Another important change in the political status of women was the enabling of women to be able to stand for parliament in 1918. In 1868 women were not allowed to stand for Parliament, but in 1918 the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act enabled women aged 21 and over to stand for Parliament. In December 1918 seventeen women stood for Parliament in the post-war election. Only one was elected, Constance Markiewicz, standing for Sinn Fein, however she refused to take her seat in British Parliament. In 1919 Nancy Astor became the first female MP to take her seat in the House of Commons. With a female MP women now had a representative in Parliament women’s political status had now been changed.
A further change in women’s political status occurred in 1958 and 1963 when women were allowed to take their seats in the House of Lords. In 1953 life peerages were created for men and women by Churchill’s Conservative Government, they created four baronesses; Barbara Wooton, Stella, Marchioness of Reading, Dame Katherine Elliot and Baroness Ravensdale. At that point, however, hereditary peeresses were still not allowed to take their seats in the House of Lords, but in 1963 an Act was passed allowing peeresses to take their seats. Also the first woman leader of the House of Lords, Baroness Young, came in to power in 1981. Before 1958 women did not have representatives in the House of Lords and could not take an active role in that side of politics but after 1958 this changed and the political status of women changed and they became more politically powerful.
As women were now allowed to become MPs it naturally followed that they would later become both Cabinet Ministers and Prime Ministers, and when this happened it increased women’s political status. The most powerful men in the country in 1868 were the Cabinet Ministers and the Prime Minister, and although women were allowed to be employed in these positions after 1918 it was another eleven years before a female Cabinet minister was elected; Margaret Bondfield in 1929, and another sixty-one years before the first female Prime Minister came into power; Margaret Thatcher in 1979 (although she had been party leader since 1975). When these women came into power in their respective positions, women’s political status changed as some women became more politically powerful and gained access to new areas of politics that other women had never before been part of.
A less important factor in the growth of women’s political status was their change in wealth and power over the period 1868 to 1992. In 1968 women were mostly seen as the property of men and had little or no power in society, they were paid less than men and were often discriminated against due to their sex. As soon as women married any property or belongings she owned immediately came into her husbands possession and had they had little status in society. In 1870 and 1882 the first and second Married Women’s Property Act enabled women to have the same rights over their property as unmarried women’s and that husbands and wives should have separate interests in their property. In 1923 the Matrimonial Causes Act made the grounds for divorce the same for men as for women, and then in 1925 the Guardianship of Infants Act gave fathers and mothers equal rights and claims over their children. Also in 1945 the Family Allowance Act began a state system of child benefits to be paid directly to mothers. But it was not until 1970 that the Equal Pay Act stipulated that equal pay for men and women doing the same job had to be brought in within five years and then it was another five years before the Sex Discrimination Act banned sex discrimination in employment in 1975. By 1992 women had the same rights as men over their property and had equal power and status to men in society. However although legally women had more rights in 1992 that they did in 1868 women’s political status had not changed directly due to this, but was more of a by-product of women gaining more wealth and power during this period. Also women gaining power and wealth changed the position of women politically.
In conclusion women have gained more political power during the period 1868 to 1992 therefore changing their political status greatly. Women in 1992 had a important role in politics, which women in 1868 did not have. However women in 1992 were still not equal with men, there were still only 60 female MPs, which is just 9% and in 1997 there only 18% of MPs were women. Also in many work places women still do not have complete equality with men, as often employers are biased, but this often depends on the type of job. The gap of equality has shrunk greatly since 1868 though and women’s political status has been greatly developed.
