[citation needed] Summerskill entered politics at 32 when she was asked to fight the Green Lanes ward in Harringay in the Middlesex County Council elections.

She stood for a seat in the House of Commons unsuccessfully at the Putney byelection in 1934 and Bury at the 1935 general election, before becoming Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Fulham West at a by-election in 1938 thanks to the working women's vote.

She left the House of Commons in 1961 and was created a life peer as Baroness Summerskill, of Ken Wood in the County of London on 4 February 1961.

[6] Summerskill appears in a specially selected list of Fabian Society members from 1942 to 1947, showing continuity and prestige.

An active feminist, she was instrumental in promoting women's causes throughout that period, starting with the Clean Milk Act in 1949.

In support of such a theory Summerskill presents three "facts": firstly, that only women can enjoy two worlds of creative enterprise, the biological and the intellectual.

As a doctor and a Member of Parliament I am fully conscious of the fact that the doors both of the medical schools and of the House of Commons had to be forced by furious and frustrated women before their claims were recognized.

In response to Shirley's complaint about "the stock question" of the anti-feminists, "Why have not more women achieved eminence in the arts and sciences?"

Summerskill maintains that in spite of the difficulties and prejudices, women are making progress and have achievements in music, visual art, and literature as well as some advancement in science and technology (181).