3 - ‘An Old Working Class May Be Waning, but a New One Is Being Born’?

Summary

Chapter 3 tackles a gendered interpretation of ‘modernisation’, which never became widespread but had a discernible influence on both the left’s intellectual scene and Labour’s development. In the 1970s, while feminism was making a mark on the labour movement, its proponents did not claim that their demands would ‘modernise’ the party. Over the 1980s and 1990s, this began to change. Prominent and closely networked feminists in the socialist media and think tank scene suggested that the ‘modern economy’ was increasingly reliant on paid female labour and that family models were pluralising in ‘modern society’. These arguments were taken up by influential Labour politicians, especially Patricia Hewitt and Harriet Harman. They used them to argue that a crucial aspect of Labour’s ‘modernisation’ must be policies for gender equality. Their arguments never became central to New Labour. However, they did shape the New Labour project as it emerged in the 1990s, and thus some of its policies. Perhaps more importantly, the ‘modernisation’ element of these arguments may have unintentionally diluted the case for a more disruptive gender politics.