ABSTRACT
Histories of both the socialist movement and the women’s movement have tended to marginalise the role of socialist women and their concerns. Women continue to be marginal to the story of late nineteenth/early twentieth century British socialism despite a growing body of work, usually by feminist historians, which has shown that women were extensively involved in labour politics and that there was an important and complex relationship between socialism and feminism in the period. Labour historians seem reluctant in most cases to give women the same attention as they give to men in studies which claim to provide a general overview of labour or socialist politics. As the biographical work of both of us has shown, it is important to look at the ways in which there were shifts and re-negotiations which took place over a lifetime and to recognise that contextualising the politics of socialist women is complicated.
