Socialist Women

This fascinating new study examines the experiences of women involved in the socialist movement during its formative years in Britain and the active role they played in campaigning for the vote. By giving full attention to this much-neglected group of women, Socialist Women examines and challenges the orthodox views of labour and suffrage history. Torn between competing loyalties of gender, class and politics, socialist women did not have a fixed identity but a number of contested identities. June Hannam and Karen Hunt probe issues that created divisions between these women, as well as giving them the opportunity to act together. In three fascinating case studies they explore:* women's suffrage* women and internationalism* the politics of consumptionBelieving above all that being a woman was vital to their politics, these individuals sought to develop a woman-focused theory of socialism and to put this new politics into practice.Socialist Women explores what it meant to be a socialist woman against the backdrop of enormous political and social upheaval caused by the First World War and the growth of the women's suffrage movement. The viewpoint of these women brings a new perspective to both socialist and feminist politics, which will make absorbing reading for anyone interested in gender history or the politics of this period.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction, Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.