The Fabian Society and the unions were the parents of the British Labor Party. The Fabian Society was intellectuals who tried to get very specific about how socialism would work, since socialism didn't exist anywhere when they started. They were enormously influential in what he Labor Party did when it got power, partly because they were all worked really hard, turning out papers filled with specific research on problems and specific ideas about how to heal the problems.

Early in the society's history, in 1884,George Bernard Shaw, a leading Fabian, produced a resolution about how society in general should be, Fabian Tract 2, "A Manifesto" It included this:

"That men no longer need special political privileges to protect them against Women, and that the sexes should henceforth enjoy equal political rights."

--George Bernard Shaw quoted by Anne Freemantle in the book "This Little Band of Prophets: The British Fabians," page 33 of 1960 US paperback edition.