Herstory Milestones: Milestones
Women's Participation in UK Politics
WORDS BY IZZIE ADDISON IMAGE BY FLOSSY WATERS
T
he 2019 General Election saw a recordbreaking 220 women elected to be Members of Parliament. The first woman MP to take her seat, Nancy Astor, was elected one hundred years before this in 1919. So, how did we get from Nancy Astor to Theresa May, with the gender divide in the Commons ever-decreasing? What work is still to be done? Here’s the journey of women in UK politics tracked through some key milestones from the past 100 years.
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1918: The Representation of the People Act and The Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act Though many still consider 1918 to be when women got the vote in Britain, enfranchisement was only extended to women aged over 30 who could meet a property requirement, or whose husband could. Passed the same year, the Qualification of Women Act enabled women to stand for election to Parliament provided they were over 21 years old. The first woman to be elected as an MP was Constance Markievicz, for the Sinn Féin party, but she did not take her seat, having refused to take an oath of allegiance to the king.
MILESTONES
