The governments attitude towards the WSPU may not have change before the war because of the publicity they acquired by their militant acts and I know this because of the storming of the House of Commons, an article was published on that accident it stated that the WSPU ‘’forgot their Female Dignity’’ this appears to attack the WSPU and the newspaper also appears to be conservative and is in favour of the governments point of veiw and this article was published 1910 and the attitude still has not improved because of a speech made by a conservative leader Lord Curzon in 1912. In the speech he said that ‘women do not have the experience to be able to vote’ that is how a leading party felt about the WSPU during that time. These attitudes towards the WSPU did not encourage the to stop the militancy, the police constantly had to keep the WSPU in check. In 1913 the WSPU tried harder to achieve their goal of equality and they did this by destroying more public and private property. A lot of the women involved with these acts were arrested and sent to prison indefinitely. The WSPU protested by have hunger strikes until close to death, as a precaution they released them and would then arrest them again once they were again healthy. This was called the Cat and Mouse Act and was quiet affective.
The Suffragists or the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Society (NUWSS) was founded by Millicent Fawcett in 1897. Millicent Fawcett believed in a non-militant protest because she did not want to lose the trust of men and discredit women in England. Millicent Fawcett argued that if the government made laws that woman had to obey, she thought that women should help choose the government that chooses these laws. She also said that women also pay taxes as men they should be treated as equals.
As the NUWSS was a non-militant suffrage organisation their progress was slow and they did not get as much publicity as the WSPU that was an active militant group.
When the First World came and the men had to go fight abroad, a lot of the men jobs were left unattended. A lot of the unattended jobs had to filled by women. Things like working in a munitions factory, transport, clothing, the food and drink industry and a lot of women choose to work in a factory from clothes to making planes. Skilled female workers would earn up to £2.15 a week but unskilled men doing to same thing would earn because of their sex. Many women went on strike because of this and were saw as being unpatriotic towards England.
One other popular job that women filled was working in a munitions factory, this was one of the more dangerous jobs. The women working in the munitions factory were surrounded by chemicals and if any one was to go off it would set off a chain reaction, but what was more likely to kill them was the inhaling the toxic fumes and chemicals but the women wanted to do there part for the war effort. During the war attitudes change towards women and their abilities you can see this by a picture publish 1917 by a magazine called the War Worker it depicts a working women and a male solider holding up the Union Jack. I think that this shows men and women as being equal and the men are acknowledging what women are doing for the war effort. Also a speech made by Prime Minster during 1908 and 1915 Herbert Asquith he said that ‘’ How could we have carried out the war without women’’ before the war he was against the vote for women and is now in favor of it.
The work that women did in the war did play a really big part in getting women the vote in 1918, but was not the only part in getting the vote. If it was not for the publicity gain by the militant WSPU, or the patient of the NUWSS they would not have got the vote because the government would not know want the women in the UK wanted.
