Explain why woman failed to gain the vote 1900-1914

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Bethan Richards   11AG

History Coursework- Mrs Robinson

Explain why woman failed to gain the vote 1900-1914

In the middle of the ninetieth century, very few men had really considered the issue of woman’s rights. The status of women in Victorian society was not high and in the terms of legal rights, women were level with children, criminals and lunatics. If a woman was married, her husband owned her property as well as his own. The justification for this state of affairs was that men were said to be the decision makers, who carried the responsibility of supporting a family.

One of the big changes caused by the industrial revolution was the growth of the middle class. These people could afford to buy their own homes and afford for their children to be educated and had a very different idea as to the role of women to the working class. The middle class thought that the man went to work and the women stay home to care for the children.

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Some women freely accepted this. Others, however, felt bored or trapped and wanted a meaning to life. The Garret sisters, Elizabeth and Millicent along with Emily Davies were among the most determined campaigners for women’s rights. As the following quote from Charlotte Bronte’s ‘Jane Eyre’ shows, women’s views on the subject were changing.

“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer too rigid a constraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as ...

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