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Great writing as ever. Churchill must have been desperate to utilise women during the war- considering he ordered suffragettes to be force fed in prison…

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Fascinating! Thank you.

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Jul 22Liked by Sarah Harkness

Sarah, I thoroughly enjoyed your piece on the first women MPs. The vivid descriptions of the Women Members’ Room brought history to life. Your insights into Edith Summerskill’s advocacy were fascinating. I genuinely love how you research and construct these pieces.

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Thank you Jon, you are always so generous

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Not at all, your writing is high level.

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This is fascinating, had no idea that there were MPs elected by transferrable vote for universities, for starters. The unions' failures to support women's interests seem to have been an ongoing theme. I wonder if this was partly why Thatcher was able to first get elected - she made a particular pitch to working class women by offering right to buy council houses?

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So interesting.

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Absolutely fascinating. Thank you, Sarah.

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Thank you! Question--I see you mentioned the male GPs feared the midwives would infringe on their positions; were the other unionists fearful of "feminists" for similar issues of job security?? I enjoyed learning about some of these women in politics. I assume you see that we now have a woman put forward by many of the Democrats as a candidate against Trump. We'll see whether she fairs better than Hillary did. . . .

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After WW1 there were terrible issues for women being pushed back out of the workforce to make way for the returning men. And then along came the Depression and even worse conditions for women. You can see both sides.

I'm doing a lot of research onto women in the 30s for my next project. Watch this space.

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I will be watching!!

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