Synopses & Reviews
The continuing under-representation of women in political and public life remains a matter of concern across a wide range of countries, including the UK and Ireland. Within the UK it is a topical issue as political parties currently debate strategies, often controversial, which will increase women's representation. At the same time, devolution has ushered in significant change in the level of women's representation in Scotland and Wales and improved representation for women in Northern Ireland. That such increases in women's representation in political institutions have been slow in coming is indisputable, given that full enfranchisement of women on equal terms with men was achieved in Ireland in 1921 and in the UK in 1928.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction - Esther Breitenbach and Pat Thane \ Chapter 2: Women and political participation in England, 1918-1970 - Pat Thane \ Chapter 3: ‘Providing an opportunity to exercise their energies': the role of the Labour Women's Sections in shaping political identities, South Wales, 1918-1939 - Lowri Newman \ Chapter 4: Count up to twenty-one: Scottish women in formal politics, 1918-1990 - Catriona Burness \ Chapter 5: Scottish women's organizations and the exercise of citizenship c. 1900 - c. 1970 - Esther Breitenbach \ Chapter 6: The ‘women element in politics': Irish women and the vote, 1918-2008 - Mary Daly \ Chapter 7: ‘Aphrodite rising from the Waves'?: Women's voluntary activism and the women's movement in twentieth-century Ireland - Lindsey Earner-Byrne \ Chapter 8: Conflicting rights: the struggle for female citizenship in Northern Ireland - Myrtle Hill and Margaret Ward \ Chapter 9: ‘Apathetic, parochial, conservative'? Women, élite and mass politics from 1979 to 2009 - Rosie Campbell and Sarah Childs \ Chapter 10: Feminist politics in Scotland from the 1970s to 2000s: engaging with the changing state - Esther Breitenbach and Fiona Mackay \ Chapter 11: Women and political representation in post-devolution Scotland: High time or high tide? - Fiona Mackay and Meryl Kenny \ Chapter 12: Devolution, citizenship and women's political representation in Wales - Paul Chaney \ Chapter 13: The refuge movement and domestic violence policies in Wales Nickie Charles