THE FEMINISM OF BARBARA CASTLE E L L A S TA D D O N
“I want you to forget two things: the first is that I am just out of hospital. The second is that I am a woman. I’m no feminist. Just judge me as a socialist.”
Barely recovered from appendicitis, Barbara Betts travelled across war-torn Britain to stand for parliamentary selection. After declaring that she was 'no feminist', she was selected on condition that she stopped using her maiden name.
Unlike many of her left-wing allies, for Castle, feminism was a part of socialism, and the fact that women were not seen as equal horrified her. She therefore took it upon herself to fight, "in the teeth of opposition from her colleagues", to advance the cause of women, arguably doing more than any other politician in history to change and improve the lives of women in Parliament and beyond.
Climbing the walls in Oxford
Much of Castle's feminist ideology originated in Oxford. She arrived on a scholarship less than ten years after women first enrolled, and found herself subject to curfews and chaperones. Unsurprisingly, women were barred from political involvement at a university level, with the Labour Club the only place where women could take an active part in politics - even though they were not yet allowed to run for committee leadership positions. Her response was to rebel. Instead of being chaperoned, she climbed the fence. She climbed as high in the committee as the OULC would allow. She had her JCR buy a book on contraception that advocated equality in relationships. And she boycotted the Oxford Union. Even after the OU changed
its rules for women's membership, she was not convinced that this attempt at modernisation was permanent, arguing that “there is a strong undercurrent of masculine chauvinism only too anxious to put the clock back.”
The battle for equal pay
Castle had been involved in the equal pay debate from the beginning of her career, and in 1954 organised a petition with over 80,000 signatures calling for equal pay. Castle and her cross-bench allies kept up the pressure and in 1955 the Chancellor announced that equal pay would be introduced in the civil service in 1960.
The 1964 Labour manifesto promised the introduction of equal pay, a fact Castle regularly reminded the Cabinet. She was confident that government inaction would lead to women turning militant, and it was not long before she was proved right. In June 1968, Rose Boland led a walkout of women machinists at Ford's Dagenham plant. Castle made no secret of her support for the women and within hours of meeting them she negotiated a pay rise to 92% of the male rate of pay and promised the nation to introduce equal pay legislation. Unfortunately, the majority of the cabinet, union leaders and industry were against her. Roy Jenkins, Tony Crosland and Dick Marsh publicly opposed the bill, and Frank Cousins of TGWU was heard saying "of course I'm opposed to equal pay". Like everything else Castle did, it was going to be a battle. In June 1968, Lena Jeger tabled an equal pay amendment to Roy Jenkin’s prices & incomes policy. Labour’s majority of one meant every MP had to be in support of the bill.
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