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What Women Want: Women’s Voices, Social Research, and the Mainstreaming of Feminism in Contemporary Britain

Sarah Crook Orcid Logo

Routledge Handbook of Contemporary British History

Swansea University Author: Sarah Crook Orcid Logo

Abstract

‘What do women want?’ was the defining question of 1990s Britain. Answers were posited by figures as diverse as Conservative MP Edwina Curry, the Spice Girls, feminist campaigners, Labour policy-makers, and social researchers. It was a cultural preoccupation: Hollywood, the BBC, and novelists addres...

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Published in: Routledge Handbook of Contemporary British History
Published: Routledge 2026
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa71665
first_indexed 2026-03-24T15:41:25Z
last_indexed 2026-03-25T05:31:17Z
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spelling v2 71665 2026-03-24 What Women Want: Women’s Voices, Social Research, and the Mainstreaming of Feminism in Contemporary Britain b35484cf604604b6d6bc6873677417d1 0000-0002-1288-1488 Sarah Crook Sarah Crook true false 2026-03-24 HICL ‘What do women want?’ was the defining question of 1990s Britain. Answers were posited by figures as diverse as Conservative MP Edwina Curry, the Spice Girls, feminist campaigners, Labour policy-makers, and social researchers. It was a cultural preoccupation: Hollywood, the BBC, and novelists addressed it. By the close of the decade, politics, too, had newly oriented itself around the female voter, who was seen to have the power to sway the decisive election of 1997. It was not so long ago, however, that women’s desires were widely assumed rather than critically examined. From the 1950s onwards social research –and later feminist activism in the 1970s – fundamentally challenged the idea that women’s needs were being met, unsettling the idea that women’s dreams and desires rested solely within the confines of the home. This chapter considers how the question came to pre-eminence at the end of the century, examining the ways that its circulation through society reflects the mainstreaming of feminist ideas, and uses a range of material – from feminist to anti-feminist, from social surveys and poll materials – to establish what women did want in the nineties, and to reflect upon what the act of wanting – as opposed to demanding – tells historians about women’s desires, hopes, dreams, and about the place of activism as the twentieth century drew to a close. Book chapter Routledge Handbook of Contemporary British History Routledge 27 12 2026 2026-12-27 COLLEGE NANME Classics COLLEGE CODE HICL Swansea University Not Required 2026-03-27T17:03:35.2459380 2026-03-24T15:39:01.2574050 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Culture and Communication - History Sarah Crook 0000-0002-1288-1488 1 71665__36451__1e66c55fcd3f4839abc8f75fc455d18a.pdf 20. Crook - What Women Want.docx 2026-03-24T15:41:03.5103807 Output 57246 application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document Accepted Manuscript true false
title What Women Want: Women’s Voices, Social Research, and the Mainstreaming of Feminism in Contemporary Britain
spellingShingle What Women Want: Women’s Voices, Social Research, and the Mainstreaming of Feminism in Contemporary Britain
Sarah Crook
title_short What Women Want: Women’s Voices, Social Research, and the Mainstreaming of Feminism in Contemporary Britain
title_full What Women Want: Women’s Voices, Social Research, and the Mainstreaming of Feminism in Contemporary Britain
title_fullStr What Women Want: Women’s Voices, Social Research, and the Mainstreaming of Feminism in Contemporary Britain
title_full_unstemmed What Women Want: Women’s Voices, Social Research, and the Mainstreaming of Feminism in Contemporary Britain
title_sort What Women Want: Women’s Voices, Social Research, and the Mainstreaming of Feminism in Contemporary Britain
author_id_str_mv b35484cf604604b6d6bc6873677417d1
author_id_fullname_str_mv b35484cf604604b6d6bc6873677417d1_***_Sarah Crook
author Sarah Crook
author2 Sarah Crook
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container_title Routledge Handbook of Contemporary British History
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publisher Routledge
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hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
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department_str School of Culture and Communication - History{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Culture and Communication - History
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description ‘What do women want?’ was the defining question of 1990s Britain. Answers were posited by figures as diverse as Conservative MP Edwina Curry, the Spice Girls, feminist campaigners, Labour policy-makers, and social researchers. It was a cultural preoccupation: Hollywood, the BBC, and novelists addressed it. By the close of the decade, politics, too, had newly oriented itself around the female voter, who was seen to have the power to sway the decisive election of 1997. It was not so long ago, however, that women’s desires were widely assumed rather than critically examined. From the 1950s onwards social research –and later feminist activism in the 1970s – fundamentally challenged the idea that women’s needs were being met, unsettling the idea that women’s dreams and desires rested solely within the confines of the home. This chapter considers how the question came to pre-eminence at the end of the century, examining the ways that its circulation through society reflects the mainstreaming of feminist ideas, and uses a range of material – from feminist to anti-feminist, from social surveys and poll materials – to establish what women did want in the nineties, and to reflect upon what the act of wanting – as opposed to demanding – tells historians about women’s desires, hopes, dreams, and about the place of activism as the twentieth century drew to a close.
published_date 2026-12-27T17:03:37Z
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