How far did attitudes towards the role and status of women change during the 1920’s and 1930’s?
At the beginning of the 1920’s all women over 30 and all women property owners over the age of 21 had been enfranchised by the Representation of the Peoples Act that was passed by the government in 1918. This act paved the way for the major change in the role and status of women that occurred during the nineteen twenties and thirties.
Political change came first for British Women with new legislations being introduced that began to develop the idea that women should be treated on the same grounds as men. In 1928 it was finally decided that all women over the age of twenty-one should be able to exercise their opinions in a democratic society, this was the Equal Franchise Act which had been the focus of the protests of both the suffragist and suffragette movements. Forming over half of the electorate, women could, for the first time ever, vote on the same terms as men. Despite this it was not for another year that the first women, Margaret Bondfield, took her place as a cabinet minister and even then women in politics were quite rare. In 1931 only 67 women stood as candidates in the General election. This meant that men still dominated parliament and political life, which lead to very little advancement in power or status for women, even though, on paper, they had gained what they had been campaigning for for over half a century.
