Abstract
The historiography of women MPs has largely and until relatively recently centred around biographies of individual women. This new account, therefore, which considers the five Labour women cabinet ministers appointed before 1997 – Margaret Bondfield, Ellen Wilkinson, Barbara Castle, Judith Hart, and Shirley Williams – is to be welcomed as an important contribution to the field.
By taking female cabinet ministers as its focus, the book is able to discuss some of the Labour women politicians who were active in the second half of the twentieth century. The existing gaps in the literature mean we know less about them than the number of women MPs of all parties who were elected in the interwar years. This is particularly true for the career of Judith Hart, who has been the subject of little historical analysis thus far and who is discussed here in considerable detail. The specific discussions of each woman's career trajectory, key achievements, obstacles, and shortcomings will be particularly valuable for students and those working on British politics and gender from the 1930s onwards.
In tracking the career of each woman, Bartley notes the obstacles in the way of their advancement, in which gender always played a part. The book's introduction discusses the myriad ways in which the odds were heavily stacked against women ever reaching this rank: being in a position to run for office in the first place, negotiating party selection procedures, navigating a junior ministerial career in a very male environment, and then being selected for a cabinet role by the Prime Minister. In elucidating their careers, Bartley uses a range of sources, including press reporting, the women's own autobiographical writing and personal or constituency papers, and Labour party conference materials. However, I wonder what might have come to light about the process of promoting women to cabinet ranks had the personal papers of the relevant prime ministers and senior cabinet members been consulted, or internal strategy documents pertaining to the periods in which the party was in government. The reader does, though, get a very good sense of each of these women's particular concerns, motivations, and their identification with a particular wing of the Labour Party. Bartley also offers a very strong account of each of these women as constituency MPs and indeed one of the key points that emerges here is how, even when holding ministerial rank, female MPs could be less sure than their male counterparts of keeping their seats because of the differing standards to which women in public life were often held, or because women were less likely to be given safe seats in the first place. The book also offers, then, an account of how incredibly hard these women worked to serve their constituents and to maintain and advance their own careers.
There are two chapters on each of the five women, the first generally covering their early life and career up to the point of being appointed to a cabinet post and the second on their cabinet ministerial work itself. There are good reasons for structuring the book in this way, allowing readers to learn about the individual cabinet ministers in context. However, a chapter or more that then stepped back and considered what these women's careers might tell us collectively, or which considered the peculiarities and specificities of being Labour cabinet ministers, or which considered more deeply the mechanics of gender and the workings of gendered expectations and stereotypes, would have been welcome. Similarly, there are at times some generalizations about Labour government policy, including towards women and feminist issues that need further unpacking and nuancing.
Still, the book is very welcome for the level of detail and new insights it provides. It will serve as an important text on the topic and its accessible style means that it will have appeal to academic readers, to students at all levels and to a wider readership.