Discuss the role played by women in the Independent Labour Party.

Under the leadership of Kier Hardie (1856-1915) the Independent Labour Party was formed in 1893. The main, political objective of the ILP was to secure the collective ownership of the means of productions, distribution and exchange. (Hannan, June 1999) It was an uncompromisingly socialist party whose advocates attacked capitalism at every opportunity. However the ILP prided itself on being the most sympathetic of all political groups, at the time, to the women question; the party, at times, even went so far as to be sympathetic to the aspirations of feminists. Ours is the one political party wherein women stand on terms of perfect equality with men (Hardie, Kier 1899) Nevertheless although the ILP may have been keen to recruit women, those who did manage to join really had to assert themselves if they wanted to do more than make the tea and run fund-raising bazaars as their mothers…(short extract)