Defending traditional roles
Whilst many would today find Lord Curzon’s views on women and their role in the public domain to be unacceptable, at the time he gathered considerable support and was passionate in his defence of the traditional and maternal roles of women.
Proven wrong
His ideas about women’s abilities were proved wrong as women rose to the challenge created by World War I and took on the roles and responsibilities of men. Conversely it is interesting to reflect that the Suffragists and Suffragettes suspended their campaigning during the War recognising the greater challenge facing Britain.
It is somewhat ironic discover that Lord Curzon’s second daughter, Lady Cynthia, nicknamed ‘Cimmie’, joined the Labour Party and went on the become MP in 1925 for the constituency of Stoke on Trent and to wonder what her father would have made of this.