The Women's Enfranchisement Bill of May 1911 is an amendment of the same bill of 1910. It's plugged through Parliament again and again, with small alterations until eventually, in 1918, it goes through and women over 30 get the vote. The major difference between the 1911 version and the one before is that a slightly different group of women are under discussion: fewer 'ladies' and more working women, leading to a proposed proportion within the voting class of one woman for every seven men.
I warm to the proposer, George Kemp - 'I believe that at the present time the nation suffers a loss by the exclusion of capable women from the power to select Members of Parliament... we have no extra talent to throw away... we cannot afford to do without them.' But what actually catches my attention is a worry that's resonating through the House - the worry that eventually all women would end up voting. And the reason for this worry? In the words of Mr MacKinder - in the UK, '...you have more than a million more women than men.'
There are still over a million more women than men: the ratio is 95 to 100. The question about what is changed by having a large corpus of women voters is interesting - but it hasn't produced the sort of coup MacKinder is worried about. For me, however, this population statistic puts a new perspective on the whole story of women's liberation.
As a woman, as a participant in that story, I feel, rhetorically, like one of a struggling minority. Women who are 'firsts' - first students, first MPs, first in Board Rooms - are lauded as parallels to similar 'firsts' amongst members of genuine minority groups, for example as defined by ethnicity.
Celebration of these achievements is great, but I wonder whether the fact we are a majority should change how we think about them. Rhetorically speaking, the injustice is certainly greater if we remember we are not just half, but more than half of the human race. And rhetoric always helps. But is there more? For instance, can being one of a majority be a disadvantage?
Refs:
A Century of Change - Trends in UK Statistics since 1900
Hansard - Women's Enfranchisement Bill 1911
Office of National Statistics.
