Chapter VI: Can Women Succeed in Politics?

Can women succeed in politics? It is, perhaps, too early to say. Suddenly some giant personality may give the lie to all that could be said against woman as a politician.

Meantime, who but Lady Astor could have been the first woman M.P.? Who but a woman of her social position, wealth, and personality could have secured the reception accorded her by the House of Commons? And who but a woman—trained in America and as a Christian Scientist—would have had the courage to take up a work for which she was not educated; braving the criticism of the whole civilised world. But she has done it, and in spite of serious blunders at the beginning, she has done it remarkably well. When one remembers her demoralising wealth, that she had no business training at all, that she has to rely on her quick wit for speeches, one wonders what she might not have accomplished had she been through the professional mill.

But will she really help women at Westminster? Has she really their cause at heart? Can she understand them? Certainly she belongs to that fine school of American idealists who want to make great reforms. Only, to do these great things, you must understand them, and can she understand women’s needs, who has not herself been in need? She has a chance to help women, such as no one else has ever had, or may have again. Will she take it?

The cause of the working woman will always be well championed. Besides, the poor can beg; professional women cannot. On their way to independence some women have found sorrow and humiliation and suffering at every corner, but to whom will they ever confess?

Lady Astor was certainly not very successful in her attitude towards divorce. Had she studied the question sufficiently? Possibly not, and that was the reason. She supposed the thinking women of England were trying for _easier divorce_, not _reformed divorce_, and who could blame her for wishing to keep out of England the “easy divorce” laws of the U.S.A.

As a professional working woman, Mrs. Wintringham ought to be able to give the professional woman’s point of view with much more understanding than Lady Astor. Her speeches are commendably brief and to the point, but the public usually prefers personality and social standing to the highest, technical qualifications. It is, indeed, another very great point in Lady Astor’s favour that she has no axe to grind. The constituents who elected her because she is Lady Astor, will elect her again; whereas, with other woman candidates we have yet to find out whether they will put their own personal interests before their cause.

There was a time when one supposed women would clear up politics as they cleared up a dirty house. But are they more to be trusted in politics than men? A woman comes out of Labour ranks; as she gets on, she becomes socially ambitious, then she throws her party aside. Men have done it over and over again; they call it “evolution,” and women no doubt will say the same.

The few women who are likely to sit in the House of Commons can make _very little difference to the constitution_, and it might be wiser for women to use their vote for forcing men on to their side, and so making sure that their wishes are carried out with regard to Bills with which they are particularly concerned. Women and children’s laws need reform so badly; is it safe to rely on future women M.P.’s? It is true that we have not yet had any bills framed by women for women; they may be master-pieces of statesmanship. Let it be said meanwhile that at least they could not be worse than the existing man-made laws.

The danger of trusting women in politics, comes from their lack of _esprit de corps_, yet the very _raison d’être_ of their being in Parliament is to protect and help other women; to uphold other women’s interests. But see how they run their clubs! No men’s clubs are conducted on such lines. The best of them cannot choke that Mothers’ Meeting spirit, which shows itself at the most unfortunate moments. And the meetings are often conducted in the most unsportsmanlike manner. Over and over again a woman in the Chair will close the meeting if the feeling is going against her party, or her speaker cannot answer questions.

Individual women are magnificent; but to trust them collectively is futile as yet. Either from ignorance or from something in woman’s nature, somehow or other she so often seems to let other women down. We have said that Lady Astor, if she really cares to understand the professional woman’s point of view, could be of the greatest service to the women’s cause.

Outside the House of Commons, however, the women’s cause has suffered a great deal from the rich and titled women who annex it as an interesting hobby, draw up impossible charters for women, hold drawing-room meetings, agitate and drive their hearers on much faster than they ever ought to attempt to go. As one of the victims said: “I wish she would talk less, and offer us instead a good meal.”

There is not this terrible gulf of misunderstanding between rich men and professional men. Not even a workman would have his interests meddled with by people who have neither the right nor the capacity to interfere. They would very soon send Lord X. about his business, if he addressed them as his wife once addressed a women’s meeting. Stretching her pretty Paradise-plumed head out of her magnificent sable furs, she said: “Twopence is quite enough to spend on a meal; one penny for a packet of pea soup powder, and one penny for margarine. It makes a most delicious soup. I give it to my guests.” The pearls she was wearing would have fed a whole community for a long time on a much more substantial menu than two penny-worth of pea soup.

Another lady of great wealth advised a typist, earning only one pound a week, and forced to live on bread and cheese with a cup of tea, to “cut out the tea; it is indigestible. One good meal of bread and cheese a day is _excellent_; that is my régime.”

What is the use of answering such cruel folly by talk of sisterhood and democracy? Are they not mere idle words? Have we advanced one step since Marie Antoinette asked her historic question, “Why are the poor crying because they have no bread; can they not eat cake?”

There is no more fascinating, or useful, study than Foreign Politics. See what a conscientious student can learn in its train—history, geography, foreign languages, the literature and the psychology of different races. Then comes the longing to visit foreign lands, to see and judge their civilisation, and to understand them through their art and music. What better League of Nations Study-circle can there be than this?

And now, when in spite of conferences and meetings and reunions, the great cry is “less Europe and more England,” is there any chance for a serious study of foreign policy? The papers give us less and less foreign news; and how then are we to stimulate the great cosmopolitan spirit which ought to awaken a new breath of life?

If only such women as Lady Astor would revive the political “Salon,” where the great statesmen of the world could meet and discuss the affairs of nations, they might surely accomplish more for humanity than as members of Parliament?

Those wise old French _salonières_ who have passed into the realm of history, could no doubt have secured direct representation. They had no such desire—and therein showed their wisdom!