Women in Political Parties, 1918–45

After the Representation of the People Act (1918) political parties were swift to take account of a new female constituency. While no party sought to promote women MPs, all assumed that women would vote as a bloc for the party that represented their interests. Politically active women noticed a change in attitudes, as Ray Strachey recalled:

The [1918 Act] had not been on the Statute Book a fortnight before the House of Commons discovered that every Bill … had a ‘women’s side’ and the Party Whips began eagerly to ask ‘what the women thought?’ … Letters from women constituents no longer went straight into wastepaper-baskets … and the agents of the women’s societies were positively welcomed at Westminster.

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