Margaret Bondfield (1873-1963) was the first Labour woman to become a cabinet Minister and the first UK cabinet Minister. The year was 1929, some six years after she had been elected to Parliament. It was not the first time Margaret Bondfield was to be a ‘first’. In the year she took her place in Parliament, she became the first woman to chair the Trades Union Congress (TUC), a consequence of her trade union activism and her commitment to trade unionism.

Yet this – commitment and activism – was not all that promoted Margaret Bondfield into posts where no woman had sat or stood before. It took tremendous will, a belief in herself and in the ideas and ideals she espoused, the courage to keep going when the going was tough – as it so often must have been – and the will to continue to affirm that politics, trade unionism and, indeed, engagement with the world of rights, power, influence and authority was right where women should be.

Not quite a century has passed since Margaret Bondfield made the great stride for women into the British Labour Party cabinet room. In 2029 celebrations of the feat will be significant, with Labour women affirming the central role played by this dedicated woman and her importance in advancing women’s rights and the rights of women to perform in the public arena. Yet will the revelry take place in circumstances where women share an equal number of places in cabinet, or in the Parliament? Although Labour is doing relatively well, with a woman as Deputy Leader (Harriet Harman) and, of some twenty-seven places,  a dozen women serving in the shadow cabinet, will the numbers remain roughly equal from now on, and will there be another woman Prime Minister? Will there be 300+ women in Parliament, making up the numbers on both sides of the chamber?

To bring about the radical change needed to propel women into elections and safe or winnable seats and, hence, the possibility of women being there in numbers anyway akin to those of men, the Labour Party has adopted the running of ‘Women’s Lists’ for candidate selection in stipulated seats. In the upcoming round, Peterborough, Norwich, Carlisle, Redcar, Bristol West and Dover are committed to all-women lists, whilst Crewe and Nantwich, Cambridge, Chatham and Aylesford, North Windon and Bedford are running ‘open’ lists. All-women lists do not always ‘happen’ where they are scheduled to occur. Some grumbling or rumbling is heard occasionally within and without the Labour Party. Nonetheless, the principle is accepted ‘in principle’ that affirmative steps must be taken to ensure that women may be represented in Parliament in greater numbers and that the goal of equal representation may be met. Are there precedents?   

 When in the early 1940s Robert Menzies determined to create the Liberal Party of Australia by combining the United Australia Party (UAP) with smaller conservative-leaning groups, he faced a determined group of women when he sought support of the conservative women. They had terms and conditions, non-negotiable if their numbers were to strengthen Menzies’ proposed new political force. Their support was contingent upon Menzies (and his supporters) agreeing to affirmative action for women in the Party: places in the administrative wing and on the executive were to be ‘reserved’ for women, so that women would have a voice in Party policy and organisation. The women won their point, and Menzies secured their votes.

Years later, however, when the Australian Labor Party (ALP) was brought to acknowledge the need for affirmative action, setting the goal in the first instance as 30 per cent of women preselected for parliamentary seats at state and federal elections, Liberal Party women scoffed at the idea. Bronwyn Bishop, a Liberal MP who had striven for years to be preselected for a winnable seat – eventually succeeding – was particularly scathing. Her contention was that affirmative action was degrading for and to women: that women should succeed on ’merit’ and that positive steps to advance women would see inferior candidates who would always be regarded in this light through not ‘making it on their own’. The media was also divided.

At that time, a large slew of women were elected in what was seen as a ‘landslide’, when the Keating Government was defeated and John Howard came to power as Australian Prime Minister. On that basis, many contended that ‘merit’ had parachuted those women into Parliament and no other action was required. Yet the numbers did not persist, with subsequent elections resulting in some new members holding on to their seats, whilst others saw their seats returning to the left side of politics.

Meanwhile, women recognised the importance of funding and resources in running political campaigns: seats could not be won by talent alone. Early Money is Like Yeast – Emily’s List – was born in the United States to provide women candidates with basic funding, or at least ‘seeding grants’ to get their campaigns off the ground. Joan Kirner, the first woman Deputy Premier, then first woman Premier, of Victoria, was the leading force in bringing Emily’s List to Australia. Granted an AC (Companion of Australia in the Order of Australia awards – the ‘Australian CBE/OBEs’) in the June 2012 Honours List, Joan Kirner was quoted as saying she was looking eagerly for the next Victorian woman Premier: she did not want to remain the ‘first and only’. Emily’s List continues to support women candidates and, hoped Joan Kirner, it would ensure that women Premiers took their place in a long list begun with her ascension.

Is there any counterpart in the United Kingdom? The Conservative-Liberal-Democrat Coalition Government has its women members and women ministers. Yet the numbers are not equal: of twenty-three in the ministry, five are women: Therese May, the most senior, as Home Secretary, Baroness Warsi as Conservative Party Chair (presently standing down), Caroline Spellman, Environmental Secretary, Justine Greening, Transport Secretary, and Cheryl Gillan, Welsh Secretary.  As for Members, the House of Commons comprises 650 MPs. Of these, 505 are men, with 145 women.

Some years ago, Lesley Abdulla established the 300 Club, organised to advance women’s parliamentary numbers. That goal lies distant, and does not appear to be on target for 2029. Recognising this, Labour Women’s Network (LWN) launched the Margaret Bondfield Club, with aims paralleling those of Emily’s List as well as, more broadly, being ‘a new way of doing more … in making sure women play a full part in the life of the Labour Party and its future’. 

Power lies in the political arena,  just as it does in law, business, ‘The City’ and all our institutions. Ultimately, however, these institutions will not be ‘ours’ in the sense of women and men having equal involvement, exercising equal authority, influence, rights and power – until women and men participate equally at all levels. History shows that capabilities, talent and ability are not enough. It remains to be seen what effect affirmative action may have in the longterm, and whether initiatives such as the Margaret Bondfield Club achieve their founders’ hopes.

Margaret Bondfield did her bit last century. LWN’s stated desire is that the Margaret Bondfield Club will do its bit in making room for a multiplicity of giant strides by women, for women, this century.

Dr Jocelynne A. Scutt is a filmmaker and historian, whose films include ‘The Incredible Woman’ and ‘A Greenshell Necklace’ (with Karen Buczynski-Lee) and the DVD Installation ‘Covered’ – www.theburqahdebates.com/  Her books include The Sexual Gerrymander – Women and the Economics of Power. She is a member of LWN.

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Continued from Part 1.

By the mid 1980s more British Asian women worked outside the home in Britain than was assumed by the white population and many such women, particularly those of Hindu and Sikh backgrounds, were moving into the professions (Brah, 1996).  Poorer British Pakistani and Bangladeshi women have been organized as ‘home workers’ producing clothing etc, often having little choice whether they want to work or not. Their labour has become increasingly important as traditional occupations of Pakistani men (woolen industry in West Yorkshire, metal work in the Midlands) have disappeared.

Many younger Asian women are now more liberated than their mothers. Some prominent British Asian women have found success in British society but many poorer women of Asian origin still suffer multiple disadvantages. There is thus a huge diversity in the experiences of Asian women influenced by ethnicity, religion, class and age.  There are also differences between East African Asians and those from the Indian subcontinent and between, for instance, Sikh women who have been in England for many years and have had a long experience of paid employment and trade unionism and Bangladeshis who have arrived more recently, are restricted the exploited home-working sector and ‘black’ economy and are targets of racial harassment.  

In contrast to Asian women, many African-Caribbean women like Irish women, came as independent migrants. Some left behind partners and children – an additional stress on their difficult existence in England. White representations of West Indian migrant women reiterated stereotypes based on white, brown, black divisions stretching back to slavery (Bush, 2001). In Britain, younger, lighter skinned coloured women were more likely to be employed than older black women (Patterson, 1962) but the colour/class hierarchy of the Caribbean and the fact that some better off, light skinned migrants would have had darker skinned maids ‘back home’ became less relevant in Britain.  West Indian women were regarded as best suited to domestic work and all of the first generation West Indian female migrants found it more difficult to find suitable employment than men. Even trained teachers had to take menial jobs and nurses were condemned to working as ancillaries, often experiencing racist remarks from patients. The majority of women worked at harsh, ‘slave-labour’ jobs in the garment trade, food and other light industries or as poorly paid ancillaries in the new National Health Service.

Little had changed by the late 1990s.  A report compiled by Gloria Mills, who became one of UNISON’s  first female black trade union stewards in 1978 and the union’s director of equal opportunities in 1997, confirmed that black women worked  longer, did more shift work and had lower rates of pay than white women. In white-collar jobs they were blocked in lower management and high percentage of black women remained single parents and worked in low paid employment. Black women earned 20 per cent less than black men and, in some areas, less than white women. The report stressed the importance of overcoming stereotypes of black women, many going back to slavery, pointing out lighter skinned women were still more likely to get on but even successful women still had to break through not only a ‘glass ceiling’  but a ‘double glazed‘ ceiling. 

 The legacy of the past also influenced the private domestic life of West Indian female migrants. The (inaccurate) belief that slavery had adversely affected the family and resulted in promiscuous relations and illegitimacy still influenced official and popular perceptions of the black sexuality and family life. The government was concerned about the uncontrolled sexuality, and ‘prodigious breeding’ of younger women and black women, particularly single mothers, have been consistently blamed for the state of the black family as a deviation from the (white) norm.  These perceptions ignored the pressures of poverty and stresses of migration which affected  gender roles and  relationships. In the Caribbean mixed race unions were rare but in Britain relationships between West Indian men and white women were more common and this reflected adversely on the lives of black women.  In the 1950s The London Family Welfare Association reported the problems of black women in London whose husbands had deserted them for white women, who ‘wouldn’t leave our men alone’. West Indian women could ‘cope’ if their husbands had affairs with other West Indian women but saw white women as home wreckers. As Beryl Gilroy observed in her autobiography, Black Teacher, black female identities in Britain were also complicated by the fact that younger, attractive black women remained the focus of white men’s sexual fantasies. Adverse comparisons with white women also resulted in pressures on black women to meet white norms of femininity.  Black and white women’s identities have been mutually, and unequally, shaped through history and this has impacted on debates between black and white feminists, generating hostility and lack of meeting of minds.

Younger black men and women have reaffirmed African-Caribbean culture through London Jamaican patois, dress, hair and music styles. These gendered British Caribbean cultural styles, however, have tended to uphold black male machismo, epitomised in the practice of young black men taking pride in ‘babymothers’, with whom they frequently do not live, and taking little responsibility for their children. Deep seated problems in British Caribbean gender relations thus persist and misogyny is reflected in male-dominated African diaspora music forms such as calypso, reggae, and, more recently, ragga and American gangsta rap. Gender conflicts within the Caribbean community, however, must be contextualised in the wider framework of racial exclusions. When working-class black men were denied the normal routes to individual fulfillment in British society their only source of prestige was power over women, black or white.

Despite the multiple obstacles they have encountered in British society, women of Caribbean origin, particularly mothers, have had a pivotal role in the family and in building West Indian communities in Britain. (See illustration below).  As during slavery, women were key figures in transmitting and preserving African-derived cultural forms and played central roles in embedding these African-Caribbean religions in Britain. Testimonies collated by Wendy Webster reveal that, ‘home’ was very important in women’s strategies for survival in a hostile world (Webster, 1997). Women were also seminal in the development of a more organised political resistance against racism (Williams 1993).

However, women’s contribution to building the British Caribbean community has only recently been recognized in the Bronze Woman memorial erected in Stockwell Gardens, Lambeth, South London in 2009. (See illustration below). This is the first monument of a black woman to be displayed publicly anywhere in England and represents “the struggle of black women across the ages as well as their spirit and courage”.

Source: Bronze Woman Monument Project, http://www.bronzewoman.org.uk/ Accessed 1. 10. 2008

A number of important developments have taken place since the 1980s.  In Jamaica and Britain black women now outstrip black men in academic achievement. Black ‘superwomen’ such as Naomi Campbell, sport celebrities like Dame Kelly Holmes, academics Hazel Carby and Baroness Lola Young, politicians like Oona King and Diane Abbott and a blossoming of black women’s poetry and fiction (Andrea Levy, Zadie Smith, Grace Nichols, Jean Binta Breeze and many others). Younger black women such as Alexandra Burke, winner of fifth series of UK television singing talent show, the X Factor, Estelle and Speech Debelle, both winners of the Mercury Prize  for Music in 2008 and 2009 respectively, have broken into the competitive world of black music.  All have changed perceptions of black women’s capabilities. The image of the black woman created by contemporary British Caribbean women writers reveals the complexity, depth and diversity of black women’s lives. It provides a positive and empowering contrast to the generalised stereotypes perpetuated by white culture, and in a different, but equally significant way, by black male culture. 

British Asian women – Baroness Warsi, Shazia Mirza, Meera Syal and many others – have also achieved prominence in politics, media and the workplace confounding popular perceptions. Despite the success of some women, however, a high percentage remain unemployed or in low paid employment.  A recent report revealed that 16 year old Black Caribbean, Pakistani and Bangladeshi girls have better GCSE results than boys from the same ethnic origin and (in most cases) white boys, are more ambitious than white girls in the same schools and want, and expect to, have a successful career but they are still discriminated against in the workplace. They are also less likely to reach senior positions than white British women, despite having better qualifications (Moving On Up, 2006).  Similarly a seminal report by the Fawcett Society (2005) showed that on average, Pakistani and Bangladeshi women earn only 56 per cent of the average hourly wage of white men.

Gendered experiences of life in Britain: commonalities and differences.

There are clear differences in the experiences of black and Asian women in terms of class, culture, ethnicity and histories but also some commonalities. First: their experiences as migrants to Britain were adversely affected by stereotyping stemming from the colonial era that adversely contrasted them to white women, and inequalities have persisted.  Second: the stresses of migration and racism impact adversely on gender relations, particularly in poorer families where racism is compounded by poverty and unemployment.  This has enhanced women’s vulnerability and both black and Asian women have both experienced domestic violence which has remained more hidden because of the need for community solidarity against racism and alienation from white agencies. Third: women have had to cope with their children’s problems in British schools and concern that their sons should become involved in crime and street gangs: the increase in gun crime and murders of young African Caribbean men has added to the burden black women face on a daily basis.  Women have also had to bear the sorrow of their children’s deaths from racial attacks, the case of Stephen Lawrence is perhaps most notable here but there are many others who have not received the same media attention. Fourth, and on a more positive note, black and Asian women have organized together in the workplace to fight for better conditions and have joined together around black feminist organizations such as Southall Black Sisters, founded in 1979 to defend their rights (Rahila Gupta  ed.  2003).

In conclusion, black and Asian men and women experienced migration in different ways.   As British citizens, women’s lives continued to be influenced by inherited cultural beliefs and values, racial and gender discrimination, and the legacy of white gendered stereotypes. There have been individual successes and much has changed in the transition from first generation settler to subsequent generations of British-born women.  However, discrimination in employment still exists and the ‘corridors of power’- parliament, the law, the police – are still dominated by white men. Even in the world of black British and British Asian music, female musicians have not had the same profile as, for instance, male rappers such as Dizzie Rascal. Thus, despite important advances since the 1970s and some spectacular success stories, black and Asian women’s life chances are still negatively influenced by the link between whiteness and success.

References

Atvar Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora (1996).

Lynn Segal, ‘Black Feminist Perspectives’ in Is the Future Female? (1990).

Shiela Patterson, Dark Strangers (1962).

Hazel Carby, ‘Black Feminism and the Boundaries of Sisterhood’,  in Cultures in Babylon, (1999).

Rahila  Gupta (ed.) From Homebreakers to Jailbreakers: Southall Black Sisters (London: Zed Books, 2003). 

Fawcett Society, Black & Minority Ethnic Women in the UK, (2005). http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/index.asp?PageID=46

Equal Opportunities Commission, Moving On Up: Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Black Caribbean women and work ( Interim report , 2006) http://www.swadhinata.org.uk/misc/bme_gfi_early_findings_england.pdf

Home Office, A choice by right; The report of the working group on forced marriage (2000) http://www.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/pdf/pdf14/fco_choicebyright2000

Claire Alexander, ‘Black Masculinity’ in Kwesi Owusu ed., Black British Culture and Society: A Text Reader (2000), pp. 373-385.

Wendy Webster, Imagining Home: Race, Class and National Identity, 1945 -64 (1997).

Claudette Williams, ‘We are a natural part of many different struggles’: Black women organising in Clive Harris and Bob Carter eds., Inside Babylon: The Caribbean Diaspora in Britain. pp. 148-166 (1993)

S. Ruck ed., The West Indian Comes to England: A Report Prepared for the Trustees of the London Parochial Charities by the Family Welfare Association’ London, (1960)

Moving On Up: Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Black Caribbean women and work (Summary, Interim report, 2006)http://www.swadhinata.org.uk/misc/bme_gfi_early_findings_england.pdf

Barbara Bush is Emeritus Professor of History at Sheffield Hallam University. She is the author of Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1650-1838 (James Currey, 1990); Imperialism, Race and Resistance: Africa and Britain 1919-1945 (Routledge, 1999) and Imperialism and Postcolonialism (Pearson Education 2006). Since the 1980s she has published number of articles on gender and culture in slave and post-slave societies.

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