LADIES OF THE RIGHT

Mary Kenny argues that the

Conservative Party has become the natural home for a new breed of feminists

LET US consider a handful of contempo- rary feminist icons — women who are admired as 'feminist role-models' and cur- rently in the news. There is, for instance, Elspeth Howe, who just a fortnight ago became chairman of the Broadcasting Standards Council. Lady Howe's first words on taking office were to call for more women decision-makers in television, adding, of course, 'I have always called myself a feminist.' Or, one might consider Dame Shirley Porter, former leader of Westminster City Council, the Tesco heiress who is now the chairman of the London Broadcasting Company. Or, say, Shirley Conran, the woman who launched 'Superwoman', and who now proclaims that everything she writes is fundamentally 'a feminist tract disguised as a blockbuster': several times married and divorced, Ms Conran says she is now much more inter- ested in being with women than with men. 'It's much more intimate being with women and much more fun.'

Or there is Teresa Gorman, MP for Bil- lericay, who earlier this month received an award from the French for being the witti- est British parliamentarian: Mrs Gorman, champion of the small business and the free market, is also the person who has campaigned most zealously for hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women, thus, arguably, doing more for middle-aged women than anyone since La Veuve Clicquot. Or perhaps we should consider the two latest prime ministers who have joined the world political stage — Kim Campbell of Canada and Tansu Ciller of Turkey, both now attracting widespread attention in the international media for uttering the ritualistic cry that they are not only feminists, but their respective coun- try's version of Margaret Thatcher too.

What have all these high-achieving 'femi- nist role-models' got in common? Why, they are all Tories, in a manner of speak- ing. Lady Howe, Dame Shirley and Mrs Gorman all come directly from the Tory fold. The others are all philosophical Tories, or Tory analogues. They have in common a belief in power, success, the free market and individual liberty. Shirley Con- ran is a millionairess many times over whose own feminist philosophy is that it is money that makes women free, for which fact there is indeed much evidence.

It would not, of course, be true to say that there are no more left-wing feminists, or that feminism no longer aligns itself with the Left. There are, and much of it still does. But it is remarkable, nonetheless, how well, how smoothly, how almost unno- ticed a certain kind of feminism has adapt- ed itself to Tory values, or, alternately, how seamlessly Tory values have knitted them- selves a feminist livery. It is also remark- able how the present generation of feminist high-achievers, in Britain and abroad, are pursuing the capitalist and not the collec- tivist path. The sisterhood was a collective; but collectives are antipathetic to individu- al achievement. And, above all, it is indi- vidual achievement that has set these women above the men with whom they have competed. If you seek to define Mrs Thatcher's legacy, you will use terms like 'privatisation', 'deregulation', 'competi- tion'; but rarely 'feminism'. She, of course, never called herself a feminist, being con- tent merely to drop the odd aside, her favourite being: 'It's the cock that crows, but it's the hen that lays the eggs.' Yet she was the prototype of the modern Tory fem- inist. She made their success possible by establishing the meritocratic culture in which they could thrive, and by bulldozing the social and political restraints on women's success. She made the Tory party the natural home for feminists.

Local Conservative parties up and down the country are as likely to be faced with female political candidates who proclaim themselves to be Tory feminists — indeed just as much as Labour or Liberal-Demo- crat local parties are. Tory women in politi- cal life, such as Virginia Bottomley or Edwina Currie, merit the description 'femi- nist' just as much as, say, Labour front- benchers Harriet Harman or Margaret Beckett do. Ms Harman, indeed, has recently published a book setting out the agenda for women in the years ahead enti- tled The Century Gap. It claims that women are already equipped for the challenges of the 21st century, but men remain behind. There is practically nothing in the book which could not have been written by a Tory feminist: it scarcely differs in tone from a book about women's goals pub- lished a couple of years ago by Mrs Currie.

Strangely for a Labour MP (though not for a woman of her impeccably bourgeois origins), Harriet Harman lacks any histori- cal understanding of what working-class life was like for women. She scarcely men- tions, for example, that in the past married women longed to stop working outside the home, rather than yearning to rush into careers. Hers is the authentic glossy voice of middle-class Brit today — untouched by memories of class, region, tradition or reli- gion.

Ms Harman could belong to any political party which approved of attractive, well- educated girls in designer frocks being able to answer awkward questions on television. Small wonder that she was recently bitterly attacked in the Guardian by one of the last remnants of the old feminist Left — the

dogged Wages for Housework Campaign, which accused her of being less well informed about the conditions of proletari- an women than the Princess of Wales is, and of building her own successful political career on the 'exploitation' of other women's labour; namely, paying a cleaning lady to do her housework.

Here, perhaps, is the reason why success- ful feminists today are as likely to be Tories as anything else, and why Tory values have `colonialised' (to use the traditional vocab- ulary) feminism. Feminists today are quite likely to be confident, successful women. Not only do confident, successful women frequently become Conservatives, but they seldom do their own housework. The prac- ticalities of life dictate that no woman will ever accomplish anything very remarkable in the traditional male spheres of worldly success if she has to spend time scrubbing her own kitchen floor. And, however well you pay your cleaning lady, you cannot pay her the same salary as you receive as a Member of Parliament. Therefore, since you are obliged to pay her less, the success- ful woman will always be in the position of 'exploiting' another woman to do her chores. This automatically breaches the the old collectivist principles of sisterhood for those feminists at least theoretically on the Left; while the Dame Shirley Porters of this world never give the matter a thought, but just go ahead and hire someone.

Even those feminists, such as the pub- lisher Carmen Callil, who protest that they are still traditional left-wing feminists, are nonetheless in their own professional con- duct extremely individualistic, tough, demanding and authoritarian with their subordinates. You may use 'sisterhood' tac- tics to 'network', but you cannot use 'sister- hood' attitudes to get ahead, because the whole process of accomplishment is com- petitive. 'Networking' is what elites practise to keep social inferiors out of circulation; it is the opposite of 'inclusiveness'. It is the 'old school tie'; it is the Orange Order; it is the regimental club; it is the final proof that if you can't beat them, you had better join them.

There are other ways in which feminism is adapting to modern Conservatism. Con- temporary feminist approaches are highly individualistic. The 'discourse' of feminism, as the academics call it, draws heavily upon the vocabulary and concepts of individual- istic thinking. 'Personal choice', 'private decisions', and notions of property pepper feminist discussions about 'life choices' such as abortion, divorce or homosexuality. Divorce or abortion are approached, in the contemporary canon of feminist thinking, entirely in terms of privacy and personal choice; I know of no feminist thinking on these issues which considers 'society' as a dimension to 'personal choice'. For exam- ple, last year in discussing teenage sex on BBC Radio Four, Harriet Harman said, 'Girls of 14 must have control of their own bodies and choices.' This emphasis on fent-

inist individualism often leads women more towards becoming feminist Tories: choice is a liberal (and consumerist) value, and classical liberalism is what we now call Thatcherism; it is a small step from saying that you claim choice in control over your body to choice in control over your chil- dren's education.

Back in the 1960s, when Betty Friedan launched the first modern wave of femi- nism, there was the 'capitalist conspiracy theory' about women being forced to be housewives so that they could consume more. Friedan suggested that the advertis- ing men of Madison Avenue had organised it so that men could slave away at work all day long so that women could buy, buy, buy — and being at home with the kids and the station-wagon would have so much more time to spend buying. A capitalist conspira- cy theory today, however, would suggest that Madison Avenue is organising it so that women get out in the market-place so they can earn the money to consume, con- sume, consume, while men (who are generally more troublesome and unionised as workers) take a back seat. Indeed, the rapid rise in the proportion of women in the British workforce has exactly paralleled the decline in trade union mem- bership.

Feminism today is much more about power, success, money, achievement than it is about theoretical notions of 'sisterhood', partly because sisterhood (like socialism itself) doesn't seem to work frightfully well. Feminists today no longer slop around in boiler-suits and butch crew-cuts protesting at Greenham Common: today they are dressed in Caroline Charles and Jean Muir couture frocks, talk a great deal about money, and, in very many cases, send their daughters to private schools because pri- vate education is more geared to success and achievement. (Although a few, like Mrs Margaret Hodge, ostentatiously send their children to comprehensive schools but have them privately tutored on the side.) And, despite the likes of Helena Kennedy, the successful QC who otherwise remains in the old left-wing tradition of soppy sympathy for the criminal classes, feminists are permitted to be brutally 'right-wing' and vindictive when it comes to certain issues of crime and punishment — indeed, ferociously punitive towards rapists or alleged rapists. So you can be a feminist and a tough-on-crime advocate, traditional- ly a Tory position.

The flowering of the Tory feminist leaves a practical, rather than a theoretical, politi- cal problem, which is that it all places the area of 'family values', which the Conserva- tives traditionally claimed, to one side. There is undoubtedly a tension between feminist individualism and the Judaeo- Christian patriarchal family. Yet the hon- our traditionally paid to the family by Conservatives nowadays amounts to little more than lip-service. Mrs Bottomley, who as health minister is in charge of the nation's sexual morals, was herself once an unmarried mother. The family is one of those things which politicians embrace when it suits them, but actually undermine when it seems more useful to do so.

Among other Conservative measures, the community charge was deeply anti-family, with its emphasis on revenue from persons as individuals rather than as units under one roof; many inheritance taxes are anti- family; the Children Act is, in many respects, destructive of family authority. Tories, who traditionally practise divorce (and adultery) rather more than their polit- ical opponents, have done as much to undermine the family as any other political group, though they are quicker to cover their tracks by rushing off to have tea with Mrs Whitehouse when they deem it neces- sary.

There has always been both Right and Left in feminism. There have always been the Emmeline Pankhursts — who was an unwavering Tory (and patriot) — and there have always been the Rosa Luxembourgs. The 1960ish notion that feminism was exclusively of the Left was not historically exact: feminism has been a coat of many colours and is generally cut out of the cul- ture in which it is located. Thus it was Catholic in feudal Europe, Protestant in puritan America, New-Left-hippy in the West in the 1960s, and is becoming free- market capitalist today.

Perhaps Karl Marx was correct when he said that 'the ideas of the dominant class are in every epoch the dominant ideas'. In our epoch, surely, Lady Howe and Shirley Porter better represent the dominant class- es than does the Wages for Housework Campaign of Islington.