Gender Struggles in the British Labour Party from 1979 to 1995

Abstract

This report examines the internal struggles that have taken place in the British Labour Party since 1979 to make gender a salient political issue and to increase the representation of women. I argue that the culture and organization of the Labour Party in 1979 provided an inhospitable terrain for women to organize around gender issues, but that since that time women have been able to use the spaces created by other agendas for party adaptation and change, particularly demands for party democratization and party modernization, to develop a gender-party dynamic which has allowed women to press their claims more effectively, but only in ways that are congruent with the leadership's modernization strategy.