Women as organised consumers: the case of the co-operative movement

"Traditionally, the labour movement is associated with male workers and issues of wages and production. In contrast, the co-operative movement is concerned with issues of prices and consumption, with the main source of financial support for the retailing societies coming from the female consumer - the so-called “woman with the basket”. The 1844 Rules of the Rochdale Pioneers (from which the modern co-operative movement developed) stated that anyone could join the co-operative society provided they were over 16 years of age. Each member was entitled to one vote whatever the amount of their shareholding, and it was explicitly stated that men and women would enjoy equal voting rights within the society. Co-operative societies prided themselves on equality of rights for all members and equality of access through open membership. This paper explores the concept of membership and participation within various co-operative societies in Britain, with particular reference to female members. How did the co-operative retail societies seek to attract new female members and how did they encourage existing members to visit their local Co-op store? Melanie Tebbutt, in her work on pawnbroking and working-class credit, has stressed how the management of household resources was generally considered a woman’s responsibility, and that regulating the household expenditure could involve a complex juggling of various demand of credit payments, burial insurance, rent, food bills and other necessities of family life. The dividend from a co-operative society could be essential to the family economy. This paper explores the practical benefits of co-op membership, in particular the role played by the Co-op as an institution helping women, as the chancellors of the family exchequer, to manage the household budget. The paper also examines the ideological aspect of membership and the drive towards the so-called “Co-operative Commonwealth”. Activists within the movement claimed that membership figures were ‘dull and lifeless unless one appreciates what they represent…Every individual contribution, whether in membership, capital or trade, is a voluntary contribution, i.e., a result of a free and willing decision made by an individual person. Every such contribution is an advance toward the Commonwealth’. Leaders within the co-operative movement attached great importance to the role of their female members in the drive towards this utopia. In the pamphlet Women as Organised Consumers, Margaret Llewellyn Davies (general secretary of the Women’s Co-operative Guild) argued that it was the purchases made by the “woman with the basket” who would eventually annihilate the capitalist system of trading. She declared that ‘every bar of soap, every pair of boots brought in a co-operative store is helping to break down capitalists, and to destroy autocracy and profit-making in industry’ . Although there were those within the movement who were insistent that only stock made co-operatively should be sold by retail co-operative societies, even when consumers did shop at their local co-operative retail store, it is clear from the records of the local societies that they were not only purchasing co-operative produced and manufactured goods. The Co-operative News expressed concern that too many of the movement’s membership were purchasing goods that were not of co-operative manufacture and that co-operative factories were not working at full output because of this. It is clear from the records of individual societies that members did not seek to solely purchase co-operative produced and manufactured goods. As one society recorded, the retail outlets stocked articles other than Co-operative Wholesale Society ones because these were the products that members wanted to purchase. They argued that the member was the key to the situation, and when members would have only co-operatively produced goods, there would be no need for the Society to stock other products. It seems that for most housewives the decision to buy from a co-operative society did not represent a conscious decision to advance toward the Co-operative Commonwealth. The paper concludes by considering the opportunities women had, beyond the weekly shop, to participate and engaged with the co-operative movement. Ellen Furlough’s work on consumer co-operation in France discusses the tensions within the movement over the activities for women in the male-dominated co-operative organisations. She highlights that there were few female administrators and ‘even the most elementary issue of membership in cooperatives was problematic for women’. This paper argues that in Britain, although women were not perceived solely as consumers, their participation in the administration and leadership in the movement was somewhat restricted. It uses the records of individual co-operative societies to explore women’s involvement in the administration and activities of their local retail societies. In this respect, there appears to have been tensions between the image of the co-operative movement and its ideal of ‘democratic consumerism’ and reality that existed within individual societies."