Their methods were peaceful, legal and within the constitution. Their methods were writing letters to parliament, signed petitions, debating and politely asking MPs questions at meetings about why they can’t have the vote, these methods were not fully successful and easy for MPs to ignore, but some Members of Parliament had been won over, with several Bills in favour of women's suffrage gaining considerable support in Parliament, though not enough to pass any laws. The Suffragists believed law-abiding women would prove themselves responsible enough to participate fully in politics.
The Suffragists weren’t as victorious as some hoped. Some women felt that progress was slow and nothing really changed and happened. The only thing they did was gain a bit of publicity but it wasn’t anything that made much effect.
It was this ineffectiveness that caused women to start to get frustrated, and slowly women started to pull away. They began to form a new group, and became the Suffragettes. The suffragettes formed in 1903, created by Emilie Pankhurst, their nickname was the Suffragettes but their official name was the Women’s Social and Political Movement, (WSPU.) It started to grow in size because of the 40 years that the Suffragists had been protesting for and their non existence progress. Emilie Pankhurst and her supporters felt that they needed a more violent and aggressive approach. One group that they got this idea from was men, the Chartists. They demanded universal manhood suffrage, equal electoral districts, and vote by ballot and annually elected Parliaments. They put petitions and bills through parliament but it was when they didn’t get their way that they started to use violence, but Chartism died out after a while because the popular militancy lost its edge and the men saw it wasn’t working. Suffragettes saw this as an idea for themselves, but only the violence part. They saw that it did put pressure onto the government, but they ignored the fact that the chartists violence did not really work, it is as if the Suffragists took the methods of the Chartists before, with the petitions, and near the end, not agreeing with the violent methods.
“Deeds not Words” – This was the Suffragettes motto, they believed it was their actions which would change things, not words that were said. They did not allow men to be in their organisation either, because they felt that they deserved everything men had.
Their methods were fierce and many people were shocked by how aggressive theses women were, because they were also so dramatic. The Suffragettes began with the less forceful methods in 1906, they shouted things out in important meetings and disrupted parliament, sometimes by going inside and other times they hired boats down the Thames and shouted abuse from them. At one point when the Parliament was disrupted ten women were arrested and found guilty of using threatening and abusive words and behavior with intent to provoke a breach of the peace, this then led to them getting imprisoned. But the imprisonment of women in the beginning of the 20th century was seen as obscene, a few of the ten women were quite well known in society and it made some people quite angry, leading the WSPU to have more sympathy, funds, and new members. It gained a little publicity but women still wanted more, and as a consequence, the Suffragettes turned to other forms of political action to get their voice heard. They argued that as much as they have been trying to use peaceful protest, they still hadn’t been heard. The government didn’t recognize it as an important issue, and they decided violence would be the way that it could become important because the Government would not grant women the vote until they were forced to do so.
They started arson attacks, targeting the houses like they did with the window owners. Slashing paintings in famous art galleries and pouring acid onto golf courses exclaiming “No votes and no golf.” They also cut telegraph wires. The illegal actions of the Suffragettes meant that it was more likely that they would get arrested. This led to a new form of political protest, hunger striking.
The Suffragettes when imprisoned would refuse to eat and the prisons didn’t want death on their records so they had no choice but to release the women. The action of hunger striking soon became official WSPU policy especially as hunger strikers were released from prison when their health was seen to be in danger. The only thing the government could do to tackle the problem was enforce the Cat and Mouse Act in 1913 which allowed it to release the hunger-strikers before they died, but then re-arrest them as soon as they had become stronger again. It worked and led to the Suffragettes becoming weak, they would be arrested, hunger strike, get released, be too weak to protest and cause much more disturbances, when they got back to their normal health they were re-arrested.
One of the most drastic things that ever happened in the Suffragette’s protests was the Derby in 1913; Emily Davison a member o the suffragette’s jumped out in front of a horse in protest. Emily Davison died four days later in hospital. This just gave them an even worse reputation.
The Suffragettes were effective in the way that they got the publicity women’s suffrage needed. However their increased violence divided a lot of people who may have supported and been sympathetic to them. Despite the suffragette’s attempts, many men refused to take women seriously. The campaign was shocking to many men who still expected women to be quiet and obedient, and took no notice. Nevertheless it did make the government feel pressured but still by the war no vote for women was given.
Suffragists were angry because they felt the Suffragettes were undoing their years of work for the cause, although Millicent Fawcett did admit that it was bringing much more attention to the cause.
The overall success of both groups was positive, but they relied on each other, without the Suffragettes, the movement would probably have been forgotten, but then respect for women would have been lost if it wasn’t for the Suffragists.
