Labour Women MPs and Housewifery in the House of Commons, 1945–1951

Abstract

Abstract This article analyses how Labour women MPs championed the needs of ‘the housewife’ in parliament in order to improve the lives of women, especially working-class women, during the Attlee administration. Relying on personal experience to make their case, these women spoke as housewives, not just for housewives, using gendered experiences for political ends. This article examines how they applied the politics of housewifery to two specific contemporary economic challenges: the cost of living and the impact of taxation. In doing so, and in contrast to the established literature, it shows how far Labour women were prepared to challenge party and government policy on behalf of women. It thus contributes to historiographical debates about the Labour party’s relationship to consumerism and affluence as well as gender and austerity. Building on Brian Harrison’s influential study of interwar women MPs, it also responds to a recent call made by Miles Taylor in this journal for more attention to women as legislators in the post-war period. Methodologically, it emphasizes the benefits of qualitative analysis of ‘big data’ sources.