Today is the anniversary of the first speech made by a woman in Britain’s House of Commons, back in 1920. The woman was Nancy Astor, an American by birth, who became an MP in 1919 just one year after women were first granted the right to vote following the end of the First World War. Even then the right only applied to women over the age of 30 and it wasn’t until 1928 that women received the same voting rights as men.

Astor, who had become Lady Astor through marriage, was a formidable, energetic  and sharp-witted woman who more than held her own in the company of men (she was a noted sparring partner of Winston Churchill) and remained a Member of Parliament until her retirement in 1945. Among her most famous witticisms were – “I married beneath me. All women do!” and “One reason why I don’t drink is because I wish to know when I am having a good time.”

I wonder what  she would make of the world today, which in spite of the two terrible world wars experienced in her lifetime, still shows no sign of settling down to lasting peace. Perhaps the world would be a safer place if it had more female leaders; men don’t seem to be doing that good a job of it, do they?

As Lady Astor herself said “Women have got to make the world safe for men since men have made it so darned unsafe for women.”