The Labour Party, Women, and the Problem of Gender, 1951–1966

Abstract

Following the 1966 General Election, the Labour Party's Home Policy Committee observed that the party had, “for the first time, obtained a majority of the female vote” and remarked, “it would be very satisfactory if we could retain it.” Two years later, the Report of the Committee of Enquiry into Party Organisation emphasized the “imperative that the Party concerns itself with how to win much more support among women.” These comments not only betrayed a serious weakness in Labour's electoral support between 1951 and 1966 but also acknowledged an important lacuna in its broader political outlook.Given the party's electoral difficulties in the period after 1951, the first concern was particularly apposite. Beatrix Campbell, Nicky Hart, and Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska have underlined the importance of this gender gap favoring the Conservatives after 1950 (see fig. 1). In the elections of 1951 and 1955, for example, Labour's vote among women lagged twelve and thirteen percentage points behind that of the Conservatives. Only in two elections between 1945 and 1970 did Labour enjoy leads among female voters, and these were much less substantial than those held by the Conservatives in 1951, 1955, 1959, and 1964. In rough numerical terms, this difference was potentially very significant. In 1951, for instance, women made up approximately 51.9 percent of the population of England, Scotland, and Wales and roughly 53.8 percent of those of voting age. With an electorate of 28.5 million, this meant a possible political advantage for the Conservatives of 1.2 million votes in an electoral contest where there were only .2 million votes between the two parties.