ABSTRACT
Universal suffrage gave the vote to all adult British subjects in 1926. This should have been the last act of a political play in which women’s part had been restricted, indeed almost non-existent. Research on the ‘person’ cases has analysed the difficulties women faced when they made legal attempts to be acknowledged as having legal personality.1 Not only was the right to vote denied to women, with certain late modifications for women of property, but they could not enter universities, qualify for the professions, or, if married, have a legal existence independent of their husbands. All this is well-known. It is still relevant, however, in two ways. Firstly, there remain questions about women as legal subjects; questions that have been taken up anew with the late-modern examination of subjectivity.2 Secondly, although a gradualist and piecemeal reform of women’s constitutional status has occurred, it still remains the case that women are under-represented in national politics as a whole.3 It will be argued below that gradualism and under-representation are connected.
