Overview

Winner of the Best Non-Biographical Book by a Parliamentarian at the Parliamentary Books Awards 2019. A complete account of the first 100 years of women in Parliament. With a foreword by Dame Mary Beard. In 1919 Nancy Astor was elected as the Member of Parliament for Plymouth Sutton, becoming the first woman MP to take her seat in the House of Commons. Her achievement was all the more remarkable given that women (and even then only some women) had only been entitled to vote for just over a year. In the past 100 years, a total of 491 women have been elected to Parliament. Yet it was not until 2016 that the total number of women ever elected surpassed the number of male MPs in a single parliament. The achievements of these political pioneers have been remarkable – Britain has now had two female Prime Ministers and women MPs have made significant strides in fighting for gender equality - from the earliest suffrage campaigns, to Barbara Castle’s fight for equal pay, to Harriet Harman’s recent legislation on the gender pay gap. Yet the stories of so many women MPs have too often been overlooked in political histories. In this book, Rachel Reeves brings forgotten MPs out of the shadows and looks at the many battles fought by the Women of Westminster, from 1919 to 2019.

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9781399428644

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Reviews

Reeves’ account is full of gems. * The Sunday Times * These achievements [of female MPs] are all the more remarkable because of the challenges and hostilities they faced ... Women of Westminster shows how far female MPs have come, but how challenging their work remains. * Guardian * Reeves’s position as an insider lends a compelling edge, particularly when she describes the appalling abuse still suffered by many women MPs. * Journal of British Studies * From household names like Nancy Astor to lesser-known, but equally pioneering politicians such as Florence Horsbrugh and Mavis Tate, Women of Westminster tells the story of the female MPs who shaped Parliament and the country. These women broke into Parliament's boys' club, rewrote the membership rules and in the process set about transforming Britain. This is a glorious compendium of the manifold achievements they chalked up - and the sacrifices they made. Rachel Reeves is perfectly positioned to tell their story, having experienced the slings and arrows of Parliamentary prejudice first-hand. As she herself puts it, she ""stands on the shoulders"" of her pioneering forbears, and from that vantage point she can see not only all they achieved but also what more needs to be done. * Cathy Newman *

Author Information

Rachel Reeves is a British politician and economist serving as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer since 2021. A member of the Labour Party, she has been Member of Parliament for Leeds West since 2010 and of Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet from 2013-2015. She is also the author of Alice in Westminster: The Political Life of Alice Bacon (2018).

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