Week 8.
Feminism, the family and the state 1914-1939
Questions to ponder whilst you read…
 Were feminists in agreement about on the subject of ‘the family’?
 How influential were feminist ideas in shaping social policy?
 What feminist critique might we have of the welfare state?
Documents
‘Leaflet re National Council for Unmarried Mother and Her Child’ Ref. Maternity and
Infant Welfare 1/3, Women, War and Society [access via Warwick Library databases]
‘Leaflet: Babies of the Empire Society’, Ref. Maternity and Child Welfare 1/4,
Women, War and Society [access via Warwick Library databases]
‘Leaflet: Maternity and Child Welfare Grant’, Ref. Maternity and Child Welfare 1/13
Women, War and Society [access via Warwick Library databases]
‘The State and Sexual Morality’ (1920) MRC MSS.97/5/24 [available digitally at
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/studying/modules/docs/feminism]
Eleanor Rathbone, ‘The Disinherited Family: A Please for Direct Provision for the
Costs of Child Maintenance Through the Provision of Family Allowances’, BSP
Social Service Review 1 Sept 1927 1:3, 525-526
Or her book The Disinherited Family if you find this interesting.
Sylvia Pankhurst, The Home Front (1932) [a fascinating read]
‘Motherhood’ (1931) [available digitally at
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/studying/modules/docs/feminism]
Histories
J. Lewis, ‘Gender, the Family and Women's Agency in the Building of "Welfare
States": the British Case’, Social History 19 (1994), 37-55
J. Lewis, The Politics of Motherhood: Child and Maternal Welfare in England, 19001939 (1980)
C. Beaumont, ‘Citizens not Feminists: the Boundary Negotiated Between Citizenship
and Feminism by Mainstream Women's Organisations in England, 1928-39’,
Women’s History Review 9:2 (2000), 411-429
S. Pedersen, Family, Dependence and the Origins of the Welfare State in Britain and
France (1993) available online via library
D. Cohen, ‘Private lives in public spaces: Marie Stopes, the mothers clinics and the
practice of contraception’ History Workshop Journal 35 (1993), 95-116
A. Davin, ‘Imperialism and Motherhood’, History Workshop Journal 5 (1978), 9-65
[seminal article on relationship between motherhood and the state]
C. Beaumont, ‘Moral Dilemmas and Women's Rights : the attitude of the Mothers'
Union and Catholic Women's League to divorce, birth control and abortion in
England, 1928-1939’, Women’s History Review 16:4 (2007) 463-85