women's associations linked with
the Communist and Socialist Parties. Though these associations remained

reformist, many were radicalised by the emergence of women's liberation
and came subsequently to play an important auxiliary role, as in the
campaigns to legalise abortion and win women legal independence.
Second wave feminism, however, really erupted out of the 1968 student
revolt, though its existence as the Movement de Liberation des Femmes
(MLF) was not recognised by the media until 1970. As elsewhere, the
women who came to identify with this movement were from tremendously
varied ideological and social backgrounds and, beyond their shared
recognition of women's continuing oppression, inevitably disagreed over
tactics. Amongst the hundreds of groups - the French term 'groupuscule'
better evokes their fragmentation - at least five distinct orientations have
been discernible. First have been the radical feminist groups, beginning with
Feministes Revolutionnaires, founded in 1970 and employing quite
sensational tactics. Second, socialist feminist groups such as the Cercle
Dmitriev, formed in 1972, have sought to combine women's struggle with
the fight against capitalism. The third tendency has been 'reformism'. In
1971, Gisele Halimi, the well-known feminist lawyer, set up a new
organisation, 'Choisir', to defend the 343 signatories of a petition against
the abortion laws. Her subsequent formulation of a 'Common Programme
of Women' was mistrusted by the MLF as a bid for leadership of the
movement. In October 1974, Choisir helped to launch a feminist political
party, the Parti Feministe Unifiee Fran(,:aise (PFUF) which however failed
to secure the election of any of its forty-three candidates in 1978.
What might be deemed a fourth strand of feminism has to an extent cut
across ideological divisions and focused on specific projects. In particular
Mouvement pour Ia Liberti: de I' Avortement et pour Ia Contraception
(MLAC}, begun in 1973, spread rapidly, successfully organised
illegal abortions and helped to secure the liberalisation of abortion law in
1975. With this partial victory, much of the energy directed into MLAC
transferred to a campaign against violence to women, including setting up
refuges for battered wives: the so-called SOS Femmes Alternatives.
While the previously described groupings have been in periodic conflict,
the most serious division has been between them and the elitist and
intellectual Psych et Po (Psychanalyse et Politique). Formed in 1970, it has
ever since been dominated by a wealthy psychoanalyst, 'Antoinette', who,
according to her critics, enjoys an unhealthy ascendancy over the minds and
lives of her followers. In 1974 Psych et Po set itself up as a publishing firm,
Des Femmes, acquiring for a time a virtual monopoly of feminist publishing
and bookshops in France. It repudiated the rest of the MLF as excessively
bound up in patriarchal ideology and largely excluded MLF writings from
its publications or sales, leading eventually to a traumatic series of court
cases in 1977. Finally in October 1979, the group constituted itself as a
limited company with exclusive rights to the term MLF. The MLF is
ThePo/iticsojthe Women's Movement 157
fighting back, however, and ironically may have been reinvigorated by this
attempt to usurp its place (Lewis, 1981).
In Italy, an organisation working for women's emancipation by reformist
means, the Uniona Donne Italiane (UDI), took form after the Second
World War. Linked with political parties of the Left, it concentrated on
issues of women's employment outside the home. Strikingly, by 1961, this
still only meant one woman in five. Second wave feminism grew out of the
student movement of 1968. To start with, at least, it rejected the emphasis
on women's employment; some groups even advocated 'wages for
housewives'. More even than the French and German movements, it has
stressed women's physical self-determination, through the issues of divorce,
abortion and, more recently, rape. This reflects of course the entrenched
political power of the Roman Catholic Church.
Weber describes the movement as fragmented from the outset. Groups
like Rivolta, formed in 1970, adopted a radical feminist position. On the
other hand, Lotta Feminista wanted to link women's liberation with the fight
against capitalism. Both these tendencies fiercely eschewed involvement
in 'conventional' politics. The group that called itself the Movimento
Liberazione Donna (MLD) was allied to the Radical Party and led the
campaign to reform abortion law. Already by 1973 the surface unity of the
movement had broken down. It has remained divided, introspective and
middle-class with little support amongst the mass of Italian women (Weber,
1981). None the less it has had a significant impact on public policy,
especially in the areas of abortion and divorce. This is indirectly through its
influence within the left-wing political parties, the UDI and the trade
unions. The powerful Communist Party has taken feminism increasingly
seriously, though for a long time it was afraid to antagonise the Catholic
population. Feminist groups or 'coordinamenti donne' have also helped to
change male trade unionists' attitudes on such questions as abortion and
rape (Froggett, 1981).
Despite their differences, the second wave feminist movements of West
Germany, France and Italy have shared certain characteristics. Their
reformist element has been relatively weak and mistrusted by the dominant
radical or Marxist feminist groups. These latter groups, though fewer in
number than in the United States or in Britain, and with a less far-reaching
influence over public attitudes, have none the less included thousands of
women in all the main cities. In contrast to all these European movements
stands feminism in contemporary Sweden.
Given Sweden's outstanding record in promoting meaningful equality of
opportunity between the sexes, it is in many ways surprising to discover that
women's liberation groups, in the revolutionary feminist sense, have been
few and far between. Chief amongst them is Group 8, founded in 1968 and
reported in 1980 to include around 1,000 members, mostly in the Stockholm
area. Its orientation is socialist feminist.
Reformist feminism is, on the other hand, well entrenched. The liberal or
'equal rights' Frederika Bremer Association, dating back to 1894, claims
over 9,000 members. Even more significant, however, has been the
pronounced tradition of what Banks might include as welfare feminism
closely linked with the Social Democratic Party. Women's sections were
established, on women's insistence and against the will of some of the
Party's leaders, as far back as 1892 and ever since have strongly influenced
Party policy on women. They also set the pattern for the growth of
women's sections in 'virtually every party, union, professional, social and
religious organisation in the nation' (Adams and Winston, 1980, p. 139). In
the immediate post-war period, Swedish feminism as elsewhere was
conservative in accepting that a woman could not simultaneously have
children and a career. But, in 1962, earlier even than Friedan, Eva Moberg
wrote Women and Human Beings, advocating role-sharing in the home.
Though not universally accepted, her views helped to radicalise existing
Swedish feminist networks. This presents us with the apparent paradox of a
feminist movement which is in many respects radical in its analysis and
objectives, and yet which not only relies upon a strategy of reform, but
denies the need for separate women-only organisations. It may be argued
that this form of feminism suits the political climate of Sweden, and
certainly in comparison with feminism in other countries it has been highly
successful in influencing policy. Adams and Winston suggest that separate
feminist organisation is inappropriate for Sweden's political system (ibid.,
pp. 151-2). Writers such as Safiiios-Rothschild consider, however, that the
absence of a powerful separate feminist movement in Sweden leaves women
essentially unliberated and seriously vulnerable to reactionary moves
(Safilios-Rothschild, 1974, p. 6).
In addition to the spread of feminist movements between the different
nations, how far can we speak of a distinctively international women's
movement? Though the diffusion of feminist ideas, particularly from the
American movement, to other countries is unmistakeable, there does not
yet exist a more structured feminist movement, let alone organisation, at the
international level. Even within the EEC one study has found collaboration
between feminist groups over ways to use legislation and directives
'noticeably lacking' (Wickham, 1980). The United Nations' Commission
for the Status of Women, set up shortly after the Second World War,
sponsored the International Decade of Women, opening in 1975 with the
Conference for International Women's Year at Mexico. Both this
Conference and the half-term Conference at Copenhagen in 1980, however,
were in reality assemblies of national delegations, only faintly tinged with
feminism. During the Copenhagen Conference an alternative non-
governmental Forum was organised in which around 5,000 women, from a
great many nations, participated. This certainly promoted mutual
awareness but it also made clear major potential divisions in international
feminism, especially between Western and Third World women, over such
issues as female circumcision and prostitution. Western feminists, then and
since, have been accused, doubtless with some justification, of both racist
and imperialist assumptions. The only major exception to this picture of
international fragmentation is the work of the Women's International
Information and Communication Service (ISIS), which monitors and
responds to instances of female victimisation, such as rape or
imprisonment. Otherwise the international women's movement appears no
less disunited, ideologically and organisationally, than the individual
national movements.
A crisis in the women's movement?
There is little doubt of the achievements or of the continuing vitality of the

contemporary women's movement. At the level of policy, though in
America the movement's role in legislation was probably marginal in the
1960s, during the following decade it contributed to a succession of
measures helpful to women, such as the 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity
Act, the addition of Title 9 to the 1972 Education Amendments Act and the
1973 Supreme Court ruling that liberalised abortion. Likewise in Britain,
though its emergence post-dated the 1967 Abortion Act and though
legislation for equal pay and against sex discrimination was in large part a
response to EEC requirements, second wave feminism protected and
exploited these gains. In the 1970s it either instigated or strongly influenced
a number of valuable measures such as the 1970 Matrimonial Proceedings
and Property Act, Part 2 of the 1975 Employment Protection Act and the
1976 Domestic Violence and Matrimonial Procedures Act. In France and
Italy, the movement also contributed to important policy changes, although
in Germany its achievement was more modest. Chapters 2 and 3 have in
addition shown the stimulus of feminism to women's political participation.
Most significantly, perhaps, the movement has, in the United States and
Britain at least, both transformed what is acceptable public opinion and
behaviour and begun to undermine more private traditional attitudes
towards sex-roles. One has only to see a film or documentary or read a book
that is 10 or 15 years old to grasp the amazing revolution in assumptions
that has intervened.
Though evidence must be impressionistic, there is little reason either to
suppose that the movement is yet waning. Spare Rib, for instance, each
month advertises a range of new feminist activities and the formation of new
groups all over the country. In the United States, following the election of
President Reagan and in the face of the backlash on abortion and the ERA,
the rate of new membership is NOW more than doubled, to 7,500 a month
(StClair, 1981).
Yet Oakley suggests that 'recent reforms have clearly only scratched the
surface of women's unequal treatment' (Oakley, 1979, p. 392). And are the
gains already made secure? Forgetting for the moment feminists' mutual
disagreement on the movement's proper objectives, and simply taking
Freeman's criterion of a radical widening of women's life options, the work
remaining to be done is daunting. By the end of the 1970s a political back-
lash was developing, especially in the United States. This is, of course,
in part a tribute to the movement's success. Even more worrying are the
implications of economic recession for the movement and for women's
status. We cannot know for certain what these will be, and perhaps
feminism will be strengthened by adversity. Coote has even anticipated that
unemployed men may discover the joys of caring for children and the home
(Coote, 1979). But a gloomier outlook seems more plausible. Recession
could strike materially at the achievements of contemporary feminism.
Thus by 1981 in Britain the pay differential between the sexes, which closed
perceptibly following the Equal Pay and Sex Distrimination Acts, began to
widen anew, while the rate at which women lost their jobs was growing
more rapidly than for men. Funds that central and local government felt
could be spared in the relative affluence of the 1970s were now begrudged
child-care provision, women's centres, women's refuges, even the Equal
Opportunities Commission. Recession can threaten the ideological
acceptability of women's liberation making it appear a redundant luxury.
Second wave feminism was born in a decade of affluence and full
employment. Can it survive their disappearance?
It is within this context that the internal strengths and weaknesses of the
movement assume new importance. A number of writers have, albeit for
different reasons, identified this conjunction of external adversity with
internal weaknesses as constituting some kind of crisis. It would be
exaggerating to suggest that there is yet a fully fledged debate about the
causes of the crisis. But one can piece together a number of interpretations
which variously emphasise the movement's membership, ideology,
organisation or strategy. In looking at these interpretations we can also
examine more deeply the character of contemporary feminism.
Movement membership and divisions amongst women
If all women are in some sen!!e oppressed by men collectively, the potential
membership of the feminist movement should be coterminous with the sex
itself. But women are also divided. Whereas membership of a caste,
minority group or class connotes a degree of self-conscious cohesion, as
Rossi has pointed out, women as individuals are usually more bound to
their oppressors than to one another (Rossi, 1965). They are further divided
by their immediate 'objective' interests; middle class against working class,

white against black, single and childless against married and mother,
employed against housewife. Such divisions pose crucial membership
problems for the movement, excluding the majority of women and creating
conflict within.
Feminism is a social movement, or a 'purposive and collective attempt of
a number of people to change individuals or societal institutions and
structures' (Zald and Ash, 1966, p. 327). As such it has no formal
membership requirement, though many of its constituent organisations do.
Even so, if we understand the movement's membership to include
supporters whose organisational involvement is minimal, it is still scarcely
representative of women as a whole.
Most regularly noted, as in the nineteenth century, is the movement's
predominantly middle-class composition. This is true even in Britain where
working-class women have been drawn in through trade unions and the
Labour Party. In defence of feminism it must be said that it operates within
class-divided societies in which middle-class domination is a feature of
nearly all national institutions, including left-wing parties. Earlier we also
saw the specific practical obstacles in the way of women's political
participation; these hit the working-class mother hardest, whether she is
obliged to work a double shift or simply unable to afford labour-saving aids
for housework. Cavendish writes of her experience working with other
women on an assembly line. She found them to harbour few illusions about
their situation and exploitation by men, but caught up in the exhausting
logic of the double shift, they had neither energy nor opportunity to
experiment with different lifestyles or feminist politics (Cavendish, 1982).
Yet I have suggested that women find it easier to participate in
unconventional politics, such as the women's movement, than in more
formalised political contexts. It seems possible that working-class women
are specifically deterred by their perception of feminism. This is partly
because of its treatment by the media. More fundamentally, though, the
movement's style and preoccupations are distinctly bourgeois. Not only do
the demands of equal rights feminists often sound suspiciously like the
special pleading of already privileged women, but radical feminism's
emphasis on liberation and informality is hardly consonant with working-
class experience. The kind of culture clash this can give rise to is amusingly
evoked in the protest of the working-class feminist: 'I don't find poverty,
dirt or ugliness groovy. I don't like wearing old shirts about ten sizes too
big. I don't want to look like a cross between Steptoe and a Renaissance
lady. I don't really like camomile tea. I don't like fighting my way through a
haze of dope, incense and Indian drapes to yet another revolutionary
discussion about real, true feelings' (Tension, 1981, p. 87). Socialist
feminists make more effort to reach working-class women but even their
intellectualising must be forbidding.
Differences between women also fuel conflict within the movement.

Banks traces the three strands of equal rights, evangelical and socialist
feminism through to the present-day reformist, radical and Marxist
tendencies. She suggests they may appeal to different kinds of women
(Banks, 1981). Cassell, in the early 1970s, also found that members of the
older branch were not only somewhat older, but 'more likely to be married,
well educated, be established in their life patterns (being primarily
professional women or housewives with older children), have higher
incomes (whether they or their husbands earn the money)'. Members of the
younger branch would have lower incomes, being often either students or
low-paid clerical workers, and would be less likely to be married or have
children. They would, in Cassell's phrase, be 'women in transition' (Cassell,
1977, pp. 103-4).
More facetiously, a further characteristic of the movement's membership
may have bearing on the present possible 'crisis'. Rossi notes the correlation
between feminism and an increase in the proportion of single, childless
adult women in the population. Such women played a particularly
prominent role in the movement's leadership. Attention has recently been
drawn to the spate of pregnancies amongst feminists aged 30 and over.
Heron points out that these women have deliberately chosen to have
children, in contrast to women who react against the constraints of
motherhood by becoming feminists. Some of them, she suggests, are
elaborating a new 'mystique of motherhood', which could accord all too
well with impending cutbacks in women's paid employment (Heron, 1980;
see also Sayers, 1982, p. 148).
Deradicalisation
The new cult of motherhood could be linked with a second kind of

argument about the weaknesses within contemporary feminism. This
emphasises the ideological character of feminism and could be termed the
'deradicalisation thesis'. It was first expounded by a group of radical
feminists themselves, writing in Feminist Revolution, but has been most
systematically developed by David Bouchier.
He argues that radical or utopian theory is vital to the momentum of a
social movement. 'A radical wing, constantly raising unresolved issues and
generating new ones, constantly on the alert for co-optation and retreat, is
essential to preserve the oppositional movement from a gentle slide into the
prevailing hegemony' (Bouchier, 1979, p. 397). Though his concrete
application of this argument is to the American women's liberation
movement, he maintains that it is also relevant for Britain. Deradicalisation
of the American movement, according to Bouchier, began early in the
1970s. The media played an essential part first in caricaturing and ridiculing
the movement's more extreme statements and tactics, then by co-opting and
glamourising many of the 'safer' issues. Radical feminists did not help their
cause by their refusal to use the media themselves. This made it even more
necessary for them to retain control of the younger branch's internal
channels of communication. Instead, as we have seen, Bouchier describes
how they were increasingly edited out. He suggests that this was due to the
recruitment into the movement of new women who lacked the radicalising
background of the Civil Rights or New Left movements, and who were
consequently 'less committed to the long hard struggle suggested by
uncompromising radical theory' (ibid., p. 393). Reinforcing this dilution of
radical feminism was the institutionalisation and professionalisation within
th~ older branch, in particular the consolidation of NOW. Undermined by
these developments and facing further encroachments from the organised
left, radical feminists either retreated into 'life-style' feminism or took up
community projects, but in both ways were themselves deradicalised. By
1975, Bouchier claims this process of deradicalisation was complete.
As a description of the evolution of second wave feminism in the United
States, Bouchier's thesis may be oversimplified. Freeman, for instance,
prefers to emphasise the radicalisation of 'reformist' groups, particularly
NOW. The emergence of a radical critique of deradicalisation itself suggests
a turning-point in the process and it may be that the economic recession,
together with the political backlash against feminism, will help to re-
radicalise the movement.
More doubtful still is the relevance of this thesis for Britain. Can it,
firstly, be argued that radical feminism ever 'dominated' the British
women's movement? The original theoretical and organisational impetus
was from disillusioned Marxist feminists. The most one can say is that
radical feminists successfully challenged them, and from around 1974 to
1978 were responsible for many theoretical and practical initiatives. But by
the end of the decade the situation was one of deadlock. Nor can it be said
that equal rights feminism has come to dominate the movement, either
organisationally or programmatically. However Wander notes the recent
emergence of what she terms 'a new kind of publicly visible feminism -
emancipationist feminism ... a brand of female individualism which is not
yet self-consciously political' amongst women in various managerial
positions. Such 'soft-focus' feminism, she suggests, may increase in the
1980s and is especially vulnerable to co-optation (Wandor, 1981, pp. 40-1).
This could imply that British feminism is undergoing its own version of
deradicalisation, but more time and evidence is required to support such a
claim.
Does deradicalisation matter? Radical feminism gave the movement its
uncompromising core identity as the fight of all women against all men, and
in so far as this basic perception is lost, second-wave feminism will be the
weaker. On the other hand, early formulations of radical feminism now
seem crude. To attempt to make them more realistic is to invite the charge
of deradicalisation, and moreover any attempt to impose, as Bouchier
urges, a single unifying theory would risk further dividing this diverse
movement.
The tyranny of structurelessness
A third critique of the women's movement focuses on its organisational

weaknesses. Strangely enough these have been identified by feminists
representing reformist, Marxist and radical tendencies. Usually, however,
Marxists and reformists have been criticising the 'structurelessness' of
radical feminism.
While in all contemporary national women's movements we could
probably find some organisations with a hierarchical structure, role
specialisation and formal rules, they are not typical and are often rejected
by the more numerous 'radical' groups. National co-ordinating or umbrella
structures have emerged, most notably in NOW, but also for instance in
Britain's NW AF and NAC, but their span and effectiveness is usually
limited. Instead the real locus of activity is the small, local group which,
eschewing formal rules and leadership, prefers to arrive at decisions by
consensus.
Such an organisational pattern, when properly adhered to, has some
undoubted advantages. It is especially suited to the important function of
consciousness-raising. Also, in a small group run on these lines, ideally all
members have a chance to participate and thus develop self-awareness, self-
esteem, political insight and basic political skills. This experience is
enormously valuable in the politicisation of women who have been,
objectively, or subjectively, isolated and oppressed. Moreover it is
'prefigurative' in that, as Rowbotham points out, unlike the more
centralised, hierarchical organisations of the Left, which are supposed to be
transitional evils to a necessary end, but which, history suggests, have a
nasty habit of outliving their revolutionary mission, the feminist variant of
participatory democracy is supposed to embody the desired future practice
and is thus intrinsically revolutionary (Rowbotham, 1979). The
decentralised character of the movement also enables it to accommodate
and promote all kinds of creative initiative from the grass-roots. A
subsidiary advantage of including such ideologically differentiated groups
within a single movement is that the perceived extremism of the radical
groups makes the arguments of the reformists more acceptable. But finally
the crucial advantage of this loose organisational pattern is its ability to
incorporate such a diverse membership.
Yet this ideal is not always realised. Freeman reminds us that
structurelessness does not necessarily prevent tyranny. Elites, based less on
conspiracy than on friendship cliques, are endemic. When there are no
formal procedures, they can devise and manipulate tacit rules to ensure
their de facto control, and to exclude fringe members. De Beauvoir found
the same to be true in the MLF (de Beauvoir, 1977).
When it works on its own terms, it is argued that this kind of organisation
still has serious limitations. Freeman suggests it is most effective when the
group in question is relatively small and homogeneous in its ideological and
social composition and when it focuses upon a narrow, specific task,
requiring a high level of communication and a low degree of skills
specialisation. Even then, because of its emphasis upon personal
interaction, 'a tremendous amount of the participants' time and energy
must necessarily be spent on group processes rather than group ends'
(Freeman, 1975, p. 126). Otherwise, the structurelessness can be tyrannical.
It inhibits individual displays of particular skills or abilities. As Hanisch, a
self-styled revolutionary feminist, recognises, currently women do differ in
abilities. 'It follows that if our major interest is to advance the feminist
revolution, the person who does the job best should be in charge of it'
(Hanisch, 1978, p. 165). This organisational pattern also encourages a new
conformity. 'Sisterhood can actually produce a kind of coercive consensus
which is stifling rather than liberating' (Rowbotham, 1979, p. 41). It can
further inhibit group development by putting off potential new members,
by preventing any record-keeping of previous discussions and decisions so
that the group goes over and over the same old ground and by allowing
whoever attends one meeting completely to revise projects planned by the
preceding one.
Exponents of the 'tyranny of structurelessness' thesis go on to emphasise
its damaging consequences for the coherence and effectiveness of the
national feminist movement. It becomes more difficult to organise rapid,
effective responses to new provocations or opportunities. Constant conflict
between groups wastes energy. Decentralisation leaves marginal groups ever
prey to outside takeover, as for instance by the Young Socialist Alliance in
the early years of the American Movement. Then, in the absence of formal
leadership, the media can pick on individual women, the 'stars', as
representing the true voice of women's liberation, leading not only to
misrepresentation but to bitter recrimination within the movement itself.
Contributors to Feminist Revolution incidentally argue that initially radical
feminism did have leaders and that the reaction against leadership was part
of the liberal takeover (see, for instance, Hanisch, 1978). Lastly critics
suggest that because of its ineffective national co-ordination, the movement
is taken less seriously by other political organisations and institutions than
its potential membership might otherwise warrant.
Many would argue that feminism produces the structure it needs. This
would seem most true of the US movement. But in Britain and elsewhere,
the tyranny of structurelessness is more incapacitating. Yet it remains
doubtful whether more structure could be imposed without shattering the
movement's tenuous cohesion.
Finding the right strategy - with the Left?
Finally, and raising issues that will be taken further in Chapter 6 and the
conclusion, we come to questions about the correct strategy for
contemporary feminism. In particular, those concerned to diagnose the
movement's current limitations have questioned the emphasis on
consciousness-raising and the widespread insistence on separation and its
implications for alliances, notably with the Left.
It was the radical feminists in 1968 who incorporated and developed the
practice of consciousness-raising as a central activity though, as we have
seen, they often subsequently moved into other projects, while the older
branch took up consciousness-raising in its turn. As a technique, it was a
legacy of the Civil Rights campaign, and was particularly helpful in
politicising women. It went with the perception of the 'personal is
political'. First, as McWilliams points out, there are aspects of a woman's
oppression that only she can deal with: 'Usually either the woman is isolated
or the opponent difficult to confront. It is hardly feasible to take concerted
group action against a family, a lover or a boss; it is equally difficult to take
on such elusive oppressors as Madison Avenue or pornographic filmsters'
(McWilliams, 1974, p. 162). The consciousness-raising group ideally
provides this woman with both political insight and moral support.
Secondly, consciousness-raising is supposed to reveal to the women who
take part, through a reappraisal of their personal experience, their common
oppression by men and thus to foster a new and militant solidarity amongst
them. The first guidelines for consciousness-raising sessions were produced
in 1968 by Redstockings and included recommendations that each
participant must testify in turn on whatever question was being discussed,
no one else must interrupt her or pass judgement on her individual
testimony, and generalisations should only be attempted once testimony
was completed. The vogue for consciousness-raising was so great that,
according to one estimate, in 1972 there was at least one such group in every
block in Manhattan (Cassell, 1977, p. 34).
Yet the drawbacks to such an exclusive focus were soon apparent.
Freeman argues that many women who felt sufficiently 'conscious' wanted
to do something with their new insights and released energies. But not all
groups made the transition from 'rap' group to a campaign or project.
Often they just fizzled out. This lends support to the argument of Adams
and Winston that consciousness-raising was becoming therapy, encouraging
women to find personal and 'life-style' instead of political solutions to their
problems. Consciousness-raising, then, has played an invaluable part in
revitalising the women's movement and continues to be important in the
induction of new members but, it is argued, can lead into a political cul-de-
sac.
From radical feminism, too, comes the strategy of separatism. Not only
radical feminists, but also other feminist groups influenced by them, have
excluded male supporters from membership. This exclusion seems
eminently sensible, particularly while groups are in their formative stage, if
women members are to develop their own solidarity, analysis and skills.
Adams and Winston cite the apparent success of feminist ideas in Sweden,
contrasting it with the limited achievement of the large and vocal women's
movement in America, in order to question the need for separate women's
organisations at all. But it is likely that such diffuse feminist pressure as
exists in Sweden could only be effective in circumstances already highly
propitious to feminist objectives. When circumstances are adverse and the
need for feminist values most urgent, only a separate women's movement
can ensure their articulation.
The emphasis on separatism has at times also precluded alliances,
however tactical, with organisations of men, and this may be more
regrettable. Specifically, in Britain and some other European nations, a
number of Marxist or socialist feminists have urged an alliance with the
Left. Wainwright has, for instance, argued that 'unless women's demands
are integrated with the needs of these other groups then it is unlikely that
women's demands will ever get the support necessary to take on the
powerful vested interests they are up against' (Wainwright, 1979, p. 5). The
question of a Left alliance has occasioned considerable debate and the
issues are naturally complex. Simplifying, though, one can distinguish
between long-term and short-term considerations.
In the long term there are all the conundrums concerning the relative
primacy of the sex or class struggle, and the relationship of socialism to
feminism which earlier pages have rehearsed. They are ultimately insoluble,
though Chapter 4 suggested that on balance socialism is better for women
than capitalism. But at the risk of sounding cynical, I would argue that
feminism should be more concerned with the short-term advantages of an
alliance with the Left. It seems clear that during the recession many of the
battles feminists face, against cuts in welfare, education, employment and
the health services, must likewise be battles of the Left. At the same time in
many left-wing parties and groups, for whatever instrumental reasons,
increasing interest is shown in feminist demands. These are both reasons for
closer co-operation. On the other hand, in Britain at least, the Left by the
end of the 1970s was in considerable disarray, in 'fragments' as Rowbotham
implies. This led some to ask if women must wait upon the unification of
the Left, whether indeed feminism must itself become 'the oil on the rusty
wheels of socialism' (Cartledge, 1980). If, moreover, some kind of alliance
was formed between 'representatives' of the women's movement (and who
would they be, given its present state of organisation?) and of the Left, it
would, as even Marxist feminists like Wilson warn, intensify divisions
within the movement itself (Wilson, 1980). In sum, despite the initial
attractions of a short-term alliance with the Left, it would probably be both
divisive and impracticable. This does not of course preclude the

collaboration of individual groups, as for instance demonstrated in the
Women's Fightback Campaign for a Labour Victory which includes both
women in the Labour Party and socialist feminists (Coultas, 1981).
The fundamental strength and the fundamental weakness of the
contemporary women's movement lie in the size and diversity of its actual,
and potential, membership. In this context, the movement needs a radical
core of ideas to provide its identity and unity, as well as some minimal
organisational framework for continuity, co-ordination and strategy.
Radicalism and organisation are not necessarily in conflict, but when a
social movement's base is so heterogeneous, they almost certainly will be.
This leaves the movement apparently vulnerable to changes in the economic
and political environment. On the other hand these very changes may have a
salutary effect on feminist consciousness. There are even signs of a revival
both in militant radical feminism and in the appreciation of the need for
organisation (see, for instance, Brooke, 1978; Coultas, 1981). Instead of the
'crisis' of feminism, we may be witnessing its maturation.
6
Feminism and Policy-Making
The present wave of feminism has had a considerable impact; it has brought
to the fore issues previously neglected, has helped to secure major changes
in official policy and ensured that these are at least partially implemented.
Having considered the broad determinants of policies towards women, and
the character of contemporary feminism, it is time to focus on feminism's
involvement in the detailed process of policy-making. What have been the
most effective feminist tactics? How much can feminists achieve through
this kind of political participation?
There are by now a number of case-studies of the process by which a
particular policy or decision, of concern to feminists, was reached. These
tend, however, to be limited to Britain and the United States, which is why
the present discussion is largely confined to those countries (but see the
Notes on Further Reading, for some recent exceptions). So far there have
been few attempts to compare the processes in different national settings or
associated with different kinds of issue. Within the constraints of the
existing literature, this chapter will adopt a comparative approach. First it
will look at the making of policy on abortion, primarily in Britain and
America, but with reference also to Italy. Second, and by way of contrast, it
will examine equal rights policy-making: specifically policy on equal pay
and employment opportunities in Britain and the United States, and the
campaign for an Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution.
Abortion rights
Abortion has emerged as almost the definitive issue of contemporary

feminism. This is primarily because for radical feminists it symbolises
women's sexual and reproductive self-determination. But, under the
influence of radical feminism, other feminists have also come to recognise
its importance for women's individual freedom of choice and effective
competition in the public sphere. Possibly with the sole exception of
Sweden, with its early liberalisation of abortion law, feminist movements
169
everywhere have campaigned either to reform, or to defend and extend

existing reforms in, the law.
Though conservative feminists were initially resistant - in 1967, for
instance, NOW split on the question - a feminist who opposed abortion law
reform would now seem almost a contradiction in terms. There are
disagreements about the necessary extent of reform - should women have
'abortion on demand'? Recently some socialist feminists have also
expressed misgivings about basing the demand for abortion reform on
women's individual 'right to choose'. As Himmelweit points out, such a
claim appears to condone women's relegation to a private sphere, at the
same time as feminists in other ways are challenging it.
Are we implicitly accepting that separation of production and

reproduction into the social and the private? Are we accepting that under
socialism, or whatever name we give the society we are working for,
production will be planned, ever so democratically but still planned for
the benefit of all, but reproduction will remain a private, individual
decision and right?
She concludes, however, that in capitalist society, it is necessary to claim

whatever individual freedoms one can, and that, in the absence of a
mechanism equivalent to the market to regulate decisions about
reproduction, freedom of choice in this area could actually help to
undermine the power of capital (Himmelweit, 1980, p. 68). Similarly,
Jagger argues that a woman's ·ight to choose 'is not derived from some
obscure right to her own body; nor is it part of her right to privacy. It is a
contingent right rather than an absolute one, resulting from women's
situation in our society'. Above all, it is because 'women's lives are
enormously affected by the birth of their children, whereas the community
as a whole is affected only slightly' that they should decide. In a different
society, in which the community assumed major responsibility for the
welfare of mother and child, that community should likewise share the right
to choose (Jagger, 1976, p. 356). None the less, by whatever arguments,
most feminists nowadays converge in their support of abortion reform.
Their real difficulties stem from the way that abortion is perceived as an
issue and the kind of opposition that this generates. Chapter 4 suggested
that abortion policy has often reflected, particularly in state socialist
societies, the state's interest in regulating population growth so as to satisfy
labour and defence needs. States were seen, however, to vary considerably
in the extent to which they pursued coherent and explicit population
policies, and certainly in Britain and the United States such policies have
been little in evidence over recent years and would seemingly clash with
prevalent liberal values (Riley, 1981). Abortion is seen instead primarily as a
moral issue and the opposition is expressed in moral, rather than social or
Feminism and Policy-Making 171
political, terms. It centres on the right to life of the unborn child. Though,
as Richards points out, it is unfair to dismiss this argument as the
rationalisation of misogynists, many of its proponents simultaneously
support capital punishment and oppose pacifism, which may seem
inconsistent (Richards, 1980, pp. 216-20). Most significantly, articulation
of this argument is above all orchestrated by organised religion, particularly
the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic Church now officially maintains
that life begins at the moment of conception. Earlier Catholic theologians
did not all share this view. Pope Gregory XIV for instance condoned
abortions up to forty days in a pronouncement of 1591. Only in 1869 did
Pope Pius IX forbid all abortions and this position has been regularly
reaffirmed. The 1974 Declaration on Procured Abortions states 'The First
Right of the Human Person is his life. Never, under any pretext may a
woman resort to abortion. Nor can one exempt women from what nature
demands of them' (Bishop, 1979, pp. 66-7).
A second feature of abortion as an issue has implications for the process
of abortion reform. Lowi suggests a distinction between kinds of policy in
terms of their effects on those towards whom they are directed. On the one
hand, 'regulatory' policies regulate how individuals or groups can use the
resources they have, while 'redistributory' policies entail some
redistribution, usually between broad social classes of 'haves' and 'have-
nots' (Lowi, 1964). Abortion is primarily a regulatory issue. Though this
may lead the major class-based political parties to see it as marginal, it also
means that advocates of abortion reform do not generally have to make
their case in economic terms. However, the implementation of abortion
reforms does have redistributory implications in so far as the state is
required to provide free or subsidised abortion facilities. This has posed
further serious obstacles for pro-abortionists.
An analysis of abortion politics in Britain and the United States will show
how these specific features of abortion as an issue interact with the
distinctive political systems of the two countries.
Abortion reform in Britain
In Britain, we have seen (p. 110), the battle to legalise abortion dates back at
least to the formation of ALRA in 1936 and the first legislative initiative
was in 1952, Reeves's Private Member's Bill. All subsequent abortion Bills
have been either Private Members' Bills or introduced under the '10-minute
rule', because the parliamentary parties have considered them too
controversial and inappropriate for inclusion in their legislative
programmes.
As such their progress has been perilous. Private members compete by
ballot to introduce Bills on one of the approximately sixteen days set aside
for them in each parliamentary session. If lucky, they still face the danger
that their Bill will be 'talked out' in the Second Reading, and the further
difficulty, after it has been to Committee, of getting it through the final
Report Stage in the limited time allotted. Indeed, Marsh and Chambers
conclude that unless it is dealing with a narrowly technical and
uncontroversial issue, a Private Member's Bill will only get through
Parliament with the active support of the Government, which can award
extra time (Marsh and Chambers, 1981, p. 187). Bills introduced under the
10-minute rule are not even guaranteed a second reading.
Steel's successful Bill in 1967 prevailed almost despite medical opinion, at
a time when public opinion polls indicated popular support for some reform
of the law but probably less than was actually legislated. Though the
lobbying by ALRA and the thalidomide scandal assisted, it was
developments within Parliament itself that were decisive. Lord Silkin's
successful abortion Bill in the House of Lords provided a valuable
precedent. In the House of Commons, the sympathetic Labour Government
gave the Bill extra time, while on the crucial vote on whether to proceed to a
Third Reading, 234 supporting votes came from Labour MPs, twenty from
Conservatives and 8 from Liberals. This favourable parliamentary attitude
did not simply reflect the existence of a Labour majority. It was also due to
the advent to the House in 1964 of many younger, highly educated middle-
class MPs, who favoured such social reforms as the abolition of capital
punishment and the legalisation of homosexuality.
The 1967 Act itself represented a compromise. It authorised abortion up
to twenty-eight weeks of pregnancy, in cases where two registered doctors
agreed that otherwise the life or health of the mother or other children
would be at risk, or that the baby was likely to be handicapped. But a clause
allowing abortion if the pregnant woman would be severely overstrained as
a mother, which had been in the original Bill, was dropped. A provision was
added entitling doctors and nurses to refuse to take part in abortions on
grounds of 'conscience'. Commentators seem agreed that Steel was
tactically correct to accept this compromise. Even so, Greenwood and King
stress the Act's limitations, suggesting that those who drafted it only
expected it to be used by 'problem', and not 'normal', women. The
subsequent demand for abortion took them by surprise (Greenwood and
King, 1981, p.178).
Steel's Bill also provoked a backlash. It prompted the formation of
SPUC (Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child), headed by Phyllis
Bowman. Initially Roman Catholics were excluded, but Bowman
subsequently converted to Catholicism and many of SPUC's current
membership, estimated at 26,000, are Catholic, while there are also Russian
Orthodox, Buddhist, Evangelical and Baptist members (The Guardian, 15
August 1980). Marsh and Chambers suggest that SPUC has concentrated
on mobilising opinion - often through the pulpit - in the constituencies,
and only to a limited extent cultivated direct contact with MPs. A

breakaway, LIFE, was formed in 1970, and it has been even less concerned
to lobby individual MPs. Its main emphasis instead has been on counselling
pregnant women not to have abortions and providing practical help for
those accepting their guidance. During 1981, however, it began to emerge as
a more campaigning organisation, initiating a number of court cases
concerned with abortion and the 'right to life' of foetuses which may be
severely deformed.
Between 1967 and 1981 no less than eight attempts were made to introduce
restrictive amendments to the Act. The first four got nowhere. In 1971, the
Health Minister appointed a Parliamentary Committee under Mrs Justice
Lane to examine the administration of the Act. After hearing detailed
evidence for over two years the Committee reported its substantial approval
for the Act, though it favoured a reduction of the abortion time-limit from
28 weeks to 24. It was particularly impressed by the views of the British
Medical Association and Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
which had both come round to the Act, through having to implement it.
But in the meantime SPUC launched an effective campaign in the
constituencies which won media support, especially following publication in
1974 of Babies for Burning, a sensationalised and in places fictional account
of abuses under the Act. This strategy influenced public opinion and, most
of all, the attitudes of many Labour MPs who had originally supported the
Act. When James White, in 1975, submitted his Private Member's Bill
which would have severely reduced access to legal abortion, the vote of 203
to 88 to give it a Second Reading, though in part tactical, also reflected a
genuine shift in Parliamentary opinion.
White's Bill in turn galvanised the pro-abortion lobby. The first
Women's Liberation Conference, held in Oxford in February 1970, had
adopted as the movement's third demand 'Free contraception and abortion
on demand'. Activities to support this demand had been localised and
sporadic. When ALRA called a meeting in 1975 to counter White's Bill, the
response was enthusiastic. The resultant National Abortion Campaign
(NAC) was soon organising a militant campaign throughout the country for
'abortion on demand'. In July, NAC mounted a demonstration of around
20,000 - the 'biggest demonstration on a women's issue since the
suffragettes' (Marsh and Chambers, 1981, p. 47). It also fostered links with
trade unions and the Labour Party. In the event, White's Bill did not go
beyond a Second Reading because the Minister of Health persuaded its
sponsors that the matter should be referred to a Select Committee. Possibly
this reflected the Minister's interest in defusing the issue. At any rate, the
Bill had by now set off a powerful reaction.
NAC had from the start assumed a radical stance on the issue of
abortion. In 1976 a Co-ordinating Committee in Defence of the 1967 Act
(Co-ord) was set up, whose aims, as its title suggests, were more modestly
defensive and which was to act as an umbrella organisation. By 1980 it co-

ordinated the campaigns of fifty-six member organisations. At the same
time, as we have already seen, a number of Labour women MPs, including
Jo Richardson and Oonagh Macdonald, were beginning to work more
closely together to defend abortion reform in Parliament.
Following White's Bill, two further attempts to amend the Act, by
William Benyon and Bernard Braine respectively, were again unsucce~sful.
Benyon's Bill, in 1977, did draw on findings from the report of the Select
Committee set up in response to White's Bill, and was the first amendment
Bill to reach Committee stage. But the pro-abortion members of the
Committee were well-briefed and learning fast the tactics of delay, and the
Bill ran out of time.
When in May 1979 John Corrie drew first place in the Private Member's
ballot, it seemed for a time that his Bill, which would again have radically
reduced access to legal abortions, would succeed. At Second Reading the
vote in its favour was 242:98, meaning that its supporters predominated in
the Standing Committee to which it was sent. The Bill's eventual defeat was
a result both of the effectiveness of the opposition campaign and of its
proponents' mismanagement. Pro-abortionists on the Standing Committee
included seasoned campaigners like Jo Richardson, and the skilled
parliamentarian, Ian Mikardo. They were well primed by Co-ord.
Furthermore, thOugh attempts to get the Parliamentary Labour Party to
impose a three-line whip were unsuccessful, since the 1977 Annual
Conference it had been official policy in the Party at large to defend the
1967 Act. Joyce Gould, Chief Women':; Officer of the Labour Party,
watched over and briefed Labour MPs. At the same time, outside
Parliament, NAC launched a Campaign Against Corrie which helped to
counteract the constituency activities of the anti-abortion lobby. Corrie's
Bill was badly drafted, and drew damaging criticisms from the British
Medical Association. The different groupings within the anti-abortion
lobby were divided on objectives and poorly co-ordinated. Corrie himself
compromised too little and too late to save the Bill, which ran out of time
and was formally withdrawn on 25 March 1980.
The abortion issue was not finally resolved with Corrie, and it remains a
likely source of further conflict. Marsh and Chambers argue that it is easier
to defend the law than change it, so that only a major shift of public, and
especially Parliamentary, opinion could lead to radical revision of the Act.
Defenders of the Act none the less need to maintain their vigilance. Others
seek to extend its provisions and move closer to the principle of abortion on
demand. A possible start in this direction was the Bill to make National
Health Service (NHS) abortion facilities mandatory, introduced in July
1981, under the 10-minute rule. It was defeated by 215 to 139 votes (Parker,
1981).
Further problems have arisen with implementation of the Act. Though it
has immensely increased women's access to legal abortion, serious

shortcomings persist. Since the law allows doctors considerable discretion,
there are marked variations in the availabilit¥ of NHS abortions in different
areas. The establishment of abortion day-centres, urged as a remedy, has
proceeded slowly. In January 1982 the introduction, as an 'administrative'
measure, of new forms to certify the need for abortion, threatened further
to restrict provision (The Guardian, 23 January 1982).
Abortion provision by 1980 was also being affected by spending cuts.
Fawcus found that a number of gynaecology wards, where most NHS
abortions are performed, had been closed. At the same time the few existing
day-centres were threatened with closure (Fawcus, 1981, p. 42).
Abortion reform in the United States
The process of abortion reform has been rather different in the USA. While
liberalisation of the law and its interpretation has gone further, this legal
victory is less secure and implementation has been even less satisfactory.
This is firstly because the conflict has been more polarised, with pro-
abortionists since the late 1960s demanding 'abortion on request', and anti-
abortionists opposed to abortion on any grounds. But the policy process has
also been distinctively shaped by the decentralised character of American
politics, and especially by the impact of federalism and the courts.
Up to the 1960s, we have seen, abortion was illegal. Its emergence as a
major political issue in that decade was not due to feminist pressure. Rather
it reflected lawyers' concern that abortion was still a punishable offence,
doctors' changing attitude to abortion as well-as their resentment of legal
interference in decisions they felt should be based on professional medical
opinion, and broader changes in public opinion.
In 1959, the American Law Institute drafted a model Bill, proposing a
reform to existing laws that would allow abortion on conditions very similar
to the Steel Act. It was endorsed by the powerful American Medical
Association, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and
formed the basis for laws subsequently passed in five states. By this time,
however, the new radical feminists were beginning to argue that the law
should not be reformed but repealed. Their case was assisted by ample
evidence that the reforms so far enacted had not greatly improved access to
legal abortion. Moreover by the late 1960s, under the sponsorship of the
ACLU, abortion laws were being challenged in the courts; this culminated
in the decision of a court in Washington DC that its abortion law was
unconstitutional. In 1969 Lawrence Lader founded the National
Association for the Repeal of the Abortion Laws (NARAL which,
following the 1973 Supreme Court decision, came to stand for National
Abortion Rights Action League), the major American pressure group for
the repeal of the abortion laws. It was against this background that New
York State's legislature in 1969 rejected a Bill to reform abortion law, but in
1970 legislated for abortion on request up to twenty-four weeks of
pregnancy.
The major national initiative was taken by the Supreme Court. American
political scientists disagree over the Supreme Court's general role in policy-
making. Writers like Dahl have suggested that it usually acts in concert with
the dominant national political coalition, while others, citing (for instance)
its role in advancing civil rights in the 1960s, argue that it can anticipate and
even mould dominant political values. The Burger Court, whose Chief
Justice, Warren Earl Burger, was appointed by Nixon in 1969, might seem
an unlikely champion of women's rights, but Goldstein suggests that it 'has
done more to enhance the freedom of American women than any single
policy-making body in history' (Goldstein, 1979, p. lOS). Its decisions on
abortion were central to this contribution. Cook tries to identify the broader
values underlying the Court's attitudes to women. She finds that votes in
the Court on women's roles were more closely correlated with its members'
orientation to civil liberties than with their views on regulating the market
or on equality (Cook, 1977). Thus, in their treatment by the Supreme
Court, women were perhaps the beneficiaries of the civil rights movement.
On 22 January 1973, the Supreme Court made two rulings on abortion.
In Roe v. Wade, it argued, on grounds anticipated in the 1965 ruling on
contraception, that the right of privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment
should cover a woman's decision on whether to have an abortion: in the
first trimester this would be a decision solely for the woman and her doctor,
in the second the state could interfere if the woman's health was at stake,
and in the third it could even forbid abortion, in the interests of the future
child. In Doe v. Bolton, the Court ruled that the consent of the woman's
husband or parents was not needed. Cumulatively these rulings went further
towards the legalisation of abortion than Britain's 1967 Act. Yet their
sequel has been disappointing. Under pressure from the vehement anti-
abortion lobby, both the Supreme Court and Congress have modified the
original legal guidelines. This has only reinforced the inadequacy of their
implementation.
One reason for the success of the campaign to legalise abortion was that,
to begin with, opposition was divided and disorganised. But, as in Britain,
this very success provoked a backlash. Although the Roman Catholic
religious hierarchy provides much of the leadership for the anti-abortion
movement, Hayler suggests that its supporters are as distinguished by the
degree of their religious commitment and by their generally conservative
approach to political and moral questions, as by any particular religious
denomination (Hayler, 1979). Emergence of the anti-abortion lobby
paralleled and overlapped that of the New Right, that is, the shift to radical
right politics and moral conservatism, discernible in America, particularly
the mid-West and South, from the mid-1970s. This shift combined popular
reaction to the liberalism of the 1960s with effective organisation by a

network of overlapping right-wing and often religious groupings. In fact,
one commentator argues that, by 1981, opposition to abortion had become
'the New Right's Number One Priority' (StClair, 1981, p. 32).
There are two main anti-abortion organisations. Most influential is the
National Right to Life Committee, which is heavily subsidised by the
Roman Catholic Church, and by June 1977 claimed an active membership
of eleven million, organised in 3,000 local chapters (Palley, 1979). It has
shown even less readiness to compromise than SPUC, and has similarly
concentrated its efforts on mobilising grass-roots public opinion. Members
of national and state legislatures have been inundated with letters from their
constituencies. During the 1980 national elections, Right to Life even
identified a 'hit-list' of Congressmen. The other organisation, March for
Life, is smaller and more militant (Francome, 1980).
Opposition to abortion was already sufficiently vocal to persuade
Congress to pass, in 1976, the 'Hyde Amendment' to an Appropriations
Bill. This proscribed the use of federal funds to provide abortions for poor
women, within the Medicaid programme, unless they were deemed
medically necessary. In 1977, the Supreme Court further ruled, by six votes
to three, that the states were not obliged to pay Medicaid benefits for 'non-
therapeutic' abortions. The result was considerably to reduce the
availability of legal abortion for working-class and black women.
According to Hayler, 'federally funded abortions for low-income women
dropped from an estimated 250,000 annually to about 2,400 in 1978'
(Hayter, 1979, p. 320). A report published by the Planned Parenthood
Federation of America, shortly after the 1977 Supreme Court ruling,
showed that publicly financed abortions had been abolished in more than
twenty states. Only in fourteen, including the great metropolitan regions,
were they easily obtained, indeed possibly more easily than in Britain
(Palley, 1979). As a final blow, in May 1981, Congress removed the
exemption from the provisions of the Hyde Amendment of victims of rape
or incest.
But the issue of abortion reform is not resolved; as Francome writes 'the
one certainty seems to be that the conflict over abortion will continue for
many years' (Francome, 1980, p. 621). Right to Life originally sought an
Amendment to the Constitution. The most extreme version, sponsored by
Senator Jesse Helms, claimed the 'paramount right to life', beginning, even
before conception, with fertilisation. However, as the history of the Equal
Rights Amendment will show, constitutional amendment is a daunting
process. So the anti-abortionists are now looking for ways of overturning
the legalisation of abortion, through Congress. In the summer of 1981, a
Senate Sub-Committee approved a 'human life statute' which not only
protects the rights of the foetus, but denies federal courts authority to strike
down state abortion laws they deem unconstitutional. Another Bill, for a
Family Protection Act, would withhold abortion rights from women under
18 except with their parents' consent.
Though these initiatives, and the predominance in President Reagan's
government of pro-life advisers, are hardly auspicious, they have in turn
triggered new exertions by the pro-abortion lobby. NARAL now works
with a wide spectrum of groups, including NOW and the NWPC. It is
noteworthy that during the sub-committee hearings on the proposed
human life statute, all the main medical bodies and most importantly the
AMA, were united in their opposition. Constitutionalists too were unhappy
about attempts to curb the Supreme Court's jurisdiction (StClair, 1981).
Abortion reform: some comparisons
In comparing the British and American experience it is clear firstly that the
pro-abortion movements operate within quite different governmental
frameworks. In Britain the appropriate focus of pressure activity was
obvious - Parliament - though within it, the House of Lords played a
valuable 'incubatory' role. What really mattered was the climate of
Parliamentary opinion. In the United States, a number of points for
pressure were possible: state legislatures, Congress, the courts. When one of
these was favourable, for instance the New York State legislature or the
Supreme Court, it could be used to take the fight further. But in the longer
run, this decentralisation of authority placed great obstacles in the way of
significantly changing national policy on any other basis than 'creeping
consensus'.
In the second place, party politics play less part in the American than in
the British legislative process. Abortion is not strictly a party political issue
even in Britain; no party whip has officially been imposed. Consequently
MPs have been more open than usual to extra-Parliamentary lobbying and
especially pressures from their constituencies. Even so, MPs' voting
accorded closely with their party membership, there was a strong
'unofficial' whip in the PLP and the Labour Government gave Steel's Bill
extra time. In America, abortion has been much less a party political
matter, and Congressmen and state legislators correspondingly more
susceptible to extraneous political pressures.
Both in Britain and in the United States, implementation of legal changes
has posed separate problems. However, these have been most acute in the
United States. There, continuing questioning of the need for public
expenditure on social facilities combines with the doctrine of 'States'
Rights', which was enjoying a mild revival in the 1970s and permits
individual states enormous discretion in matters of social policy.
The process of abortion reform in Britain and the United States can be
compared with events in Italy, where the Roman Catholic Church exercises
enormous influence over social policy. Italy's abortion law was not
reformed until 1978, though on paper the reform was more far-reaching
than Britain's. The conflict has been relatively polarised as in the United
States, but the pro-abortion lobby has worked with the Left as in Britain,
and the Italian medical profession seems to have been much more resistant
to pro-abortion arguments than in either Britain or the United States.
Italy's 1931 Penal Code made abortion punishable by imprisonment. The
same Code, untill971, forbade the sale or advertisement of contraceptives.
In these circumstances, and given ignorance or religiously inspired
disapproval of other forms of birth control, illegal abortions became in
practice the main resort. They were variously reckoned to run at the rate of
800,000 to three million a year! Abortion was an obvious and urgent issue
for second wave feminism. In turn, radical feminists influenced existing
moderate feminist groups and women's sections in the political parties of
the Left.
As we have seen, the Church's line on abortion has been
uncompromising. Its 'statements on sexuality and the family represent the
most significant proportion of its public statements to the faithful. It is a
central doctrinal area and one through which the Church is intent on
reinforcing and extending its control' (Caldwell, 1981, p. 51). In Italy, the
Roman Catholic Church exercises political influence in a number of ways.
The first is through the party system. Since 1948, the (Catholic) Christian
Democrats have been in power. The major opposition party, the
Communists (PCI), long before this link became explicit in the famous
'historic compromise' of 1973, had learned to respect Catholic interests.
Until the 1970s, all the political parties feared to challenge the Church on a
matter over which it claimed sole jurisdiction. Secondly, the Church itself
runs a wide range of community services at local level. This has hindered the
development of a secular welfare state and provides a valuable means of
reinforcing traditional Catholic values. Caldwell also suggests that the
Church, directly, or indirectly through Christian Democracy, has had a
financial interest in many of the private abortion clinics patronised by the
rich to get round legal restrictions, especially in Rome (ibid., p. 51).
There were two Bills in the early 1970s, to legalise therapeutic abortions
only, which did not even reach discussion stage. However attitudes were
changing within the Socialist Party (PSI) and the civil-libertarian Radical
Party, though not yet in the PCI. The year 1973 saw three new initiatives:
the Constitutional Court was asked to reinterpret the law, collection began
of the half million signatures needed for a referendum and a socialist deputy
introduced a Bill to legalise abortion. Its provisions were extremely limited
but still provoked the condemnation of the Council of Italian Bishops. At
the same time, while more 'reformist' feminists worked within or with
parties of the Left and the trade unions, the radical feminists set up their
own 'self-help' abortion services, many of them influenced by the example

of France's MLAC.
By 1975 the political parties were forced to recognise that the abortion
issue would not go away. The requisite number of signatures for a
referendum had been collected. The Constitutional Court had ruled that
therapeutic abortions were legal. With the General Elections of 1976, which
increased the representation of the PCI, a pro-abortion majority prevailed
in the lower House. The Bill that it approved in January 1977 was none the
less delayed for six months by the more conserv~tive Senate and further
delayed by a series of amendments tabled by the Christian Democrats.
The new law, passed in June 1978, allows women over 18, with minimal
procedural difficulty, to obtain an abortion during the first three months of
pregnancy. As such it is 'one of the most advanced in West Europe' (ibid.,
p. 49). In 1979, according to official records, 188,000 legal abortions were
performed. Implementation has, even so, been hindered first by the failure
to provide the family planning clinics envisaged in the Bill, second by the
inadequate facilities in hospitals and third by inclusion of a clause
exempting doctors, a high proportion of whom in Italy are Roman
Catholics, on conscience grounds, from the obligation to perform
abortions. In 1979, after a campaign by the Church, 72 per cent of Italy's
doctors were claiming this exemption.
The impact of the Catholic Church in Italy has been both to delay and to
polarise conflict over abortion. It could not ultimately prevent abortion law
reform, and a national referendum in 1981 showed 68 per cent of voters in
favour of the new abortion law. But that referendum itself included
another, albeit unsuccessful, resolution to restrict the law, proposed by the
Roman Catholic Movement for Life, formed in the backlash to the reform
campaign (The Guardian, 19 May 1981). And the Church has been able to
hamper implementation of the reform, through its central role in health
service provision and its influence upon doctors' attitudes.
Equal rights policy-making
Campaigning for equal rights, particularly for equal employment rights

and, in the United States, around the Equal Rights Amendment, has been
another major area of feminist activity in Britain and the United States. At
the same time it offers a number of striking contrasts to abortion reform.
Feminists have been less agreed on its importance and it has been less
universally a priority of national feminist campaigns. On the other hand,
there has been little opposition to legislation for equal economic rights from
the late 1960s onwards (excluding the more broadly couched Equal Rights
Amendment) where this has been pursued with determination. The real
difficulties have come in the implementation stage, difficulties so severe as

to raise doubts as to the value of the whole exercise.
Equal rights feminism was a vital component of the nineteenth-century
movement; its waning in many ways constituted the lull that followed. With
second wave feminism, the campaign for equal rights revived, especially in
the United States. Through organisations like NOW it has arguably
developed into a more far-reaching demand for genuine equality of
opportunity. It is none the less equated by revolutionary feminists with a
suspect reformism. With some justification they see it as primarily serving
the interests of already privileged professional women. They accuse it of
using the rhetoric and political mechanisms of liberal-democracy, so
helping to shore up the system. Elshtain, for instance, writes:
A problem rarely considered by the equal opportunity feminists is the

manner in which individual women and blacks are incorporated within
the system and whether such piecemeal inclusion of individuals from
previously excluded groups then implicates these individuals (barring
other forms of social reconstruction) in institutionalised class, sex and
race inequality and thus serves to further legitimise the notion of merit as
the basis for inequality of respect and treatment. (Elshtain, 1975, p. 469.)
Radical feminists in any case prefer to pursue issues that raise the physical
basis of women's oppression. Socialist feminists have been more prepared
to campaign for equal pay and the advancement of women in trade unions,
so long as these are understood as transitional objectives (see, for instance,
Rowbotham, 1973, pp. 100-1). Though more revolutionary forms of
feminism have helped to make acceptable the comparatively moderate
demands of equal rights feminism, their direct support has been qualified.
Nor have all reformist feminists been in favour of an equal rights
strategy. In the previous chapter we saw that those whom Banks describes
as welfare feminists opposed in particular the campaign for an Equal Rights
Amendment, because it would undermine protective legislation they
believed vital to the interests of (potential) mothers and working-class
women. The League of Women Voters continued to oppose the ERA until
1972, though by now it is endorsed by virtually all the reformist American
feminist organisations (Boles, 1979). In Britain, too, many women trade
unionists have continued to favour protective legislation.
The pursuit of equality of economic opportunity led in the 1970s to
demands for positive discrimination, over some transitional period, in
favour of women. Proposals ranged from exhortation and encouragement,
through 'affirmative action programmes', to quota systems (allocating a
fixed proportion of posts or benefits to women) and preferential hiring
(selecting a woman applicant if she is as well qualified as any others or, in
some cases, even if she is not quite so well-qualified in other respects as the
best-qualified applicant). Advocates of positive discrimination justify it

either as compensation for past injustice to women, individually or as a
group, or as necessary for the achievement of a future equal society
(Thalberg, 1976). But again not all reformist feminists approve of positive
discrimination. From a classical equal rights position some argue that it is
unfair to men. They also question its effectiveness as a strategy, pointing
out that it may lower the credibility of women who benefit from it (see, for
instance, Segers, 1979, pp. 336-7).
If the contemporary women's movement remains divided on the question
of equal rights, by the same token feminists in different countries vary in
the emphasis they accord the issue. The campaign for equal rights has been
most lively in the United States. In Britain, legislation for equal pay and
against sex discrimination owes less to organised feminism, though groups
like Rights of Women and the Rights for Women Unit of the National
Council for Civil Liberties have been founded to defend and build upon it.
Equal rights feminism appears subdued in France and Germany, and only
recently has second wave Italian feminism turned its attention to women's
economic opportunities.
Yet explicit opposition to demands for equal pay and employment
opportunities has in no way matched the vehemence of reaction to abortion
reform. This is again because of the kind of issue it is. It is firstly perceived
as and couched in terms of equality of opportunity that have become central
to the philosophy of liberal capitalism. Though feminists similarly advocate
abortion reform on grounds of individual rights, they are countered by the
moral principle of the right to life. No such effective counter-principle can
be mobilised against equal economic opportunity. Secondly, although the
issue is implicitly redistributive in that it ultimately requires transfer of
resources from men to women, its effects are disaggregated. Both unions
and employers' organisations will be involved in the decision process, but it
is individual firms and workers who eventually pay for it. Legislators
therefore will not necessarily be under pressure from either business or
labour to resist legislation for equal economic rights which they themselves
publicly support.
Resistance comes instead when attempts are made to implement such
measures, in so far as they are seen to threaten the interests of the male
workforce. Without constant feminist pressure, implementation agencies
remain under-resourced and overly cautious. Local unions and individual
employers are reluctant to co-operate. Women are inadequately informed
of their rights, or simply afraid to come forward. Still more fundamental
obstacles are the widespread and entrenched segregation of women's jobs
and women's continuing domestic responsibilities. Economic recession
serves to exacerbate these already formidable obstacles.
Equal pay and employment opportunities in Britain
In Britain, we have seen, the demand for equal pay legislation dates back a
long time. Indeed, as Banks writes, 'within the women's trade union
movement ... the fight for equal pay was never really abandoned' (Banks,
1981, p. 177). With the decision to phase it in within the non-industrial
public sector by 1963, pressure from outside Parliament abated somewhat.
In 1964, however, the Labour Party's manifesto committed a future Labour
Government to equal pay for equal work. Duly elected, the Labour
Government consulted with the CBI and the TUC, before in 1969 Barbara
Castle announced legislation for equal pay to take effect after five years, in
1975.
The Government's Bill went through Parliament with remarkably little
difficulty. This is because it was in line with Conservative Party thinking;
Robert Carr welcomed it for the Opposition. No important amendments
arose from the committee stage. However, attendance at parliamentary
debates was sparse, in contrast to the high turnout at recent debates on the
abortion issue.
The Act required that women receive equal pay with men in comparable
or equivalent occupations, with various significant exceptions. Individuals
should complain initially to representatives of the Advisory, Conciliation
and Arbitration Services (ACAS), then to Industrial Tribunals, and in the
last instance to Employment Appeal Tribunals, all of these bodies being
part of existing industrial relations machinery.
One of the few major criticisms made in Parliament of the Equal Pay Act
was ti.at it did not go far enough; its provisions could easily be avoided so
long as discrimination was allowed in other aspects of employment. In some
ways therefore the Sex Discrimination Act was the logical corollary of the
Equal Pay Act. Though the first Private Member's Bill on sex
discrimination was only introduced by Joyce Butler in 1967, Private
Members' Bills submitted in each of the succeeding four years attracted
growing support. The last of these, introduced in 1972 by Willie Hamilton,
was the basis for a Bill placed by Baroness Seear before the House of
Lords. It was there referred to a Select Committee empowered to call for
evidence of sex discrimination and for advice on effective legislative
counter-measures. In 1973 the House of Commons also established a Select
Committee to examine this Bill. In that same year, the Conservative
Government announced it would bring in its own legislative proposals,
including the creation of an Equal Opportunities Commission, which would
however be restricted to a largely advisory role.
In February 1974 a new Labour Government was elected which produced
its own, more radical, White Paper. Following the October 1974 General
Election, the Labour Government introduced a Bill, which went even
further than the White Paper, to include 'indirect' discrimination. Again
there was minimal opposition in principle to the proposals - two notable

exceptions being the (then) Conservative MPs, Ronald Bell and Enoch
Powell - and amendments to the Bill arising from Committee or adopted in
the Report Stage were a matter of detail only.
The Sex Discrimination Act aimed to eliminate sex discrimination in
employment, but also education, housing and goods, facilities and services,
areas largely excluded from the Conservative proposals. It defined as
'unlawful' not only 'direct' discrimination, when an individual is unfairly
treated on grounds of sex, but 'indirect' discrimination, when a substantial
proportion of one sex do not conform to a criterion for treatment which
is strictly irrelevant, and also victimisation of anyone appealing against
discrimination under the Act. Specifically in the field of employment, the
Act covered recruitment, promotion and training in an establishment
employing more than five workers, with certain exemptions. It provided for
appeal by individuals to Industrial Tribunals or County Courts, but also
established the Equal Opportunities Commission, with far-reaching powers
to investigate and, through the courts, correct infringements of the Equal
Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act, on behalf of outside groups or on
its own initiative. It would also advise individual complainants.
If, at the beginning of the 1960s, equal pay was hardly a burning issue
and sex discrimination was not on the political agenda at all, how can we
explain the transformation of attitudes that secured such easy passage of
both Acts in the 1970s? One element was the direct, and indirect, impact of
extra-parliamentary groups. The TUC pressed for equal pay legislation all
through the 1960s. In part this reflected steady pressure from militant
women trade unionists and the growth of union membership among
women; it was primarily due, however, to the unions' continuing concern to
prevent the wages of women workers from undercutting men's. Though
second wave feminism emerged too late to influence equal pay, it
undoubtedly contributed indirectly to the change in political attitudes in the
early 1970s. Specific women's organisations, such as the National Joint
Council of Women Workers' Organisations, lobbied Parliament and
provided the House of Lords Select Committee with valuable evidence.
Rendel even suggests that their 'effective public demonstrations', especially
those of Women in Media, forced the Conservative Government, as a
'rearguard defence', to submit its own proposals in 1973, but this probably
exaggerates Conservative opposition to sex discrimination legislation in the
first place (Rendel, 1978, p. 900).
It can be argued that the extra-parliamentary lobby was, however,
relatively weak and that what mattered was MPs' willingness to pay it
attention. The change in MPs' attitudes can, as with abortion, be partly
attributed to the new climate of 'social reformism' in the House. They were
also specifically affected by the new wave of feminism as diffused via
public, and elite, opinion. Vallance is inclined to play down the role of
individual women MPs. Certainly they did not rally so single-mindedly to
this cause as to defend the Abortion Act. She even suggests that some of
them cynically perceived the legislative proposals in 1975 as a hollow gesture
towards International Women's Year (Vallance, 1979, p. 41). Even so,
longer-standing advocates of women's rights, such as Dame Irene Ward and
Renee Short, joined forces with newer members like Jo Richardson,
Maureen Colquhoun and Sally Oppenheim to maintain the pressure within
Parliament for sex discrimination legislation.
Two further considerations weighed with Parliament, or at least the
Government. The first was the perceived need to comply with ILO and EEC
provisions. One additional reason for TUC pressure for Equal Pay
legislation was that otherwise it could not ratify Convention 110 of the
International Labour Organisation accords. More urgently, both Labour
and Conservative Governments were committed to British entry to the
Common Market. The Treaty of Rome incorporated the principle of equal
pay, and EEC Directives in 1975 and 1976 required member states to report
on measures they had taken to promote equal pay and other aspects of job
equality. These EEC pronouncements without doubt helped spur the
Government to action.
The second consideration, in the shaping of sex discrimination policy,
was the issue of racial discrimination. Not only did those who framed the
Sex Discrimination Act draw upon British, and also American, experience
of race relations legislation. It has also been further suggested that in the
Labour Government formed in February 1974, Roy Jenkins as Home
Secretary intended to use sex discrimination legislation as a model for
revising existing race relations machinery (Byrne and Lovenduski, 1978).
This is one reason why the Labour Government's White Paper was more
radical than either EEC requirements or the Conservative Party's proposals
of 1973.
In view of the speed and consensus characterising passage of the two
Acts, their implementation has been a distinct anti-climax. As one very
recent study concludes, 'There are no notable signs that deeply entrenched
patterns of discrimination, which serve to perpetuate job segregation and
unequal pay, have been disturbed by the new laws' (Robarts, 1981, p. 10).
The Equal Pay Act, at least initially, had more impact than the Sex
Discrimination Act. One appraisal of their implementation in 1979 argued
that, even taking account of the equalising effect of inflation, a sizeable
reduction in sex pay differentials, especially among blue-collar workers,
must be attributed to the Equal Pay Act (Snell, 1979). Subsequently the
differentials began to widen anew, so that the EOC's Annual Report for
1980 showed that in the previous year female employees' average hourly
earnings were 73 per cent of men's, an actual drop from the peak of 75 per
cent achieved in 1977. The Report concluded that 'since 1977 improvements
in women's earnings as a result of Equal Pay legislation have ceased' (EOC,
1981, p. 70). It is less easy to measure improvements due to the Sex
Discrimination Act. But in general commentators seem agreed that both the
number and the outcome of cases brought under it have been disappointing.
Indeed, applications made under the Act fell from 243 in 1976 to 178 in
1979 (Robarts, 1981, p. 10).
One part of the explanation for these unsatisfactory results lies in the way
the Acts were framed. They are firstly limited in their coverage: there are a
number of important exemptions, complaints can only be brought by and
on behalf of individuals, the burden of proof is on the complainant rather
than the alleged discriminator, and no legal aid is available for tribunal
cases. In addition it is not always clear which of the two Acts apply. Finally,
under the Equal Pay Act, it is often difficult to demonstrate the
comparability of women's work.
There have been further weaknesses in the implementing machinery. The
Industrial Tribunals, already overloaded with other work, have been
reasonably helpful in equal pay cases, but have often seemed unsympathetic
or, as Meehan phrases it, not 'at home with' cases brought under the Sex
Discrimination Act (Meehan, 1982, p. 15). Implementation of the Sex
Discrimination Act pivots even more on the role of the EOC which, until
recently, has been widely criticised for its excessive caution. Initially this
was due to its inundation with queries from individual complainants which
it was statutorily obliged to answer. Its budget has also been inadequate.
But it has been mainly hampered by the attitudes of its fifteen
Commissioners, appointed by the Government to represent the civil service,
business and labour, as is customary with such bodies, and of whom it was
stated in 1978, 'few if any can be said to have a professional interest in the
feminist cause and none . . . took a leading part in sponsoring the
legislation' (Byrne and Lovenduski, 1978, p. 162).
In addition, and partly because of these preceding weaknesses, there has
been continuing ignorance of this legislation, especially amongst trade
unions and women employees themselves. Moreover many employers have
found ways to get round the Acts, such as segregating women's work, while
would-be women claimants have often received little assistance by their
unions, particularly at shop floor level. The economic recession has hardly
helped; to quote the EOC, 'It can fairly be said that in the entire post-war
era, there has not been a five-year period more unhelpful and less propitious
in which to embark on the task of promoting equal opportunities for
women' (EOC, 1981, p. 1). DoE figures in 1981 showed that since 1976
approximately nine women had lost their jobs for every five men (The
Guardian, 7 September 1981).
By the end of 1981 prospects for equal employment opportunities were
hardly rosy. As a result of Conservative Government cuts, the EOC had
been obliged to reduce its staff from 400 to 148 (The Guardian, 10 July
1980). On the other hand, partly because of disappointment with what had
been achieved under the Acts and the threat to women's employment posed
by the recession, there were signs of renewed militancy and a search for
more effective approaches to equal employment opportunities in a number
of feminist organisations. The EOC itself, following changes in its
membership to include feminists like Ann Robinson and Sandra Brown,
was taking a more aggressive stance. For instance, it urged the need for
radical changes in the Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination Acts (EOC, 1981,
p. 39).
New possibilities of using the provisions of the Treaty of Rome, and
subsequent EEC directives, to over-ride British law are also being explored.
The British Equal Pay Act only requires equal pay for the same or
comparable work, a criterion often difficult to satisfy. A potentially
broader requirement is provided by the Treaty of Rome's 'equal pay for
equal work'. In March 1980, Wendy Smith won an appeal to the European
Court of Justice for her claim for pay equal to that earned by the man who
had held her job before her, where the implications of the British Act had
been insufficiently clear. This is regarded as something of a milestone. The
EEC's Equal Pay Directive of 1975 goes further, to stipulate equal pay for
work of equal value, one of the changes to the British law sought by the
EOC. Now the question is whether this Directive can also be invoked to
extend women's rights to equal pay in Britain (Rights of Women Europe
Group, 1980).
Another line of advance, recommended by the NCCL's Rights for
Women Unit, is the development of 'affirmative action' programmes. This
proposal is strongly influenced by experience in the United States, where as
we shall see such programmes have multiplied and achieved some
undoubted successes. In Britain such a scheme would be particularly
dependent on the co-operation of the unions (Robarts, 1981). A promising
move in this direction is the TUC's endorsement, at its 1981 Conference, of
proposals submitted by the Women's Conference for a Positive Action
Programme.
Equal pay and employment opportunities in the United States
If over the last decade the development of abortion policy has seemed more
promising in Britain than in the United States, in the area of equal pay and
employment opportunity it has been the other way round. Legislation was
secured earlier and at least as easily as in Britain. Implementation, in the
sense of actions taken to apply the legislation, has been more vigorous,
although it is difficult to estimate the ultimate effects on women's lives.
The first national Equal Pay Act in America was passed in 1963, with
minimal dissension. Equal pay had been one issue in which equal rights and
welfare feminists could agree since the 1920s. At least since the Second
World War, many unions had added their pressure, to prevent women's
wages from undercutting men's. Employers, as represented by the National

Association of Manufacturers, had earlier resisted equal pay but by 1963
accepted it in principle. Indeed a number of states had already passed their
own Equal Pay Acts.
The Act prescribed 'equal pay for equal work', a somewhat broader
criterion than in the later British legislation. As in Britain, significant
exceptions were admitted; most notably, since it was passed as an
amendment to the Fair Labour Standard Act, it was restricted to the 61 per
cent of wage and salary earners covered by that Act, until a further
amendment in 1972. On the other hand, it provided anonymity to
complainants and was to be administered by the Wages and Hours Division
of the Department of Labor.
As already noted, the Equal Pay Act is generally reckoned, in its own
terms, a success. The Department of Labor has been vigilant for violations
of the Act, speedy in handling cases and ready whenever necessary to take
legal action. The courts in turn have interpreted the Act generously. Despite
this impressive record, however, after eight years the median rate of
women's pay in comparison with men's remained at 70 per cent, indicating
in part the limitations of an equal pay policy on its own without an effective
employment opportunity policy to back it up. Another eight years on, it had
only increased to 72 per cent.
If equal pay was the beneficiary of labour politics, equal opportunity
began as a by-product of race relations. Though the President's
Commission on the Status of Women was beginning to highlight sex
inequalities, the addition of the criterion of 'sex' to Title 7 of the Civil
Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination in employment, was not the
culmination of any specific feminist campaign. In fact, the welfare
feminists of the Women's Bureau opposed it. According to Robinson,
'Credit for inserting "sex" into Title 7 must be shared between Martha
Griffiths and Howard W. Smith, a strange collaboration of shrewd
legislators' (Robinson, 1979, p. 415). Smith, who proposed the addition,
was a 'Dixiecrat' and hoped thereby to divide the Bill's supporters.
Griffiths, with the near unanimous support of other Congresswomen,
seized the opportunity to get the amended Title 7 through the House. It also
survived the Senate; Robinson suggests that opponents of the Civil Rights
Act 'by broadening the law's focus hoped to weaken its effects for blacks',
while civil rights advocates, though viewing the inclusion of 'sex' as a
distraction from the Bill's real purpose, feared the loss of momentum that
could result from resisting it, and hoped that in the implementation stage
the 'sex' provision 'could safely be swallowed' (ibid., p. 419). The
implications of the Bill for women were thus little discussed in Congress,
and then as a subject of much mirth.
Though women were able to ride on the coat-tails of civil rights
legislation, they also suffered from its limitations, the result of the deep-
rooted opposition to it within Congress. Title 7's coverage excluded

employment in local government and in education. It established an Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission that actually had fewer formal
powers than the British EOC for which it was later to be the model. By the
time Congress had modified the Kennedy administration's original
proposals, the Commission even Jacked enforcement powers.
At the outset, the inclusion of 'sex' in Title 7 was accompanied by
minimal political interest. Only one of the five EEOC Commissioners first
appointed was a woman, a black who resigned after a year because of the
Commission's Jack of interest in helping women. In addition, the
Commission was rapidly overloaded with work and inadequately funded.
Yet Title 7 paved the way for major policy advances in equal employment
opportunities for women.
The fundamental reason for these policy advances was the emergence and
organisation of the women's liberation movement. Feminists working
within the Commission encouraged women to bring their complaints to it,
constituting already 25 per cent of aH complaints in the first year. Freeman
suggests that they also privately encouraged the organisation of the feminist
lobby, the beginnings of NOW (Freeman, 1975). As the women's movement
gained in strength and influence, Commissioners more acceptable to it were
appointed. The Commission investigated and publicised women's
employment rights, which had hitherto received little attention. 'Gradually,
between 1968 and 1971, the Commissioners converted Title 7 into a magna
carta for female workers, grafting to it a set of rules and regulations that
certainly could not have passed Congress in 1964, and perhaps not a decade
later, either' (Robinson, 1979, p. 427). In addition to issuing rigorous
Guidelines against Sex Discrimination in 1969, that same year it ruled that
Jaws 'protecting' women from certain kinds of employment contradicted
Title 7, and by 1970 it was defending the right to maternity leave.
But given the growing leverage of feminism, advances were also assisted
by the expansion of federal policies to promote equal opportunities for
blacks, both because the EEOC was given enforcement powers in 1972, and
because these policies were precedents that could then be applied to women.
In 1965 President Johnson, alarmed at worsening race relations, called, in
Executive Order 11246, for the establishment of an Office of Federal
Contract Compliance, whose task was to ensure that all federal contracts
not only forbade racial discrimination but included a pledge of affirmative
action to promote equal opportunities. In 1967, prompted by the new
Interdepartmental Committee on the Status of Women which had itself
been lobbied by a number of feminist organisations, the Federal
Government, in Executive Order 11375, extended these terms to cover sex
discrimination. Not only did this Order, in this way, encourage equal
opportunity for women in private employment, it extended the same
conditions to women at all levels of federal employment. This was
strengthened, in 1969, by a further Executive Order which spelled out what

the new Federal Women's Programme of affirmative action should entail.
Under affirmative action programmes, the employer is now required, first,
to produce an equal opportunity policy statement, and then to appoint
someone to direct an affirmative action plan, which includes identifying
'under-utilised' sources of recruitment and setting time-tabled goals for
future recruitment of women. Next, the employer has to decide what
changes in employment practices are needed to achieve those goals, and
lastly to institute a system for monitoring progress; if all this is done, the
employer is reckoned to show 'good faith'. Finally in 1972, a year when
Congress passed a bumper harvest of measures favourable to women, the
combined pressure of the women's movement and the Civil Rights move-
ment procured not only greater enforcement powers for the EEOC but
expansion of Title 7 to cover employment in local government, education
and unions.
The third factor was the generally sympathetic attitude of the courts. A
series of claims pursued under Title 7 were upheld by appellate courts. In
the first such case to reach the Supreme Court, in 1971, the Court ruled that
the refusal to hire women with pre-school children contradicted the
requirement of the Civil Rights Act 'that persons of like qualification be
given employment opportunities irrespective of their sex'. A particularly
contentious aspect of affirmative action programmes has been the setting of
quotas for 'minority' groups. In the famous Bakke case, of 1978, the
Supreme Court upheld the claim of a white American engineer against the
university which had refused him a place while admitting less qualified
black students, if only by five votes to four. Yet a year later, in July 1979, in
Kaiser Aluminium v. Weber, the Court supported a voluntary quota
scheme.
It is difficult to gauge the precise consequences of these various
initiatives. Even once the EEOC had accepted that half its energies should
be directed to equal employment opportunities for women, and then
acquired powers of enforcement, its work was impeded by the tremendous
backlog of cases. None the less in January 1973 it concluded perhaps its
most successful case, against the largest corporation in the world, the
American Telephone and Telegram Corporation, as a result of which $15
million was distributed in compensation for discriminatory practices
amongst 13,000 female employees, and an affirmative action programme
was introduced. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance was initially
hampered by its dependence for actual implementation on eighteen
different government agencies. From 1970, under pressure from the
feminist organisation WEAL (Women's Equality Action League: see p.
149), it gradually took steps to apply Executive Order 11375 to employment
in higher education. Both Murphy and Freeman were sceptical by the mid-
1970s as to what had been achieved by the Federal Women's Programme
(Murphy, 1973; Freeman, 1975). Certainly, between 1969 and 1975 there
was minimal change in either the overall numbers of women in white-collar
federal employment or their representation within senior service grades.
Many feminists are cynical about the results of all these schemes, arguing
that affirmative action is ineffectual, unless it includes quota systems or
preferential hiring. They can point out that the pattern of women's
employment over the last ten years has only marginally improved, as in
Britain. Given growing unemployment, the Supreme Court's ruling in 1977
that 'a bona fide seniority plan does not infringe Title 7 is inauspicious. It
leaves recently hired women ... in a precarious position if lay-offs are
forced by a sluggish economy' (Sachs and Wilson, 1978, p. 215). Yet in
particular 'very real benefits have accrued to women directly affected by the
affirmative action programmes' (Robarts, 1981, p. 4). Moreover, in 1980
Meehan suggested there was much greater public acceptance of the
legitimacy of women's claim to equal employment opportunities in the
United States than in Britain: 'Employers vie with each other, in public at
least, over their equal opportunity policies' (Meehan, 1982, p. 14).
The Equal Rights Amendment
If the prospects for equal employment opportunities in the United States are
at best equivocal, the Equal Rights Amendment appears to be in serious
trouble. Though the two issues are being considered together here, they are
somewhat different. The ERA is a much broader civil rights issue and
without specific redistributory implications. On the one hand this increases
its consonance with liberal values, on the other its open-endedness has been
interpreted by its opponents as a threat to traditional American values,
particularly the family. Boles points out that the ERA is also an ali-or-
nothing demand, offering little scope for compromise (Boles, 1979).
As we saw, the ERA proposal was first formulated by the National
Woman's Party. With the achievement of suffrage, the Party conducted a
survey which showed considerable legal discrimination against women,
particularly in the areas of property, child guardianship and divorce
(Banks, 1981, p. 156). It submitted the proposed Equal Rights Amendment
to Congress in 1923 and then every following year until 1971. Although
most feminist organisations including the League of Women Voters, the
Women's Joint Congressional Committee and the Women's Bureau
objected to the Amendment because it seemed to undermine protective
legislation, the National Woman's Party was not entirely alone. By the
1930s it had the support of the influential National Federation of Business
and Professional Women's Clubs (NFBPWC) and the National Association
of Women Lawyers (Banks, 1981, p. 207).
In 1940 the Amendment was endorsed by the Republican Party, and in
1944 the Democratic Party. Already in 1945 it was approved for the first
time by the House of Representatives, but opposition was still too

entrenched for it to proceed further. Though in 1950 and in 1955 it even
passed the Senate this was with the addition of the unacceptable 'Hayden
rider' requiring that the amendment 'shall not be construed to impair any
rights, benefits or exemptions now or hereafter conferred by law, upon
persons of the female sex' (see Freeman, 1975, p. 211). It was the upsurge of
feminism at the end of the 1960s that gave the ERA its real chance.
What is the Equal Rights Amendment and why do its supporters believe it
to be so essential to sexual equality? It is proposed as an amendment to the
American Constitution and was originally worded: 'Men and women shall
have equal rights throughout the United States and everyplace subject to its
jurisdiction.' Since 1943 the wording has been changed to 'Equality of
rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or
by any State on account of sex.'
One obvious advantage of such an Amendment would be its symbolic
force. As Greenberg writes, 'From a moral standpoint, a constitutional
amendment is the highest sanction in our legal system' (Greenberg, 1977,
p. 1). It has become a rallying focus for the new feminist movement, rather
like suffrage was in the nineteenth century, though with the same dangers.
The crucial argument for the ERA is that it would provide a more effective
and uniform basis for establishing women's equal rights in law. Legislative
advance has been slow and shaky. In particular the courts, which have
assumed a central role in interpretation and therefore implementation, have
yet firmly to establish the principle that sex is an irrelevant distinction in
applying the law. The closest they came to setting such a precedent was in
1974 when, in Frontiero v. Richardson, four of the nine Supreme Court
Justices maintained that 'statutory distinctions between the sexes often have
the effect of invidiously relegating the entire class of females to inferior
legal status without regard to the actual capabilities of its individual
members' (cited by Sachs and Wilson, 1978, p. 213).
While there is no nationally established principle of sex equality, and
while the courts are so influential in constructing the law, interpretations of
women's rights vary enormously not only within federal law but from state
to state. For instance some states still exempt women from jury service. In
South Carolina a married woman still has no rights to matrimonial property
during marriage or rights to more than one-third of it if widowed. The
alternatives to an Equal Rights Amendment to deal with this situation are
discussed by Sachs and Wilson (1978). One is to continue to seek favourable
laws and court judgements, a 'piecemeal approach', but, as they comment,
'Piecemeal legislation reform began almost one hundred and fifty years ago
with the Married Women's Property Acts. It could drag on for another one
hundred and fifty and still not achieve full equality for women' (ibid.,
p. 222). Another option is to argue that equality of the sexes before the law is
already implied in an existing clause of the Constitution. The most likely
candidate is the clause in the Fourteenth Amendment providing 'equal

protection' of the laws. But the courts have shown no inclination to
interpret the clause in this way and much legal opinion is in any case against
further manipulation of the Fourteenth Amendment. So neither alternative
seems too promising.
Advocates of the ERA can further cite the advantages that have accrued
to women in the sixteen states which have already passed their own version
of an Equal Rights Amendment. Brown et at., for instance, find that while
the number of cases brought under state ERAs is not yet large, 'the results
on the whole have been very favourable' (Brown et at., 1977, p. 29).
If the feminist arguments for an ERA are persuasive, the procedure for a
O:mstitutional Amendment is daunting. Amendments can be introduced, in
theory, by either Congress or two-thirds of the states, though in practice it
has always been by Congress. Congress must then ratify the proposed
amendment by a two-thirds majority of both Houses, before submitting it
to the states. Three-quarters of the states, or their legislatures, must
approve and although there is no time-limit set down for this process in the
Constitution, convention prescribes seven years. Notwithstanding, it
seemed as the 1970s opened as if nothing could stop the ERA.
An important step in the growth of feminist support for the Amendment
was in 1967 when NOW incorporated it into its programme. This provoked
the withdrawal of NOW's United Auto Workers contingent though they
rejoined two years later. At the same time less militant feminist
organisations were coming round. This is partly because Title 7 of the 1964
Civil Rights Act already by implication invalidated states' protective
legislation. Research was also exposing how state labour laws often
restricted rather than protected women (Freeman, 1975, p. 212). In 1969 the
Women's Bureau, under its new Director, Elizabeth Koontz, declared its
support for the Amendment, an endorsement echoed by both the Citizens'
Advisory Council on the Status of Women, set up by Kennedy in 1963, and
Nixon's Task Force on Women's Rights and Responsibilities, established in
1969. The massive women's strike on 26 August 1970, which
commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment and
demanded an ERA, was a high-point in the unity and effectiveness of the
new feminism.
The House Judicial Committee had been sitting on the amendment
proposal for twenty years. Against this background of swelling feminist
support, Congresswoman Martha Griffiths was finally able to dislodge it.
Specifically, Freeman suggests that she called in a number of favours owed
her by particular Committee Chairmen. She also helped form a National Ad
Hoc Committee for the ERA amongst Congress employees which, together
with the NFBPWC, mounted a formidable lobby of Congress. Once out of
the Judicial Committee, the Amendment had an easy passage in the House,
but the Senate continued to resist.
Meanwhile the ERA campaign steadily gathered momentum. Embracing

radical feminist groups, women in government and more than fifty national
organisations including Common Cause and Americans for Democratic
Action, it lobbied in person and also, according to Freeman, sent some key
Congress members over 1,500 letters a month. In October 1971 the House
again passed the ERA, by an overwhelming majority. In March 1972,
despite the ingenious efforts at obstruction of Senator Sam Ervin in the
Judiciary Committee's Sub-Committee on Constitutional Amendments, the
Senate approved it by eighty-four votes to eight.
Why, after fifty years of neglect, did the ERA suddenly receive such
whole-hearted endorsement from the national legislature? The main reason
was pressure from the women's movement, most of all direct pressure, but
also its indirect influence on the climate of public opinion: polls indicated
by the beginning of the 1970s a majority in favour of extending women's
rights (Boles, 1979). But this pressure had to win over the legislators.
Freeman argues that the ERA appealed to them first because it was 'simple,
straightforward, consonant with traditional American values', did not clash
with partisan loyalties and did not cost anything. Second, the ERA could be
said to fall into the category of civil rights policy-making. On such issues it
has been suggested that the chief influence on Congress members is their
constituencies. Here it is significant that the tremendous lobbying on behalf
of the ERA was not matched by opposing forces, which were taken by
surprise and disunited (Freeman, 1975, p. 216).
The Amendment still required states' approval. Boles finds it remarkable
in view of the extent of support for the ERA in 1972 that states' ratification
was not automatic. Certainly within three months nineteen, and within a
year thirty, states had ratified. But thereafter things slowed down
dramatically. By 1977 only thirty-five of the requisite thirty-eight states had
ratified and three of these have subsequently rescinded their ratification,
though the constitutionality of this action remains in doubt.
Opponents of the ERA reacted swiftly to its passage through Congress.
The most important national organisation has been Stop-ERA (the
National Committee to Stop the ERA) formed late in 1972 and led by Mrs
Phyllis Schafly, a former member of the John Birch Society. Already by the
beginning of 1973 it claimed several thousand members and branches in
twenty-six states, especially in the South and Mid-West. It was assisted by
Jacquie Davidson's Happiness of Women, established in 1971, which,
together with its offshoot, the League of Housewives, reported 10,000
members in all fifty states by the end of 1972 (Boles, 1979). But, the
campaign has always been supported by a number of right-wing
organisations, such as the John Birch Society and the American
Conservative Union; and, like abortion, the ERA has come to be identified
as a target issue by the New Right. Some ERA supporters have suspected
the FBI, insurance companies and the southern textile industries of
financing their opponents, but without providing effective proof. On the

other hand there is no doubt that opposition to the ERA has been
augmented by the amazing letter-writing organisation of Richard Vigurie,
which maintains the names of twenty million potential contributors to right-
wing causes on computer.
None the less, Boles suggests that the opposition has been mounted
primarily at state level, with little national co-ordination. The emphasis of
state campaigns has been on persuading supporters to write to legislators
and on influencing public opinion, rather than directly approaching the
decision-makers. Though some of the arguments employed have been
apparently 'reasonable' - that the Amendment is too vague, unnecessary or
inappropriate, even that this is a matter which individual states should
decide for themselves - much of the opposition's case has been more
unscrupulously emotional. The ERA has been depicted as a threat to family
life and a sanction to homosexual marriage, unisex dormitories for children
and unisex public lavatories. Women's potential eligibility for military
service has also been emphasised.
What kind of women have campaigned against the ERA? Two studies
converge in their finding that such women are typically housewives, less
educated than Amendment supporters, politically conservative and
religious (66 per cent of a Texas sample belonged to a fundamentalist
church). Perhaps most striking is the finding that they have not, usually,
been politically active before. It is the apparent threat to their values that
has stirred them to such (unfeminine?) behaviour (Tedin et at., 1977;
Arrington and Kyle, 1978).
ERA proponents did not immediately grasp the seriousness of the
opposition. The ERA Ratification Council, formed after Congress had
approved the Amendment, was an umbrella coalition with no staff and a
tiny budget. As it became clear that the process of ratification was slowing
down, a new national coalition, ERA-America, was set up, which in
January 1976 took offices in Washington DC. Even so, Boles wrote, 'it has
not had the resources to play the central role envisioned and by 1978 serves
primarily as a steering committee and clearing-house for information on the
Amendment' (Boles, 1979, p. 66). On the other hand all the main national
feminist organisations have supported the campaign. According to
Freeman, when NOW realised in 1978 that ratification would not be
achieved by the 1979 deadline, it decided to give the issue priority (Freeman,
1979, p. 565). Campaigning has been primarily at state level, with more
attention given, than by their opponents, to a detailed exposition of what
the Amendment entails and to dealing directly with the legislators. As at
national level, the state campaign has required coalitions between quite
disparate groups. Indeed, in Georgia there are two separate coalitions, one
conservative, and one radical, with NOW and the WPC caught unhappily
between.
The pro-ERA lobby succeeded in getting the deadline for ratification

deferred to June 1982. But by the beginning of 1982 still only thirty-five
states had ratified, and four had voted against, with those remaining being
primarily hard-core conservative. Although the majority of American
women now recognised the existence of sex discrimination, and 170 national
organisations supported the ERA while only twenty-five had publicly
declared themselves against it, the effective constituency campaign mounted
by Stop-ERA which legislators felt obliged to heed, and the decentralisation
of America's federal system, had conspired to create an impasse.
Abortion and equal opportunity policy-making in Britain and the United

States
How do those policy-making processes in the area of equal employment

opportunity (leaving aside for the moment the ERA which has no strict
counterpart in British experience) compare in Britain and the United States
with those centred on abortion? In each case the process has been shaped by
the context of government and political institutions. As in the abortion
question, pressure for legislation in Britain centred upon Parliament,
though also, through the TUC, directly on Government itself, while in the
United States it focused on state legislatures initially, on Congress, the
Presidency and the courts. At this legislative stage, however, differences in
the two party systems were more significant than for abortion reform. In
Britain equal opportunity was a party political issue in that both
parliamentary parties espoused it, though it was not an object for inter-
party conflict. As a consequence, extra-parliamentary lobbying was much
less important than in the United States.
But differences in institutional context were most crucial in the
elaboration and implementation of policy. One reason for this is that
British policy consciously drew on American precedents, in particular the
EOC was based on the EEOC. Meehan suggests that this institutional
transplant did not 'take' successfully because of two specific differences in
British and American governmental tradition, the role of the judiciary and
the ethos of the bureaucracy. The mechanisms adopted to promote equal
opportunity relied heavily on adjudication. But while the United States
expects its courts to make policy through interpreting the law, in Britain no
such explicit tradition exists. This is one reason why British courts,
including the tribunals, have been more cautious, even half-hearted, in
applying the Acts, especially the Sex Discrimination Act. Two further
features of the American legal system were missing in Britain: the ability of
courts to refer to Congressional debate to clarify the intent behind
legislation and the right to present cases on behalf of a class of individuals,
not just one individual (Meehan, 1982, pp. 14-15).
Secondly, the United States governmental bureaucracy is much more

explicitly 'political' than Britain's. The EEOC, as initially set up, was weak,
yet through the militancy of its client group - the blacks - it became an
innovative force. Most importantly, individual women within it helped to
galvanise an effective women's lobby which then demanded and legitimised
a more aggressive stance on sex equality. The EOC's statutory powers were
greater. But first the initial composition of the Commission reflected
'corporatist' interests with little feminist input. Second, it inherited the
British assumption of a sharp divide between the 'democratically' selected
policy-makers and the 'neutral' staff. Byrne and Lovenduski suggest that
this neutrality may be a defensive response to 'adversarial politics', to the
alternation in power of parties with opposing programmes (Byrne and
Lovenduski, 1978). But Meehan points out that in practice there has been
little difference in the way Labour and Conservative Governments treat the
EOC. As a result of this combination of timid Commissioners and the
expectation of staff neutrality, many staff members who were more
feminist than the Commissioners felt frustrated and turnover rates were
extremely high. But neither staff nor individual Commissioners sought
seriously to mobilise a feminist lobby, preferring to cultivate contacts
within governing bodies.
Another significant difference between the issues of equal employment
opportunity and abortion was in the interests that they activate. The
primary groups mobilised by the abortion issue, other than women
themselves, are the Church and the medical profession. In both Britain and
the United States the main medical associations eventually threw their
weight behind abortion reform, though it is suggested less because of their
belief in women's right to choose than because they resent interference from
whatever quarter in their own professional right to decide (see Shapiro,
1982).
As an ultimately 'redistributory' issue, equal opportunity is of concern to
organised business and labour. The support of labour was vital in both
countries to the passage of equal pay legislation .. By the 1960s, neither
business nor labour organisations at national level opposed the principle of
equal opportunity, but in the United States pressures from business interests
helped to water down the original proposals for Title 7 and the US Chamber
of Commerce later opposed the strengthening of the EEOC. At a more local
level, both business and unions have often been unco-operative in
implementing the legislation in both countries. This reflects the
ambivalence, at best, of the male-dominated unions towards measures that
can only improve women's employment opportunities at the expense of
men's. Though employers in the long run might profit from more
competition within the workforce, in the short run they want to minimise
friction.
In both the United States and Britain, equal pay, and even equal
opportunities, were legislated for without active feminist pressure. Though

there was little danger of outright repeal, feminists had to campaign for
effective implementation. Here, arguably, American feminists have been
more successful than British. In particular, Britain has failed to evolve the
kind of policy network between feminists inside government and women's
organisations outside that has become so conspicuous in the United States
since the mid-l960s. This is partly because of the different administrative
styles of the implementing agencies. But it is also due to the absence of a
substantial contingent of reformist feminists in the British women's
movement.
In equal opportunity policy-making the implementation stage is even
more important than for abortion reform. No doubt the legislation on its
own has some educational and legitimising effect, but without effective
implementation it may simply reinforce women workers' general cynicism.
In both countries legislators have underwritten the principle of equal
opportunity largely because it costs them nothing and accords with the
dominant political ideology. They have also tacitly recognised vested
economic interests by leaving implementation with agencies that have each,
initially and in their different ways, been severely handicapped. The
difference between the two countries has perhaps depended on what
politically active feminists could salvage.
While part of the conclusion of this chapter must be that feminism in the
1970s has extracted real and valuable resources from the policy-makers, the
process has been slow and arduous. Signs of success have mobilised
powerful opponents. And the gains made have been peculiarly vulnerable to
economic recession. This raises the question of whether it is worth pursuing
such reformist policies, which is one of the issues to be taken up in the
Conclusion.
Conclusion
This book has made no claim to offer a single, unified interpretation of the
relationship between women and politics. Its primary aim has been rather to
introduce readers to this complex and often emotive question, and to the
wide-ranging debate that surrounds it. All the same, some interim
conclusions have emerged.
I suggested initially that political science and feminism can learn from
each other. First, we have seen some of the ways in which political science
can learn from feminism. This is not to say that feminism itself is a single,
coherent and comprehensive world-view, or even that it has the potential to
become one. But the various perceptions that feed into it can supplement,
even correct for, the male bias, and its conceptual consequences, of
traditional political science.
Political science has been obliged to pay more attention to the role of
women in public politics. The facile stereotypes of women's participation in
grass-roots politics have been modified, and in some instances confounded.
Women, it turns out, do not necessarily vote at lower rates than men,
particularly when account is taken of such intervening variables as age and
education. Sex differences in participation rates for other forms of
conventional politics, though still apparent, are not immutable but tend to
narrow over time and are in many respects negligible in the United States.
Moreover women play a significant, if unquantified, part in less
conventional political activities: 'ad hoc' actions, 'community action' from
the late 1960s, revolutionary, nationalist and even 'terrorist' politics, as well
as indirectly through women's associations and, in traditional societies,
more informal modes of political influence.
Though husbands may still disproportionately mould their wives'
political behaviour, there is much less evidence to suggest that daughters
follow their fathers. Similarly the cliche of female conservatism has been
exposed as being both conceptually unsubtle and, even where it refers
simply to voting for conservative parties, no longer always true. Women's
tendency to personalise politics is now being questioned, while, in so far as
women are still found to be more moralistic than men, feminists point out
199
200 Conclusion
that this does not automatically signify political naivete. The assertion that
women are more apolitical than men appears more tenable, but even then it
is suggested such an observation assumes an unjustifiably narrow
conception of politics.
Though some ostensibly feminist accounts echo traditional political
science in emphasising socialisation as the explanation for women's political
behaviour, others have demonstrated the importance of situational and
even structural constraints. A few have also shown how the present
character of public politics itself deters women from grass-roots
participation.
If, prior to second wave feminism, women's under-representation within
political leadership was already obvious, it is only now that the full extent of
this under-representation is being measured and regarded as a 'problem'.
As more data appear, it becomes increasingly clear that women's presence
varies inversely with the power attached to political office. At the same
time, women do very much better in certain countries, notably Scandinavia,
than in others.
Some feminists again emphasise the effects of childhood socialisation on
women's political achievement, but others, to my mind more usefully, stress
situational constraints and more especially the consequences, given the
present division of labour between the sexes, of motherhood. On the other
hand, features of existing political institutions themselves are probably as
important as deterrents. The institutionalisation of politics already poses
problems for women still tethered to a private domain and role. Criteria for
eligibility, the step-ladder process of political advancement, anticipation of
male bias and even outright discrimination continue to militate against
women. Finally, we have learned more about the behaviour of women
politicians. Where earlier they were seen as 'naturally' cut out for feminine
responsibilities, now it often appears that there is little significant difference
in the style and orientation of male and female politicians, when they are
free to choose.
In these ways political science has had to revise its assumptions about
women's conventional political participation. Feminism has also been one
source of pressure to examine less conventional political activities. But
further, under the impact of radical feminism, political science's conception
of what politics actually is has been challenged.
Feminism has helped to point up the limitations of viewing politics purely
as a self-conscious activity. In elaborating the notion of male dominance, or
patriarchy, and despite weaknesses in the way this notion to date has been
theorised, women have drawn attention to the importance of power
relationships - in this case between the sexes - as the framework for more
explicit political processes. Women's political participation simply cannot
be understood, for instance, without some appreciation of the 'systematic'
nature of male dominance.
Conclusion 201
The most distinctive feminist criticism of conventional political thinking,

however, has been of the assumption that there are two separate spheres,
one private and apolitical, the other public and political. This does not
necessarily mean denying the practical and ideological force of the
assumption. As we have seen, it has been used ideologically to justify
women's exclusion from public politics, while women's actual confinement
to a narrow domestic sphere has been a major brake upon effective political
participation. At the same time the public-private convention has masked
the crucial interdependence of these spheres. Not only have women's
private roles limited and largely defined their public contribution, but
public policies have confirmed their 'private' obligations. Even now,
throughout most of the world, though with partial exceptions such as
Sweden, East Germany and Cuba, public policies assume and reinforce
women's primary responsibility for the care of young children and the
home. Similarly, public policies seek to regulate women's fertility and
sexuality. Access to abortion is still restricted, and contested, in Britain and
the United States; effective and modern means of birth control are still in
short supply in most state socialist countries. Two news items in the same
month, the verdict on a rape case of Judge Richards (The Guardian,
6 January 1982) and the showing on BBC television of the episode of Police
in which Thames Valley officers interviewed an alleged rape victim
(The Guardian, 19 January 1982), made clear the persistence of punitive
attitudes towards women's sexuality within Britain's police and legal
profession.
Feminism, then, has not simply broadened our picture of women's
political participation. It points to important conceptual limitations of the
discipline. Carroll none the less remains sceptical of the extent to which its
more radical criticisms have yet been absorbed by mainstream political
science, or even by many self-styled feminist political scientists themselves
(Carroll, 1979). Lovenduski also argues that 'in what is one of the minor
tragedies of contemporary scholarship, an absorption of a rather
constrained branch of women's studies by a one-dimensional academic
discipline has taken place'. Compared with, say, sociology, she suggests
that feminist consciousness made a relatively late appearance in political
science. Reflecting this late start, and also perhaps the status insecurity of
women political scientists, feminist scholarship within the discipline has
itself tended to concentrate on exposing sexism in earlier work and
gathering new data within parameters still largely ordained by tradition
(Lovenduski, 1981, p. 83).
In keeping with these comments, we have found that studies of less
conventional aspects of women's political participation were undertaken
not typically by political scientists but by sociologists or anthropologists.
Most discussion of the impact of public policy on women is amongst
historians, students of social policy and lawyers. Even feminism, as a
202 Conclusion
political movement, has received little attention from political scientists,

with the notable exception of Freeman (1975). The influence of feminist
thinking is probably greatest in the area of political philosophy and political
thought (see, for instance, Okin, 1980; Elshtain, 1981). Overall, however,
feminism is changing political science only very slowly.
As a corollary, there remain major lacunae in the study of women and
politics, which it is to be hoped future political science research, by
feminists, but also by men, will remedy. Too little is known of women's
participation in such conventional forms of grass-roots politics as interest
groups, and much too little is known of their unconventional political
activities as a whole. Too great an emphasis has been placed on women's
under-representation in national legislatures and not enough on their role
within bureaucracies and corporate organisations. There is still a dearth of
studies that compare or generalise from public policies towards women and
the process by which they emerge.
The lessons of political science for feminists are in some ways less obvious
than vice versa. It is not so much what political science explicitly says as its
focus and perspective that feminism could usefully incorporate. Most of all,
political science assumes the importance of public politics and provides a
framework for analysing it.
Given the convention of a distinct and apolitical private sphere with
which women have been associated, political science might seem to imply
that public politics mattered primarily for men. But the preceding pages
have shown how in practice policy-making has significantly shaped
women's status. In nineternth-century England, laws and policies
surrounding a woman's rights lfl marriage, fertility and sexuality, her role
as mother and home-maker, and income, education and employment
possibilities, together conspired to enforce her dependence upon men and
responsibility for care of children and the home. Subsequent policy changes
have reduced her direct dependence upon men - though the state has taken
on some aspects of the husband's role. They have increased her control of
her own fertility and sexuality. But they have yet substantially to challenge
her primary domestic role. Indeed, Brophy and Smart, examining
innovations in family law in the early 1970s, argue that they were still
predicated upon women's responsibilities as mothers (Brophy and Smart,
1981). In Britain and elsewhere, improvements in women's status have
resulted less from any recognition of women's 'rights' than from such over-
riding considerations as the health and welfare of children and, related to
that, the 'quality' of the population, the stability if not of the individual
family then of the 'family-household system', and the personnel
requirements of the economy and defence. Male dominance of policy-
making has furthermore ensured that the changes demanded by such
priorities in no way jeopardise, even during war or revolution, men's
privileged position.
Conclusion 203
It is in this context that feminists need to care about the under-

representation of women in public politics. Political science nowadays
documents more fully the scale of that under-representation. It also helps to
identify some of the more immediate ways in which women's political
presence could be increased, through quota systems, adoption of the party-
list system of proportional representation, women's caucuses and so forth
(see pp. 99-102). Admittedly, stepping up female numbers is not enough
since women politicians, it appears, are not necessarily more feminist than
men. But Vallance has for instance shown how, against the background of a
vigorous women's movement, in Britain during the 1970s, women MPs
were able to secure important gains for their sex in a number of policy areas
(Vallance, 1979).
This raises the issue of reform versus revolution that has exercised the
contemporary women's movement. The analysis of the previous chapter
makes clear that 'reformist' feminist politics wins no dramatic victories.
Specifically, progress in Britain and the United States, in the areas of
abortion policy and equal rights and employment opportunity, is modest
and precarious. On the other hand, without reformist politics would any
progress have been made at all? Even given the supporting groundswell of
women's liberation, as well as changing priorities in public policy, it needed
reformist feminism to make the most of the opportunities as they came, and
to prevent or mitigate backsliding.
At a more abstract level, there is a case for saying that the kinds of
changes in social organisation that could truly 'liberate' women would
require a virtual revolution. Advanced capitalism may well be dependent
upon the family-household system, and women's traditional role within it,
to reproduce the social order that maintains it - though this seems largely
true of existing state socialist societies also. Revolutionary feminists may
argue that no real reform can be achieved within the present system,
because the gain of one underprivileged group can only be at the expense of
another, or that reforms are only sufficiently effective to prolong the life of
an oppressive regime by making it superficially more acceptable (see
Harding, 1976). However, reform and revolution are not necessarily
incompatible. Simone de Beauvoir wrote in response to the similar debate
within the French women's movement: 'In my opinion, extracting reforms
from government can be a step on the road to revolution, so long of course
as one does not leave it at that but makes these reforms the basis for further
demands' (1977, p. 11). This may be particularly true, as far as feminist
objectives are concerned. A purely feminist revolution - for instance, along
the lines sketched by Firestone - is difficult to conceive and certainly a very
long way off. If, on the other hand, feminists envisage women's liberation
within the context of a broader social revolution, then, given the male-
dominated character of existing society, including all institutions and
groupings of the Left, they will be much better able to establish the
204 Conclusion
legitimacy and centrality of their programme if feminist values have already

been widely accepted and women's status strengthened.
It is possible therefore that, especially for feminists, the choice between
reform and revolution is not as fundamental as is sometimes made out. At
the same time the arguments and findings reviewed in this book point to
another dilemma for the women's movement which may require more
attention. In assessing different theories of male dominance, I argued that
due weight should be given to biological sex differences, even though these
could not be understood on their own as either 'causing' or justifying sex
inequality. In particular, men have been able to define women's social role
on the basis of their reproductive functions. Women have been consigned
primarily to the domestic sphere with all the implications that follow for
their public role. Women's responsibility for small children is perhaps the
key constraint on the 'supply' of women for leading political positions,
determining both the age at which they become available and the
qualifications they bring. On the other hand, the most consistent and
enduring consequence of public policy for women has been to shore up their
mothering role.
The way that society- or perhaps, one should say, men- have linked
women's part in biological reproduction with child-rearing faces feminists
with problems both about what they want and about how to get it. Briefly,
they can decide to glorify women's mothering propensity and make it the
basis for some kind of 'pro-woman' philosophy and separatist strategy.
They may react sharply against its limitations, protesting that they are
potentially the same, and as good as, men (currently) are. However, Hein
suggests this is to accept men's low evaluation of women's traditional
activities (Hein, 1976). Oakley also asks 'Are having and rearing children
and a sense of emotional connection with, and responsibility for others,
capacities that women must be liberated from in order to become human -
that is, to become equal to men?' (Oakley, 1979, p. 394). This leaves a third
position that prescribes 'androgyny' or role-sharing, both in domestic and
public life, with the distinction between these two spheres hopefully
eventually fading out. As Banks points out, even this position is
imaginatively limited, failing to transcend the existing range of male and
female activities (Banks, 1981, p. 237). But it is difficult to think beyond it,
from our present vantage-point, and such a radical redistribution of roles
could still have revolutionary implications.
If this third option is chosen, for the moment at least, there are still
problems about how to achieve it. Adams and Winston argue that the vital
immediate question is how to respond to women's dual role. They believe
that, while the long-term solution is to draw men into domestic role-
sharing, in the meantime women's status can only be raised by enabling
them to compete more successfully in the 'male' public sphere. It must be
made easier for women to combine domestic responsibilities with outside
Conclusion 205
employment through maternity leave, child-care provision, liberal birth-

control policies and the like. As the value of women's contribution both to
public life and to the family purse is incontrovertibly established, so men
will come under increasing pressure to share domestic chores. One snag, as
they concede, with this approach, is that in the short run it will serve to
lower still further the status of child care and housework, making them less
not more attractive to men (Adams and Winston, 1980). There is obviously
a contradiction between women asserting the value of 'parenthood' and
family life and their demanding public policies to reduce their domestic
burden.
It seems that there is no simple solution to the question of the relationship
between women's liberation and motherhood. The women's movement is
moreover far too diverse in its membership and too decentralised to
produce any single answer. But as the political backlash and growing female
unemployment threaten to drive women back into domesticity whether they
will or no, it is an issue feminists will find increasingly difficult to ignore.
Notes for Further Reading
Introduction
For a critique of male bias in political science see in particular Bourque and
Grossholtz (1974); Carroll (1979); Evans (1980); Goot and Reid (1975); Iglitzin
(1974); Jaquette (1974).
Chapter 1: Women's Place in Society
On the question of the universality of male dominance see Rosaldo (1974) and
Goldberg (1979). Problems with the concept of patriarchy are discussed by Beechey
(1979) and in Barrett (1980). Sayers (1982) is a clear and interesting guide to the
debate about the implications for women's status of biological sex differences,
while the essays in Rosaldo and Lamphere (1974) are useful on cultural approaches,
and Barrett ( 1980) is an especially competent survey of Marxist feminist theory.
Chapter 2: Women's Political Behaviour
Inevitably the empirical discussion in this chapter draws on a large number of

different sources. The essays in Lovenduski and Hills (1981) give an excellent and
up-to-date account of women's grass-roots political participation in the countries
they deal with; Wolchik on Eastern Europe is especially useful. Baxter and Lansing
(1980) draw together much recent material on conventional aspects of such
participation in the United States. My discussion of women's voting behaviour in
Britain is indebted to Hills, both her essay (1981a) and draft chapters of her book
(see Preface). In addition, the following are valuable sources for specific countries
or areas: France- Mossuz-Lavau and Sineau (1981); West Germany- Hall (1981);
Italy - Weber (1981); Scandinavia - Means (1976); Sweden - Eduards (1981);
Finland- Haavio-Manila (1981a); Australia- Simms (1981); Canada- Black and
McGlen (1979), Vickers and Brodie (1981); Japan - Jones (1975), Hargadine
(1981); India- Muni (1979); Latin America- Jaquette (1976), Schmidt (1977).
Chapter 3: Women in Political Elites
As for Chapter 2, empirical sources for women's role in political ~lites are
extensive. The essays in Lovenduski and Hills (1981) and Epstein and Coser (1981)
206
Notes for Further Reading 207
provide an amount of relatively up-to-date information. In addition to sources cited

in the text for specific countries, there is useful material on Israel in Hecht and
Yuval-Davis (1978), on the Lebanon in Sharara (1978) and on Algeria in Stiehm
(1976).
Chapter 4: How Politics Affects Women
This chapter draws on a great number of sources to piece together the way that
policies have affected women in different countries. For Britain, in addition to
sources cited, Simms and Hindell (1971) provide valuable background information
on abortion policy. See also Edwards's later study of women's sexuality and the law
( 1981 ). For China, two useful full-length studies of the impact of post-revolutionary
policies on women are Davin (1976) and Croll (1978).
Chapter 5: The Politics of the Women's Movement
As suggested in the text, Banks (1981) offers both an interesting and up-to-date
account of nineteenth-century feminism and a very useful bibliography. She also
supplies a helpful resume of research findings on the interlude between feminism's
two 'waves'. Freeman's analysis of the contemporary American movement is fairly
comprehensive for the years it covers (1975). A useful and up-to-date account of the
British movement is Coote and Campbell (1982). Sources in English on present-day
feminism elsewhere are in short supply but on France, besides Burke (1978), there
are two accounts in French - de Pisan and Tristan (1977) and Albistur and
Armogathe (1977).
Chapter 6: Feminism and Policy-Making
As indicated, case studies of the specific process of policy-making for women, over
the last decade, are very rare outside Britain and France. But see Yishai on the
politics of abortion in Israel (1979) and Wickham on making social policy for
women in the EEC (1980). The section of this chapter dealing with policy-making
for equal rights and employment opportunities in Britain and the United States
draws extensively on Meehan (1982) and the draft of her doctoral thesis to be
submitted in Spring 1982 (see Preface).
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Index
abortion bureaucracy-contd.
equal employment policy-making women's representation in 79-80,
compared 196-8 114,202
feministattitudesto 5,169-71,175 business organisations
feministcampaigns 153,155-7,159 equal employment opportunity, role
policy: in Britain 105, 110-11, in 183, 188, 197
171-5,201, 203; Italy 179-80; women's leadership roles 78
state socialism 122;
Sweden 118; United States 116, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
175-8,201,203 (CND) 54-5, 152
policy-making: role of civil rights capitalism
movement 176; Congress dependent on family? 25,31-2
176-8; House of Commons 178; male dominance, role in 29-32
judiciary 175, 178; Left 179; origins of feminism 142, 146
medicalprofession 116,175,179, policy for women determined
197; political parties 171, 173-4, by? 120
178, 180; Roman Catholic women's right to choose and 170
Church 171-2, 176, 179-80; state child care
legislatures 175-8; Supreme policy in Second World War 134
Court 116, 175-8; trade policy: in Britain 111-12; state
unions 173, 179 socialism 123; Sweden 118;
political issue, type of 170-1 United States 116
public/private divide and 10, 170 political participation constrained
sanctions against 108 by 62,86-8
state needs, policy shaped by 133 women's responsibility? 21
Abortion Reform Act (1967) 105, civil rights movement
110-11, 172-5 abortion policy, role in 176
age consciousness-raising and 166
women politicians 87, 204 equal employment opportunity, role
women's grass-roots political in 188-90
participation, role in 53, 64-5 origins of second-wave
feminism 147, 149-50
biology class, social
male dominance, factor in 16-20, feminism, character of 142, 157,
204 161
radical feminism emphasises 19-20 state policies for women, determined
bureaucracy by? 136
equal employment opportunity, role women's grass-roots politic
in 196-7 participation, role in 65
221
222 Index
community action employment

housewives' interest in 63 policy for women: in
women's leading roles in 82 Britain 113-14; Nazi
women's participation 41-2,52,58 Germany 120; state
Congress socialism 124; Sweden 119;
abortion policy, role in 176-8 United States 117
Congresswomen's behaviour 103-6 state needs, policy shaped by 131-2
equal employment opportunity, role women's political participation, role
in 188-9 in 62,88-9
Equal Rights Amendment, role see also equal employment
in 191-5 opportunity; equal pay
internal barriers to women's Engels, Friedrich 27-9, 123, 125, 143
promotion 99 equal employment opportunity
recruitment of women to 70-1, abortion policy-making
94-5,97-8 compared 196-8
consciousness-raising 12, 150, 153, policy: in Britain 114, 183-7, 203;
164, 166 Sweden 119; United States 117,
contraception 5, 10 188-91,203
origins of second-wave feminism policy-making role: of
and 146-7 bureaucracy 196-7, business
policy: in Britain 110, 153; organisations 183, 188, 197; civil
Italy 179; state socialism 122; rights movement 188-90;
Sweden 118; United States 116 Congress 188-9; House of
state needs, policy shaped by 133 Commons 184-5, 196;
corporatist institutions, women's judiciary 196; political
representation in 80-1, 202 parties 196; Supreme
courts see judiciary Court 190-1; trade unions 119,
182, 186-8, 197
Equal Employment Opportunity
Delphy, Christine 32, 127 Commission 148, 189-90, 196-7
domestic labour Equal Opportunities
capitalism dependent on? 30-2 Commission 183-7, 196-7
see also housekeeping equal pay
feminist attitudes to 152-3, 181,
187
economy policy: in Britain 112, 183-7; state
male dominance, role in 26-32 socialism 123-6; Sweden 119;
recession's impact on women 6, United States 117, 187-8
160, 163, 182, 186, 191 Equal Pay Act (United States,
state policy for women, role in 120, 1963) 117,187-91
126-7, 131-3 Equal Pay Act (Britain, 1970) 112,
education 183-7
male dominance, role in 25 equal rights
origins of second-wave feminist attitudes to 145, 180-2
feminism 147 first-wave feminism, strand
policy: in Britain 114-15; Nazi in 143-4
Germany 120; state origins of feminism, role in 142
socialism 124-5; Sweden 119; political issue, type of 182
United States 117 Equal Rights Amendment 191-6
state economic needs and 132 feminism, impact on 144, 151
women's grass-roots political feminist attitudes to 145, 191, 193
participation, role in 64 political issue, type of 191
Index 223
Equal Rights Amendment-contd. feminism, radical-contd.

policy-making role: of equal rights, attitude to 181
Congress 191-5; state in: Britain 153-4; France 156;
legislatures 193 Italy 157; Sweden 158; United
women politicians' attitude to 105 States 150-l; West
Germany 155
family male dominance, theories of 19-20,
capitalism, needed for? 25,31-2 32
male dominance, role in 25 politics, conception of 8-9
political stability, needed 'revolutionary' strand 6, 154
for? 135-6, 202 separatism 5, ISO, 166-7
universality? 21 state, theories of 127-8
feminism women's liberation, attitude to 128
definitions 4-7 working-class women, and 161
different forms 5-7 feminism, reformist
interlude between 'waves' 144-6 defined 6
political science, impact on 3, 9-10, differences within 6-7
199-202 in: Britain 198; France 156;
social class character of 142, 157, Sweden 157-8; United
161 States 151, 198; West
women politicians, of 105, 174, Germany 155
183-4,203 policy-making role 198, 203
see also feminism, first-wave; women's liberation, attitude to 138-9
feminism, second-wave feminism, second-wave
feminism, first-wave 4, 139-44 abortion reform, attitudes
diversity 142-4 to 169-71
'equal rights' strand 141, 143-5, achievements 159
148, 162, 181 composition 160-2
'evangelical' strand 143-5, 162 crisis of? 159-60
in: Britain 114, 140-l; United deradicalisation 150-1, 162-4
States 139-40 equal employment opportunity, role
international spread 154-5 in 184, 189-90, 198
legacy 144 Equal Rights Amendment, role
'socialist' strand 141, 143-5, 162 in 192-6
feminism, Marxist in: Britain 152-4; France 155-7;
abortion, attitude to 170 Italy 157, 179-80;
defined 6 Sweden 157-8; United
equal rights, attitude to 181 States 148-51, 162; West
in: Britain 153-4; France 156; Germany 155
Italy 157; Sweden 157 international movement? 158-9
male dominance, theories of 23-5, motherhood, central problem
28-32 for 204-5
socialist feminism, linked to 162 'older branch' (United
state, theories of 126-7 States) 148-9, 162
working-class women and 154, 161 organisation 164-5
feminism, radical ongms 144-8
abortion, attitude to 5, 169, 175 strategy 99-102, 166-8,203-5
conflicting strands 5 'younger branch' (United
conventional politics, attitude to 3 States) 149-51, 162
'cultural' strand 6, 150-l, 154 see also feminism, Marxist;
defined S feminism, radical; feminism,
deradicalisation and ISO-I , 162-4 reformist
224 Index
feminism, socialist see feminism, first- Left

wave; feminism, Marxist abortion policy, role in 179
feminist organisations New Left origins of second-wave
political recruitment of women, role feminism 147, 149, 163
in 101-2 organisational contrast with
second-wave feminism, role feminism 164
in 164-5 strategy for feminism and 167-8,
state socialism and 126 203-4
Firestone, Shulamith 19-20, 146,203 women's political participation
Freud, Sigmund 17-18,24-5 promoted by? 100-1
Friedan, Betty 4, 145, 148-9 Levi-Strauss, Claude 24
local assemblies
House of Commons women politicians, source of 93-4
internal barriers to women's women's representation in 74-5
promotion 98-9
policy-making, central role in 178, male dominance 12-34
184-5, 196 biology, role of 16-20
recruitment of women to 70, 92-8 capitalism, role of 29-32
women MPs' behaviour 103-6 culture, role of 20-6
housekeeping economy, role of 26-32
policy towards: in Britain 111; state Marxist feminist theories of 23-5,
socialism 123; Sweden 118; 28-32
United States 116 patriarchy, synonymous
state needs, policy shaped by 131-2 with? 15-16
134 radical feminist theories of 19-20,
see also domestic labour 32
state, reinforced by 130-1
income state policies for women, role
policy for women: in in 128-9
Britain 112-13; state universality? 12-15
socialism 123; Sweden 119; marriage
United States 117 policy: in Britain 109-10, 131; state
see also equal pay socialism 121-2; Sweden 118;
interest organisations United States 115-16
women's leadership roles 77-9 Marx, Karl 19,26-7,29-30, 125, 143
women's participation rates 39-40, Marxist feminism see feminism, Marxist
202 maternityleave 111-12,118,123,189,
205
judiciary matriarchy 5,13,27,143
abortion policy, role in 175, 178 media
equal employment opportunity, role treatmentoffeminism 150,161-3,
in 134, 190, 196 165
equal pay, role in 188 treatment of women politicians 96
rape, and 111 women's leading roles in 82
women professionals, attitude medical profession 111
to 114, 117 abortion policy, role in 116, 175,
women's representation in 81,114 179, 197
see also Supreme Court military, women's political
participation, role in 90
kinship motherhood
male dominance, factor in 24 feminism, central problem
female power, source of 44, 130 for 204-5
Index 225
motherhood-contd. political participation of women,

feminist attitudes to 162, 204-5 elite-contd.
policy: in Britain 111-12; state employment 88-90; institutional
socialism 122-3; Sweden 118; barriers 91-9; military role 90;
United States 116 socialism 85-6
state needs, policy shaped by 132-4 in: bureaucracies 79-80; business
women's political participation, organisations 78; corporatist
constrained by 63,86-8,204 institutions 80-1; judiciary 81;
local assemblies 74-5, 93-4;
National Abortion C,ampaign media 82; national
(NAC) 153, 173-4 governments 76-7, 98-9;
national governments, women's national legislatures 70-4, 98-9;
representation in 76-7, 98-9 political parties 39, 75-6, 86, 92,
national legislatures 94, 100-1; regional
internal barriers to women's assemblies 70-4; trade
promotion 98-9 unions 78, 93-4;
women members' behaviour 103-6 uninstitutionalised politics 82-4
women's recruitment to 92-8 strategies to increase 99-102, 203
women's representation, extent women politicians': behaviour 86,
of 70-4,202 103-6, 203; feminism 105, 174,
see also House of Commons; 183-4, 203; specialised in 'women's
Congress subjects' 77, 104-5;
nationalist movements, women's types ·102-3
participation in 43-4 Political participation of women, grass-
National Organisation of Women roots 35-68 passim
(NOW) 148-9, 151, 159, 178, affected by: age 49-51,53, 64-5;
181, 189, 193, 195 child-care duties 62;
National Women's Political Caucus education 64; employment 62;
(NWPC) 101-2, 149, 178 institutional barriers 66-8, 200;
New Right motherhood 63, 199; social
abortion policy, role in 176-7 class 51,65;
Equal Rights Amendment, role socialisation 59-62, 200
in 194 in: ad hoc campaigns 41-2,52,58,
nursery provision 111-12, 116, 118, 63; indirect politics 44-5, 199;
123, 132, 205 interest organisations 39-40;
political parties 39, 51; 'protest'
Parsons, Talcott 22 politics 42-4,65, 199; trade
patriarchy unions 39; voting 35-7, 47-59
definitions 15 passim 67; women's
male dominance, synonymous associations 45-6
with? 15-16 women's political behaviour:
see also male dominance apolitical 52, 56-7, 200;
political institutions candidate-oriented 53-4, 199;
women's elite political participation, conservative 49-53,65, 199;
barrier to 91-9 male-dominated 48-9, 199;
women's grass-roots political moralistic 54-6, 199-200;
participation, role in 67-8 superior to men's 57-9
political participation of women, political parties
elite 69-106 passim abortion policy, role in 171, 173-4,
affected by: child-care 178, 180
responsibilities 86-8, 204; equal employment opportunity, role
competition 91; education 89; in 196
226 Index
political parties-contd. regional assemblies

positive discrimination and 100-1 women's representation in 74
women's leadership roles in 75-6, see also state legislatures
86,92,94 religious interests
women's membership rates 39, 51 abortion policy, influence on 171,
women's sections 67, 92, 101 172,176, 179-80,197
political science state policies for women, shaped
feminism, modified by 3, 9-10, by 136-7
199-202 see also Roman Catholic Church
feminists, lessons for 3-4, 203 revolution
political participation, limited view feminist strategy and 203-4
of 35 state policies for women and 128-9,
politics, limited view of 7-8, 57, 200 135-6
sexism in 1-3,48,55-6,69, 86, 199 women's leading roles in 83
politics women's participation in 42-3
definitions 7-8 Roman Catholic Church
political science's limited view abortion policy, role in 171-2, 176,
of 7-8,57,200 179-80
public/private divide and 8-10 state policies for women and 119,
radical feminist conception of 8-9 137
see also politics, public women's voting behaviour, influence
politics, public on 50,62
defined 8
feminist attitude to 3-4 separatism 5, 150, 158, 166-7
impact: on women 107-37; in Sex Discrimination Act (1975) 183-7
Britain 108-15; state sexism
socialism 120-6; defined
Sweden 118-20; United in political science 1-3,48, 55-6,
States 115-17 69,86,199
see also state socialisation
population policy 120, 122, 132-4, family's role in 25, 135
136-7, 170 male dominance, role in 25-6
positive discrimination 100, 119, women's elite political participation,
181-2, 187,189-90 role in 85-6
proportional representation 98, 100, women's grass-roots political
203 participation, role in 59-62, 200
protective legislation 113, 117, 124, Society for the Protection of the
133, 135, 145, 181, 189, 193 Unborn Child (SPUC) 172-4
public/private divide state
conceptions of politics and 8 defined 129
male dominance, role in 22-3 intervention in family life 108, 202
policy for women, role in 9-10, male dominance and 128-9, 130-1
108-9,170 Marxist feminist theories of 126-7
radical feminist criticism of 9, 201 racial interests and 136
women's grass-roots political radical feminist theories of 127-8
participation, role in 66 religious interests and 136-7
social class interests and 136
state needs, implications for
racial interests: state policies for women 132-6
women, shaped by 136 variations in scope and
radical feminism see feminism, radical centralisation 137
rape 5, 10, 20, 111, 116, 118,201 see also Welfare State
Index 227
state legislatures (United States) trade unions-contd.

abortion policy, role in 175-8 women politicians, source of 92-4,
Equal Rights Amendment, role 96
in 193 see also Trades Union Congress
women's recruitment to 74, 94-5 Trades Union Congress (TUC) 78, 94,
Supreme Court ll2, 154, 183-5, 196
abortion policy, role in ll6, 175-8
contraception and ll6 war, policies for women shaped
equal employment opportunity, role by 128. 134-5
in 190-1 Welfare State 108-9, Ill, 113,126-7,
Equal Rights Amendment and 192 135, 146
women's representation in 82 wife-battering 5, 10, 108-9, 153
women candidates 93-8 passim
women's associations, women's
terrorism political participation and 45-6
women's leading roles in 83 women's liberation movement
women's participation in 44 definition 138-9
Title 7 (Civil Rights Act) ll7, 188-91, see also feminism, second-wave
193 women's movement
trade unions definition 138
abortion policy, role in 173, 179 see also feminism
equal employment opportunity, role women's status
in ll9, 182, 186-8, 197 defined 107
equal pay, role in ll2, ll9, 184 public politics' impact: in
feminist strategy and 6, 140, 154, Britain 108-15; Nazi
157-8, 161, 181 Germany 120; state
maternity leave and 123 socialism 120-6;
women's leadership roles in 78 Sweden 118-20; United
women's membership rates 40 States ll5-17

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Women and Politics

Women and Politics

ISBN 978-0-333-30713-7 ISBN 978-1-349-16880-4 (eBook)

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

1. Women's Place in Society 12

2. Women's Political Behaviour 35

3. Women in Political Elites 69

4. How Politics Affects Women 107

6. Feminism and PoUcy-Making 169

Notes for Further Reading 206

At one time convention tended to define women and politics as mutually

literature is too vast for such an enterprise to be comprehensively and fairly

Londonl982 VICKY RANDALL

It is too seldom remembered in the American society that working girls

Today we can consult a number of feminist critiques of the treatment of

chosen and the limited and stereotyped choices of answers provided'

exploit the new possibilities of legislation favourable to women. The real

allied with an emphasis on women living together, exploring their own

As with feminism, so with politics, there is no overall agreement on

participation in the process by which resources are allocated amongst

radical feminists who have recognised it as an important issue for feminism

If the convention of a private sphere had obscured the extent to which

shall also stress the complex interdependence in practice of public and

Is male dominance universal? Have men exercised disproportionate power

private property or new farming methods. It is obviously difficult to prove

discount women's higher self-evaluation is not so easy to say. Radical

Male dominance or patriarchy?

biological differences between men and women. Non-feminists who take

the reflection and instrument of male dominance (see, for instance,

women's oppression is rooted in biology. Their objection is understandable

only be overthrown by revolution. In a conscious echo of Marx, Firestone

Explanations emphasising culture and ideology

The second type of explanation for male dominance minimises the

The chief importance of biological sex in determining social roles is in

But this relativism can be overdone. A number of feminist

How can this element of continuity be explained? One explanation would

objective interdependence, fosters male dominance. The implication is that

neo-Marxist, Althusser. As Lieven writes in her useful and clear

A theoretical formulation of ideology, such as that of Althusser, as

Some feminists have explored this relative autonomy of ideology through

the 'biological' nuclear family, still crucial to the reproduction of

Male dominance and the economy

The third type of explanation of male dominance emphasises its economic

analysis. Instead he understands patriarchy, as we have seen, as a system of

However terrible and disgusting the dissolution under the capitalist

Marx has been criticised for neglecting the political economy of

consumers. Weinbaum and Bridges even argue that such consumption

labour be waged can appear to condone the prevailing sexual division of

family-household system plays such a role only in advanced capitalism or

first, that although for clarity's sake I have distinguished biological,

The inevitability of male dominance?

To argue that male dominance is virtually universal is emphatically not to

Of all aspects of the relationship between women and politics, it is women's

The extent of women's participation in grass-roots politics

Within this narrowly conceived range of political behaviour, studies of

profusion of safe seats, the inadequacy of the information supplied to the

A unique form of political behaviour in the sense that it occurs only

Although voting may have its limitations as a criterion of political

Other conventional forms ofparticipation

combining measurements for a number of indicators: voting, activity in