"Matriarchal" or "Patriarchal"? Dundee, Women and Municipal Party Politics in Scotland c.1918-c.1939

Abstract

Dundee has long enjoyed a reputation as a ‘women’s town’. While not every historian has wholeheartedly agreed with this idea, it is true that in women have played a very prominent part in many aspects of the city’s history, especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It therefore might be expected that women would play a significant role in the governance of their city in the years after 1918 when women started to gain election to Scottish city councils. However, only a few women sought election to Dundee council before 1939, and Dundee compares poorly with other parts of Scotland in respect to the number of female councillors and council candidates it had during the interwar period. Indeed it can be argued that there was a wider trend of women making less of an impact in party politics in Dundee than they did elsewhere in Scotland after 1918. Several factors influenced this pattern including the fact Dundee had an unusually high number of women in paid employment. However there is also evidence that women in Dundee faced opposition and apathy to the idea of them pursing active political roles. Given the idea that the city was a ‘women’s town’ this may seem odd. Yet, ironically, it can be proposed that the fact women played an atypically high-profile role in other areas of what is often termed the ‘public sphere’ may have actually hindered Dundonian women’s involvement in municipal party politics.