Women Labour MP's
This posting is necessarily about the generality of Women Labour MP's and in particular those elected for the first time in 1997. I am the first to acknowledge that there are still in the Labour party courageous women MP's who continue to follow socialist policies particularly in relation to women and who always put principle before career
In 1997 the Number of Women MP's doubled to 120 and of those 101 were elected as Labour MP's more than one fifth of the parliamentary party. Had this large group of women acted collectively on any one issue affecting women they could have exerted great pressure on the government as rebellions of 40 or more MP's in the party have to be taken seriously even by a government with such a large majority. As this has never happened, even with regards to the archaic practices of the House of Commons itself that discriminate against women it is legitimate to ask questions about the performance of the women Labour Group.
The problem was put forcefully by the NUS Women's Conference in March 2001 :-
"Women are not well served or represented by women MPs who vote to cut lone parent benefits, introduce tuition fees, privatise pensions, hospitals and schools. The Labour party was created to represent the poor, vulnerable and marginalised, yet since coming to power it is specifically these groups they have attacked. In contrast to this they have been more than helpful to the rich, cutting corporation tax to the lowest level in Europe and refusing to increase income tax for the wealthy."
If we take as an example the cutting of single parent benefits. This is an issue that should be properly looked at in the context of financial recognition for the work of raising children, which has evoked no enthusiasm among women MP's.
Over 4 million families live in single parent families in Britain; there are 1,7million parents (93%women) and 2.5 million children. Of course many more people in our society have been single parents or children in single parent families. This Labour Government cut lone parent benefit and one parent benefit at the same time as the Child Support Agency imposed a 40% benefit penalty. The cuts to single parents raised at most for the treasury £480 million over three years so they had nothing to do with making substantial savings. They were a crude attempt at social engineering to force lone parents back to work and given the lack of affordable child care for these women would turn single parent families into no parent families!
But did labour women MP's rebel against the 'hard choices' that New Labour made that clearly harmed women. Paul Cowley of Hull University showed that at first they were seven times less likely to rebel than male MPs of the same intake. As time went on they were still twice as unlikely to rebel as the men.
Women MP's and researchers such as Fiona Mactaggart in her
Fabian pamphlet. and Dr Sarah Childs, of Middlesex University have attempted to combat the notion that rebellion is a useful test of the effectiveness of Women MP's by claiming that the fact that recent budgets had benefited women disproportionately more than men is proof that labour women have been working quietly behind the scenes to help women. Now this argument seems to me totally disingenuous as women are disproportionately represented among those living in poverty in this country, the elderly, the disabled, the sick, the unemployed etc. So any greater expenditure on social services pensions etc will necessarily benefit women disproportionately and even this labour government has made some gestures towards the poor!
If women MP's have failed to make a real impact on the government in terms of improving the position of women what explanations have been offered.
1. The Stepford Wife Explanation
Brian Sedgemore A veteran Labour MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch described some of his new women colleagues in the Commons as Stepford Wives with a "chip inserted into their brain to keep them on message". He made his comments during a speech at the Tate Gallery in London on "New Labour" and the future of fine art under the government. "Then there's the Stepford Wives, that's those female New Labour MPs who've had the chip inserted into their brain to keep them on message and who collectively put down women and children in the vote on lone parent benefits."
2. The Blair's Babes Explanation
Many writers have written disparagingly about "Blair's Babes" but perhaps the writer that has spelt out the inferences regarding the notion of "Blair's Babes" most clearly is the writer Fay Weldon.
The author wrote an article in the New Statesmen in she asked why women MP's had not made an impact and would do anything for promotion
"It's yes Tony, no Tony, smile at me, Tony. How wise and wonderful and powerful you are, Tony,"
wrote Ms Weldon. She followed up her article by speaking on the Today Programme when she said that she
hoped the election of 101 women to the Commons in 1997 would create a "wild sweep of social change" but it had not happened. She also talked about her great fear
"that some women just fell in love with Tony Blair and "in a way you feel that the attraction of the leader is so great they just want him to love them."
Now I feel that both the Stepford wife and Blair's Babes comments on women MP's should simply be rejected out of hand as they are sexist if not deeply misogynist, though I have some sympathy with Fay Weldon's comment that:-
"I think about 90 of Blair's babes speak with one voice and when 90 women speak with one voice you wonder what is going on"
Before trying to explain the apparent willingness of women to support policies detrimental to women and children I would like to consider the issue regarding Women MP's and feminism. Sarah Childs has also done research on the 65 new intake of Labour women in 1997.
She questioned them to see if they were 'attitudinally Feminist' i.e. whether they saw themselves as feminists rather than acting as feminists. This type of research makes me glad that I am a retired Sociologist that no longer considers professed attitudes as particularly useful. Probably a reasonable proportions of New Labour party are "attitudinally socialist" which apparently does not prevent them behaving like "Thatcherites" on immigration, poverty, civil liberties etc.
Of Sarah Child's sample 75% identified themselves as feminists 10% were ambiguous and 18%( wow!) did not see themselves as feminists at all. Interestingly Sarah Child showed that a number of her sample particularly in the ambiguous or not feminist groups saw the designation of themselves as feminist as detrimental to their career prospects within the party.
Jane Griffith a first term labour MP puts it this way:-
"there are too many expectations"
"We are expected to focus on child care and women's health. Just because I am a woman it does not mean that I have to be interested in women's issues."
Now I cannot understand why many women and men! Have such difficulty in declaring themselves to be feminists especially those who are members of a supposedly socialist political party. I define feminism as a willingness to fight the oppression, injustices, violence against, and exploitation of women carried out by men. Why is making such a commitment so difficult? And how can people be "a bit feminist" but find the notion of being "a bit anti-racist" as absurd?
I feel that the real explanation of why Labour women MP's failed to rebel strongly against labour party policy and legislation obviously detrimental to women is their similarity not their difference from their male colleagues and that the undemocratic selection process for Labour candidates is probably the most important contributing factor. The selection process for candidates involves such a tight screening out of progressive and radical thinkers or those with strong convictions that most of the great Labour Party figures of the past would have failed to become candidates. New candidates are typically young, intelligent, 'attractive', self-serving, careerists with the ethics of "bugs bunny" in short "Thatcher's Children".
MP's of the past knew that in addition to their own self-interest and that of the party they represented constituencies of various kinds. First the geographical constituency for which they were members of parliament. Labour MP's still often represent some of the poorest constituencies in the country and have a duty to strongly represent the interests of their constituents on government policy in relation to poverty. How strongly does David Blunkett represent the interests of the terribly run down schools within his Sheffield constituency for example?
But there are other sorts of constituencies, many labour MP's were and are funded by the Trade Unions and they knew that they had a duty to represent working men and women and particularly Trade Union members. Similarly like it or not labour women do have a constituency of women to consider not least because many women helped to put them in power in the hope that they would get a better deal for them than men.
This posting is necessarily about the generality of Women Labour MP's and in particular those elected for the first time in 1997. I am the first to acknowledge that there are still in the Labour party courageous women MP's who continue to follow socialist policies particularly in relation to women and who always put principle before career
In 1997 the Number of Women MP's doubled to 120 and of those 101 were elected as Labour MP's more than one fifth of the parliamentary party. Had this large group of women acted collectively on any one issue affecting women they could have exerted great pressure on the government as rebellions of 40 or more MP's in the party have to be taken seriously even by a government with such a large majority. As this has never happened, even with regards to the archaic practices of the House of Commons itself that discriminate against women it is legitimate to ask questions about the performance of the women Labour Group.
The problem was put forcefully by the NUS Women's Conference in March 2001 :-
"Women are not well served or represented by women MPs who vote to cut lone parent benefits, introduce tuition fees, privatise pensions, hospitals and schools. The Labour party was created to represent the poor, vulnerable and marginalised, yet since coming to power it is specifically these groups they have attacked. In contrast to this they have been more than helpful to the rich, cutting corporation tax to the lowest level in Europe and refusing to increase income tax for the wealthy."
If we take as an example the cutting of single parent benefits. This is an issue that should be properly looked at in the context of financial recognition for the work of raising children, which has evoked no enthusiasm among women MP's.
Over 4 million families live in single parent families in Britain; there are 1,7million parents (93%women) and 2.5 million children. Of course many more people in our society have been single parents or children in single parent families. This Labour Government cut lone parent benefit and one parent benefit at the same time as the Child Support Agency imposed a 40% benefit penalty. The cuts to single parents raised at most for the treasury £480 million over three years so they had nothing to do with making substantial savings. They were a crude attempt at social engineering to force lone parents back to work and given the lack of affordable child care for these women would turn single parent families into no parent families!
But did labour women MP's rebel against the 'hard choices' that New Labour made that clearly harmed women. Paul Cowley of Hull University showed that at first they were seven times less likely to rebel than male MPs of the same intake. As time went on they were still twice as unlikely to rebel as the men.
Women MP's and researchers such as Fiona Mactaggart in her
Fabian pamphlet. and Dr Sarah Childs, of Middlesex University have attempted to combat the notion that rebellion is a useful test of the effectiveness of Women MP's by claiming that the fact that recent budgets had benefited women disproportionately more than men is proof that labour women have been working quietly behind the scenes to help women. Now this argument seems to me totally disingenuous as women are disproportionately represented among those living in poverty in this country, the elderly, the disabled, the sick, the unemployed etc. So any greater expenditure on social services pensions etc will necessarily benefit women disproportionately and even this labour government has made some gestures towards the poor!
If women MP's have failed to make a real impact on the government in terms of improving the position of women what explanations have been offered.
1. The Stepford Wife Explanation
Brian Sedgemore A veteran Labour MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch described some of his new women colleagues in the Commons as Stepford Wives with a "chip inserted into their brain to keep them on message". He made his comments during a speech at the Tate Gallery in London on "New Labour" and the future of fine art under the government. "Then there's the Stepford Wives, that's those female New Labour MPs who've had the chip inserted into their brain to keep them on message and who collectively put down women and children in the vote on lone parent benefits."
2. The Blair's Babes Explanation
Many writers have written disparagingly about "Blair's Babes" but perhaps the writer that has spelt out the inferences regarding the notion of "Blair's Babes" most clearly is the writer Fay Weldon.
The author wrote an article in the New Statesmen in she asked why women MP's had not made an impact and would do anything for promotion
"It's yes Tony, no Tony, smile at me, Tony. How wise and wonderful and powerful you are, Tony,"
wrote Ms Weldon. She followed up her article by speaking on the Today Programme when she said that she
hoped the election of 101 women to the Commons in 1997 would create a "wild sweep of social change" but it had not happened. She also talked about her great fear
"that some women just fell in love with Tony Blair and "in a way you feel that the attraction of the leader is so great they just want him to love them."
Now I feel that both the Stepford wife and Blair's Babes comments on women MP's should simply be rejected out of hand as they are sexist if not deeply misogynist, though I have some sympathy with Fay Weldon's comment that:-
"I think about 90 of Blair's babes speak with one voice and when 90 women speak with one voice you wonder what is going on"
Before trying to explain the apparent willingness of women to support policies detrimental to women and children I would like to consider the issue regarding Women MP's and feminism. Sarah Childs has also done research on the 65 new intake of Labour women in 1997.
She questioned them to see if they were 'attitudinally Feminist' i.e. whether they saw themselves as feminists rather than acting as feminists. This type of research makes me glad that I am a retired Sociologist that no longer considers professed attitudes as particularly useful. Probably a reasonable proportions of New Labour party are "attitudinally socialist" which apparently does not prevent them behaving like "Thatcherites" on immigration, poverty, civil liberties etc.
Of Sarah Child's sample 75% identified themselves as feminists 10% were ambiguous and 18%( wow!) did not see themselves as feminists at all. Interestingly Sarah Child showed that a number of her sample particularly in the ambiguous or not feminist groups saw the designation of themselves as feminist as detrimental to their career prospects within the party.
Jane Griffith a first term labour MP puts it this way:-
"there are too many expectations"
"We are expected to focus on child care and women's health. Just because I am a woman it does not mean that I have to be interested in women's issues."
Now I cannot understand why many women and men! Have such difficulty in declaring themselves to be feminists especially those who are members of a supposedly socialist political party. I define feminism as a willingness to fight the oppression, injustices, violence against, and exploitation of women carried out by men. Why is making such a commitment so difficult? And how can people be "a bit feminist" but find the notion of being "a bit anti-racist" as absurd?
I feel that the real explanation of why Labour women MP's failed to rebel strongly against labour party policy and legislation obviously detrimental to women is their similarity not their difference from their male colleagues and that the undemocratic selection process for Labour candidates is probably the most important contributing factor. The selection process for candidates involves such a tight screening out of progressive and radical thinkers or those with strong convictions that most of the great Labour Party figures of the past would have failed to become candidates. New candidates are typically young, intelligent, 'attractive', self-serving, careerists with the ethics of "bugs bunny" in short "Thatcher's Children".
MP's of the past knew that in addition to their own self-interest and that of the party they represented constituencies of various kinds. First the geographical constituency for which they were members of parliament. Labour MP's still often represent some of the poorest constituencies in the country and have a duty to strongly represent the interests of their constituents on government policy in relation to poverty. How strongly does David Blunkett represent the interests of the terribly run down schools within his Sheffield constituency for example?
But there are other sorts of constituencies, many labour MP's were and are funded by the Trade Unions and they knew that they had a duty to represent working men and women and particularly Trade Union members. Similarly like it or not labour women do have a constituency of women to consider not least because many women helped to put them in power in the hope that they would get a better deal for them than men.
posted by Stepaule at
3:47 AM
