Class & Sexual Politics. Should there be female hereditary peers?
Last weekend the Sunday Times revealed that of the 85 Hereditary Peers currently sitting in the Lords 46% went to Eton. They are of course all men. It has, to date, not been possible to have female Hereditary Peer.
One reason might be because Eton doesn’t admit female students. In a rare, possibly unique, progressive thought Education Secretary Gavin Williamson opined in December 2020 that perhaps it should do. He was promptly put in his place by Old Etonian Jacob Rees-Mogg who underlined that it should not.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-55174370
There is, the London Evening Standard reports (26.3) a campaign called Daughter’s Rights pushing Tory Ministers to allow female Hereditary Peers. As the Standard notes the double-barrelled founder can trace her privileged title back to Charles 1st.
This might give some encouragement to those on the left who claim that Britain never really had a complete bourgeois revolution and the aristocracy remains of political importance. I’m not one of those but one wonders who the Tory Minister is who is blocking change.
Gender equality in the Lords should be a given, as should its abolition and replacement with a more democratic second, overseeing, chamber.
Ms Charlotte Carew Pole is right on something else too. Not all feminism is Marxist although organising for the right of a handful of women to be allowed to join the men who by accident of birth govern, doesn’t really do anything for gender equality I’d suggest.
Charlotte Carew Pole, the founder of Daughter’s Rights, claims a minister is attempting to “discredit” her campaign to ensure women as well as men can inherit hereditary peerages.
Carew Pole, the wife of a baronet-to-be whose title was granted by Charles I, founded the organisation so her daughter could inherit the family title, says her proposals are “just continuously blocked”.
Carew Pole adds: “There’s a sort of principle that feminism is all Marxist these days and only the poor and the downtrodden women are worth fighting for but actually, anything that affects any woman affects all women.”
Putting to one side, the absurdity of having hereditary peers, there have been female ones. Following the 1999 reforms, there were actually a massive five (out of 92). However since then three have died and two resigned, most recently the Countess of Mar in May 2020. The by-elections to backfill the hereditary component have returned no women.
Lady Charlotte is part of a dynasty (which she married into) whih included (or still includes) Edward Tudor-Pole, lead singer with one hit wonder proto-punk band, Ten Pole Tuder, and a keen biker. See Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tudor-Pole#:~:text=Edward%20Felix%20Tudor-Pole%20%28also%20known%20as%20Edward%20Tenpole%3B,acting%20career%20following%20the%20group%27s%20split%20in%201982.