pointed out, ‘it is felt that women can best serve the nation by keeping clear of
men’s party political machinery and traditions, which, by universal consent,
leave so much to be desired.’^9 As Emmeline later explained, women needed a
party of their own because ‘men had grown so accustomed to managing the
world in the past that it had become rather difficult for women in politics to
hold their own if they were associated with men’.^10 Whereas the WSPU had
campaigned for the parliamentary vote for women, the aim of the Women’s
Party was to prepare women for their impending citizenship status during
wartime and after. With the slogan ‘Victory, National Security and Progress’,
the Women’s Party conflated the winning of the war with the women’s cause.
An account of the separatist Women’s Party manifesto was published in
Britannia; it was signed by Emmeline (Honorary Treasurer), Christabel (Editor
of its official newspaper,Britannia), Annie Kenney (Honorary Secretary) and
Flora Drummond (Chief Organiser), in that order. The social reform post-war
programme, designed to appeal especially to women, was feminist and radical in
that it demanded equal pay for equal work, equal marriage laws (including equal
conditions of divorce), equality of parental right, the raising of the age of
consent, equal opportunity of employment, and equality of rights and responsi-
bilities in regard to the social and the political service of the nation. A system of
maternity and infant care was called for, with parents making a financial contri-
bution according to their income, as well as a guarantee that all children would
receive an education that would make them worthy citizens. Co-operative
housekeeping was also considered necessary, in order to reduce the burden of
the married woman, with co-operative housing schemes that had a central
heating and hot water supply, central kitchens, a central laundry, medical
services, and, if desired, a crèche, nursery school, gymnasium and reading room.
The demands of the Women’s Party in regarded to women’s war-time duties,
on the other hand, were patriotic and imperialist, encompassing both a national
and international world-view, but all subservient to the ‘national interest’. The
war must continue until victory had been secured by the Allies; more radical
and vigorous war measures (including food rationing and the reduction or prohi-
bition of all non-essential industry) should be adopted in order to secure a
speedy victory; officials in government departments having enemy blood or
connections or pacifist and pro-German leanings should be removed from office;
the Great War Alliance should be maintained after the war; the British Empire
should be strengthened; a solution to the problem of industrial unrest should be
sought in the shortening of hours of labour rather than in the direction of
control of industry by the workers. Placing faith in the democratic process rather
than the dictatorship of the Bolsheviks, it was argued that since ‘the interest of
the community as a whole transcends that of the employer ... and the employed
... Parliament as the sole representative of the nation, must have the last word
in all questions affecting the relations between Capital and Labour and indus-
trial questions generally’.^11 In particular, Emmeline, with her hatred of
Marxism, emphasised that the Women’s Party stood ‘for industrial reform, better
LEADER OF THE WOMEN’S PARTY