ABSTRACT
This chapter examines one aspect of the National Federation's policy on music that was introduced during the inter-war period – conducting. The National Federation's educational policy aimed to cater to a wide variety of rural women's needs. The first scheme for the training of conductors in the Women's Institute was launched in response to a crisis that threatened to hamper music-making activities within the organization. Conducting has not been widely recognized as a feminist issue. In The Acceptable Face of Feminism, Maggie Andrews also highlights the Women's Institute as a feminist organization that has provided an environment where women have been able to contest social constructions of gender. The chapter proposes that the terms 'moderate feminism' or 'empowerment' offer more suitable ways of describing the Women's Institute's promotion of conducting; they remove the essentialist assumptions about feminism and what feminist activity entails, but also allow for women to have fulfilled lives within the traditional social constructions of gender.
