20th
Century Scottish Women - Changing Roles (II)
Again,
the war brought forward the issue of female suffrage. Before the
conflict the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), the militant
wing of the suffragettes, had made their demands for female suffrage
known through extreme methods, with hunger strikes, arson attacks
and violent assaults on the King, the Prime Minister and a certain
Winston Churchill, amongst others. However,
the suffrage movement at this time was mainly preoccupied with
the plight of middle class women and, in general, did not advocate
universal suffrage - the vote was to be allocated on the basis
of property held, and this excluded not only most women but most
men in Scotland as well. The war had the effect of democratising
the movement in that more working class women became politically
active. In 1918 women over the age of 30 got the vote and ten years
later equal voting rights with men was achieved.
Another phenomenon which altered the course of women's history
is the falling birth rates throughout the 20th century. Again
this trend was first noticeable amongst the middle classes but
eventually spread through the whole of society. Between the late
1870s and early 1930s birth rates halved and this had obvious
effects on women's ability to pursue careers. The most important
influence in this social trend was education and awareness of
birth control. Perhaps the most famous and controversial advocate
of birth control was Edinburgh-born Marie Stopes, who founded
the first Birth Control Clinic in Britain. She wrote a book on
feminism and marriage called Married Love (1918), in which
she suggested that marriage put an end to a woman’s intellectual
life, and she became interested in the subject of birth control
after meeting Margaret Sanger, an American advocate of birth control.
Her next book, Wise Parenthood, was also published in 1918
and was a concise guide to contraception. The book upset church
leaders and the Pope had condemned all forms of contraception,
but Marie's books were best sellers and did receive confirmation
from both Lloyd George and the medical community, who were keen
for public education on the issue. In 1921 Marie formed the Mother's
Clinic for Constructive Birth Control in Holloway, London. The
National Birth Control Association was established in 1931 under
her influence, and in 1967 The Family Planning Act became the
greatest testimony to her great reforming work in society.
During
the Second World War there was again a marked increase in the
amount of women in the labour market. For example, the Rolls-Royce
factory at Hillington near Glasgow employed 10,000 women in the
production of spitfire engines. Women were now employed in highly
skilled engineering jobs, which before the war would have been
unthinkable. In 1940, this new position for women was officially
recognised when engineering firms were allowed pay female employees
the the same wage as skilled male labourers. This was a historic
achievement in the history of female labour and women were prepared
to fight for their new rights, as was shown at the Hillington
Factory when a strike was called over the Rolls-Royce management's
efforts to withhold equal pay. All this didn't mean equal pay
for women across the economy, but after the Second World War more
women kept their jobs compared to the First World War and the
sustained post-war economic boom helped this new position. The
economic boom of the 1950s combined with the creation of the Welfare
State increased the lot of women massively, especially amongst
the working classes. State benefits in childcare, housing and
health vastly increased the standard of living for everyone, and
made it easier for women with families to enter into employment.
By the swinging 60s most women in the workplace were married,
and this demonstrates the huge change in attitudes which had taken
place since the First World War when working married women and
working mothers were frowned upon, or even pitied. The domestic
revolution in labour-saving devices encouraged this new development,
as did advances in contraception and the continuing trend for
smaller families. Also the economy was starting move away from
male-dominated heavy industry towards more light manufacturing,
clerical, secretarial and service sector work. Scotland may have
been troubled by a reluctance to bury its industrial past, but
whilst many men stood in dole queues in the 1970s, Scottish women
were increasingly employed in these new industries. By the the
1990s, as Scotland headed towards the millennium, women became
the majority of the Scottish workforce. Much of this work was
still on a part-time basis and the female wage was still lower
on average than the male wage, but this rate of change in such
a short period of time is truly staggering.
All this has had major effects on gender relations in Scotland,
and men have had to adapt to the new situation as well as women.
Women are no longer dependent on male wages, and often the opposite
situation is the case. They now have a choice in family planning
and have better provision in childcare. The stigma attached to
working mothers is no longer valid in the economy. Education and
training must now be made available on an equal
basis, by law. Finally, political representation for women steadily
increased, and in 1999 the creation of the new Scottish Parliament
saw 49 women win seats, making up 37% of all MSPs. Obviously there
is still not a position of equality, when women make up 52% of
the Scottish population, but in the world-wide league of female
parliamentary representation, Scotland is number three, which
is a step in the right direction.
