Category talk:Female members of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom

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Women's History

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Is this category needed?[edit]

Discussion below copied from User_talk:BrownHairedGirl#Category:Female_members_of_the_Cabinet_of_the_United_Kingdom, because it may be relevant if this category is ever discussed at CfD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

BHG Do you really think this cat has sufficient "specific relation to the topic" as per WP:CATGRS#Other considerations. Surely "Whenever possible, categories should not be gendered" takes precedence here. Its not clear what the category should contain? Is it current cabinet members? Or any female members of any UK cabinet? I really don't want to CFD it. Can you please reconsider and specify it in a clearer fashion. Ta. Frelke 15:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I thought that it was clear that it contained women who are or have been members of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom; sorry if it wasn't, so I have added that text to the category page. I have also specifically included "are or have been" for clarity; I thought that since it is normal practice on wikipedia not to separate current from former, that was implicit, but if it wasn't clear, I hope it now is.

I do strongly believe that it has sufficient relation to the topic. In the last hundred years, several hundred people have served in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom, but only (so far as I can see) 28 women. (I got the info from http://www.qub.ac.uk/cawp/UKhtmls/UKministers2005.htm and by checking each list of ministries since the 1920s).

WP:CATGRS says:

"A gender-specific category should only be implemented where gender has a specific relation to the topic. For example, separate categories for actors and actresses are not needed, but a female heads of government category is valid as a topic of special encyclopedic interest. That category, however, does not need to be balanced directly against a "Male heads of government" category, as historically the vast majority of political leaders have been male by default.

It's clear that the vast majority of British cabinet ministers have been male (and indeed continue to be male), so this category seems to me to fit that policy very neatly. Personally, I was quite surprised when I had populated the category to find just how few women there had been in the British cabinet: only 28, ever. I guess that, as they say, "not many people know that" ... and I didn't know it until today. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:52, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Restructure?[edit]

Firstly, I'm glad this page is here. I was looking for the information for a long time before I found it.

What I'd like to do is to restructure the page to include when each of the women was in the cabinet, to show the difference in proportions of women in the cabinet in recent years compared to thirty years ago. As far as I can tell (and even if I'm wrong, I'm not far wrong), nine of the cabinet ministers date from before 1997, and 13 years afterwards we have 23 more. What I would like to do is include a table which makes this clear. Are people OK about the principle of this? If I feel this idea has support on 02/01/2011, I'll put up a template here as to what I intend, and if again I feel the idea has support, I'll make changes on 09/01/2011. Otherwise I'll concentrate my efforts elsewhere. Thanks. Crooked cottage (talk) 20:40, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What you are proposing is an article. This is a category, and cannot be restructured in the way you propose. (for more info, see WP:CAT).

Good luck in writing the article! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:12, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that makes sense. Crooked cottage (talk) 06:54, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My proposal for the table format on the new article is as follows:

	Member	Party	Office	Prime Minister
1929-1931	Margaret Bondfield	Labour	Minister of Labour	James Ramsay Macdonald
1945-1947	Ellen Wilkinson	Labour	Minister of Education	Clement Attlee
1951-1954	Florence Horsbrugh	Conservative	Minister of Education	Winston Churchill

Crooked cottage (talk) 00:04, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Great start, but I'd suggest a few small tweaks

Making the table sortable (for how it's done, see e.g. List of Stewards of the Manor of Hempholme, and how {{sortname}} is used. Any probs, ask on my talk and I'll be happy to help)
Put the start date and end date in separate columns, so the two can be sorted independently
Link the ministerial office (e.g. Horsbrugh was Minister of Education)

Probably a good idea to start the article in your userspace (e.g. at User:Crooked cottage/Draft list) so that you can have space to develop it before others start testing it against standards you may not yet be aware of :) You can then move it to mainspace when you're ready.

What will you do with women who held more than one cabinet-level office? (e.g. Tessa Jowell, Barbara Castle or Patricia Hewitt). I suggest a separate line for each post they held, but you may have another idea

Obviously you'll need references both for each individual entry and for the concept of the list (to show that it is notable) http://www.qub.ac.uk/cawp/observatory.html may be one useful resource

It'll be great to have the list, and I hope this helps.

Good luck! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:38, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that's very helpful. All the data can (I believe) be taken from http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-information-office/m04c.pdf . I'll allow until 09/01 for further comment, then create the article in my userspace as you suggest. Crooked cottage (talk) 11:42, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's a great source for the data, but before you move it to mainspace, do make sure that you have secondary sources (preferably several) to demonstrate the notability of the topic per WP:GNG. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:45, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Will do. Horsbrugh is misspelt which means there could be other mistakes. Most of this information (i.e. from 1997 onwards) should be able to be verified using the BBC News site. The rest I will verify using newspapers. Crooked cottage (talk) 22:26, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]