Women Candidates and Elector Preference
| Author | Elizabeth Vallance |
| Published date | 01 November 1981 |
| Date | 01 November 1981 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9256.1981.tb00055.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Female Legislative Represmtation and the Electoral System
27
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WOMEN CANDIDATES AND E.LECTOR PREFERENCE
(EL
I
ZABETH
VAL.LANCE)
It
is a time-honoured political dogma
-
Margaret Thatcher notwithstanding
-
that a woman candidate loses the party votes. Yet
if
the idea has any basis,
it
is
surely because
it
is largely a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Party
selection con-
ferences apparently believe that their elect.ors are too fastidious to support a
woman. Women are thus excluded from the more attractive constituencies where
there
is
strong male competition; consequent.ly they do not often get a chance to
stand in winnable seats; they are clearly not therefore winners.
Q.E.D.,
and
the circle
is
complete.
It
is
hard not to agree with Bernard Shaw
who
wrote to
Margaret Bondfield after her selection for Northampton (which then had a Conser-
vative majority against her
of
more than
5,000),
'
. . .
why Northampton? You
are the best man of the
lot
and they shove you off to a place where the water
is
too cold
for
their dainty feet
.
.
.
and keep the safe seats for their now quite
numerous imbeci les' (Bondf ield,
1950,
p.245)~. Even without tendentious refer-
ences to mental calibre, the point
is
well made.
are not selected to win, as
it
seems increasingly clear that the electorate
at the indications from
1975
onwards that Margaret Thatcher was not kept out of
Number
10
by an electorate largely composed
of
chauvinist men and disapproving
Kuche und Kinder women. Soon after Mrs. Thatcher became leader, for example,
a Gallup poll in the Daily Telegraph (6 March 1975) indicated that the majority
of women,
if
not men
-
of all parties
-
supported her. By
1978,
the
N.O.P.
poll
prepared for the Daily Mail (11 July 1978) indicated very little discrimination
For the main reason women do not win
is;
more and more apparently that they
is
a
lot less squeamish than the selectorate.
It
could suprise no-one who looked
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