What difference has it made to British politics that the political elites have been, until very recently, almost exclusively male? The crudest answer to this question is that there have been several moments when the course of party politics has been determined by the anatomical differences between the sexes. Lloyd Georgeâs inability to participate in the negotiations that led to the formation of the National government in 1931, Clement Attleeâs inability to give an active lead to the Labour Party during the early stages of the wartime coalition government in 1940, and the chaotic succession crisis in the Conservative Party in 1963 were all caused by party leaders suffering from painful prostate conditions. 1 But this is to focus on sex rather than gender: maleness, rather than the historically contingent clusters of cultural expectations that attach to maleness. In this chapter, the ways in which those sets of expectations have provided the basic framework for political action by male governing elites since the end of the eighteenth century are examined.
Changing conceptions of masculinity have, for example, reshaped the ways in which the governing classes conducted disputes among themselves, seen most obviously in the decline of duelling. Three nineteenth-century prime ministers (the younger Pitt, George Canning and the Duke of Wellington) fought duels against political opponents during their careers, but by the end of the century it would have seemed ridiculous for Gladstone and Disraeli to settle their differences in a duel: significant changes had occurred in the ways in which public men were expected to defend their honour. 2 That this was a change in the history of masculinity is indicated by the fact that an entirely different set of customs regulated the behaviour of women. Changing conceptions of male friendship similarly reshaped interactions between politicians. The intense friendships between Gladstone and Arthur Hallam, and between Disraeli and Lord Henry Lennox, took place in a context very different from that encountered by their twenty-first century successors: a fact indicated by the suggestion of scandal in press coverage of the friendships of two senior Cabinet ministers with their special advisors in 2010â2011. 3 Similarly, the contrast between the formality of Neville Chamberlainâs Cabinet and the use of first names in Tony Blairâs Cabinet reflect broader changes in the forms of sociability that governed relations between men. 4 An inability to conform to norms of male sociability could be a political handicap. As Ewen Green noted, âcountry house parties and London society gatherings ⌠were an intrinsic part of Tory politickingâ, and this placed Andrew Bonar Law at a disadvantage given that âhe did not shoot or hunt, was teetotal, disliked music and dancing, and ⌠never dined with anyone if he could help itâ. 5 The important point is that established patterns of male sociability formed a resource for politicians to draw on or an obstacle for them to overcome if they were to succeed, and by placing these patterns of sociability in the context of the history of masculinity it becomes possible to treat them analytically rather than as merely a source for colourful anecdote.
A full account of these changes is beyond the scope of this chapter, which will instead provide an introduction to some of the ways in which the House of Commons provided a site for the performance of masculinities by politicians. What is meant by the claim that men were âperforming masculinitiesâ? 6 It is useful to begin with Simon Szreterâs concept of âcommunication communitiesâ: social formations characterised by people who share sets of norms because they participate in the same networks, institutions and practices that generate those norms. For example, in the nineteenth century, middle-class men in different parts of the country belonged to the same communication community because they went to the same sorts of schools and read the same newspapers, whereas working-class communication communities tended to be more localised, with dialect literature and local schools, street corners and workplaces producing regionally diverse community norms. 7 Within those communities, multiple models of masculinity might circulate (the devoted father, the sexual libertine, the heroic artisan, etc.), and within each community a range of institutions served to give more or less prestige or legitimacy to each of those models. Masculinity is performed in that men are identified with one of the available repertoire of cultural forms only by what they do. Men do not have a free choice as to which masculinities they can perform. They are constrained by the habitusâthat set of dispositions acquired through socialisation in a particular milieuâand by the amount of cultural, educational and financial capital available to an individual. 8 In what follows we will be particularly interested in the opportunities that parliamentary politics provided men to identify themselves with forms of masculinity considered prestigious within the communication communities in which they participated. There is, unfortunately, no space to consider the role of communication communities in authorising whether or not an individualâs gender performance was legitimate or not, but this was of considerable political importance: a politician who tried to present himself as a gentleman, but who was not recognised as such by his peers, would find himself at a serious political disadvantage.
Self-fashioning and Parliamentary Performance
The creation of male identities is most obvious in the speeches that MPs made in the House of Commons. It has been common, for example, for male politicians to present themselves as chivalrous defenders of women and children, thereby attempting to appropriate the prestige accorded to that role. 9 This was a move frequently made by Labour MPs in the 1920s. Thomas Johnston, for example, complained in 1927 that proposed changes to unemployment benefit would produce âcases of girls driven to the streetsâ and prostitution. 10 Reviving the old nineteenth-century radical critique of aristocratic sexuality, Duncan Graham distinguished the honourable masculinity of working-class men from the debauched sexuality of his political opponents. 11 âMost of the men who come from the class to which the majority on the other side belongâ, Graham said, âlive to a large extent by preying upon the girls who are being reduced to this state [of financial desperation].â 12 Simultaneously, he and his colleague William Mackinder drew attention to the fact that they were fathers of families, and especially daughters, thereby identifying themselves with other male qualities considered desirable: fertility and headship of a household. 13 It was in such ways that male MPs constructed distinctively male identities that allowed them to speak with authority on the subjects before the House. It is striking that a female Labour MP, whose rhetorical positioning drew on a different set of gender norms from those of male colleagues, thought that these fears about prostitution were âridiculousâ: defending the character and autonomy of working-class women, Ellen Wilkinson insisted that âMost of them will prefer starvation to that.â 14
In some cases, men were able to associate themselves with âheroicâ qualities. This was a common tactic among Labour MPs who had been miners. Since no one could deny the extreme risks and physical hardship endured by miners, William Jenkins was making a statement about the kind of man that he was when he reminded the House that âI have worked in mines myself for 18 yearsâ. 15 Industrial conflict also offered a way for Labour MPs to present themselves in heroic terms. During the debate on the 1926 Coal Mines Bill, for example, David Grenfell told the House that those who âhave grown up in this industry ⌠have been fighting all our livesâ. 16
Identifying oneself with âheroicâ traits was easiest for those MPs who had served in the armed forces, and who were addressed in the House, until the 1990s, as âhonourable and gallantâ members. 17 Significant numbers of nineteenth-century MPs had fought in the Napoleonic or Crimean Wars, and in the immediate aftermath of the First World War there were 250 military veterans in the House. In the 1920s, Conservative ex-servicemen were eager to contrast their wartime records with those of Labour candidates who had been conscientious objectors. 18 This party-political dimension was exacerbated by the number of trade unionists working in reserved occupations and the large numbers of middle-class Labour members working in non-combatant roles, which meant that proportionately far fewer Labour MPs had faced the dangers of the front than their Conservative opponentsâa phenomenon repeated in the Second World War. These experiences of military service certainly affected the ways in which contemporaries assessed one anotherâs masculinities. Humphry Berkley wrote that Harold Macmillanâs âexperience of warfare left him with a deep-rooted contempt for those who had not served in the armed forcesâ, and remembered him once saying that âThe trouble with Gai...