Taking On The Men - The First Women Parliamentary Candidates 1918 (Paperback)

The first General Election after British women won the right to vote in 1918 was almost an entirely male affair. With just days to spare before the old Parliament dissolved, legislation was rushed through that enabled female candidates to stand. Women scrambled to be nominated, but only seventeen made it onto the ballot paper. Three were in the West Midlands. Christabel Pankhurst (Smethwick) is probably the best known of them now. But, at the time, Mary Macarthur (Stourbridge), and Margery Corbett Ashby (Ladywood) were equally capable of making headline news... and often did. Ranged against them were all the forces of tradition and rigid conservatism, determined that women candidates should fail. Taking On the Men is a fascinating, superbly researched and thoroughly well-told tale of three women who took on the men and - simply by standing for Parliament – scored a small victory against what would now be known as 'the patriarchy'.