Twenty-nine per cent Women Councillors after a Mere 100 Years
| DOI | 10.1177/0952076708100877 |
| Published date | 01 April 2009 |
| Author | Chris Game |
| Date | 01 April 2009 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Twenty-nine per cent Women
Councillors after a Mere 100
Years
Isn’t it Time to Look Seriously at Electoral Quotas?
Chris Game
University of Birmingham, UK
Abstract Just over 100 years ago, 5 pioneering women and 1 quite exceptional one
became the first legitimately elected female members of English county and
county borough councils. While obviously important, the Qualification of
Women Act 1907 that enabled their election was far from the only one to
have influenced women’s electoral involvement in local government. Their
first real opportunity had come in 1870, when the remarkably female-friendly
electoral system introduced in Forster’s Education Act enabled women to
become elected members of school boards – one of the very first being the
‘quite exceptional’ woman mentioned above, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. The
first part of this article examines the rules governing women’s 19th-century
voting and candidacy rights, and concludes that they were a decisive factor in
determining both the extent and nature of women’s participation in public life.
The second part examines the comparable modern-day rules surrounding
electoral systems and gender quotas and suggests that they are similarly
influential in determining – or limiting – the representational diversity in our
elected governmental bodies. With women comprising just 29 per cent of
English councillors after more than a century, the time has surely come, the
article concludes, to follow other countries in their utilization of electoral
quotas.
Keywords 19th-century local government, electoral engineering, gender quotas,
representation of women, UK local government, women in politics
DOI: 10.1177/0952076708100877
Chris Game, Honorary Senior Lecturer, Institute of Local Government Studies, School of
Government and Society, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK.
[email: c.h.game@bham.ac.uk] 153
© The Author(s), 2009.
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The Importance of Rules
This article comprises at least two mini-papers, spans three centuries, and
incorporates snatches of governmental history, electoral engineering, and policy
advocacy. Conceptually, it might be said to take a ‘rational-choice institutionalist’
approach to an aspect of electoral reform, arguing that formal rules matter (Norris,
2004, p. 2). The statutes and formal rules defining, in this instance, candidacy in
and the conduct of local government elections are among the factors having a
significant impact on the strategic incentives facing political actors, parties, and
indeed voters. Change the rules and you stand at least a chance of changing
political behaviour. In respect of the electoral representation of women – the main
focus of this article – it worked in the 19th century and, in many countries, is work-
ing in the 21st century. The title’s rhetorical question suggests that our instinc-
tively insular policy makers and particularly political parties should pay more
attention than they seem to be to what is happening abroad.
Some Exceptional Women and their Commemoration
Just over 100 years ago, 5 exceptional women were making history, as the first
legitimately elected female members of what during the previous two decades had
become England’s principal local authorities: county and county borough coun-
cils. A sixth joined them very shortly, following a by-election, giving the circled
total near the foot of Table 1.
The legislation enabling their election was the Qualification of Women (County
and Borough Councils) Act 1907 – the first to open up membership of top-tier
multi-purpose councils, as opposed to single-purpose local government bodies, to
women. It was, as evidenced in Table 1, far from the only law that helped advance
women’s electoral rights in local government, and in its short-term impact
arguably not even the most significant. Candidacy remained tied to property
ownership and, of course, most property was not owned by women, and most
women were not property owners. The 1914 Act that abolished this property
qualification might, therefore, have provided the greater boost – had all elections
not been almost immediately suspended due to the war.
Nevertheless, both the actual and symbolic importance of the 1907 Act are
obvious, and its centenary has been properly commemorated – most notably by the
re-formation of the Women’s Local Government Society (WLGS), founded
during the local government reforms of the late 1880s. A London-based group of
shamelessly upper-middle class, mainly leisured, strongly feminist women, the
WLGS became a formidable lobbying force, and was responsible more than any
other body for the passage of the 1907 Act. Wound up per se in 1925 with its
original aims of equality for women voters and candidates in local government
elections close to full statutory realization, the Society’s 2007 relaunch, as well as
being celebratory, had a very serious purpose too. For among its most prominent
aims is one that has itself now passed its centenary:
Public Policy and Administration 24(2)
154
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