Because of this, two groups formed to campaign for the vote. The first group were called the Suffragists. They were formed by Millicent Fawcett in 1897. Their method of campaigning was peaceful, legal methods such as petitions and marches. The problem with this was that a lot of men ignored them and didn’t listen to them – it wasn’t very effective. The second group were the Suffragettes. They were formed by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903. Their method of campaigning was violent and they disrupted meetings, threw stones at windows to get attention. The problem with this was that because the women were very violent, the men thought they don’t deserve and have the right to vote. This made many people think that women did not deserve the right to vote because both the campaign weren’t very effective.
In the short term, this persuaded many people that women should not vote because the extreme activities of the suffragettes convinced many people that women were not sensible enough to deserve the vote. Asquith refused to give way to violent methods, as he feared this might encourage other groups to use the same methods.
One long term reason why women failed to gain the right to vote was because of public opinion, for example, many men and some women were convinced that women should not have the vote. Also, some men and women argued that women will only vote how their husbands tell them or that they could already have vote through their husbands.
Another reason why women failed to gain the right to vote was because of political issues. This was linked to public opinion because most politicians were male. Examples of this are that many people thought that rich women would vote Conservative and the liberals would lose votes. The main political parties were each split over the issue of women’s suffrage. The labour party was too small to help the WSPU. The Conservative party was against women’s suffrage and the liberal party needed to win votes to win the election.
Also, the government of the time believed that they had much more important issues to deal with such as Ireland. The liberal government could not decide which women to give the vote to. They could not give it to all women because not all men had the vote. One possibility was to give it to women householders but the liberals feared that these women would vote mainly conservative.
There are many reasons why women failed to gain the right to vote. I think that the most important reason was when the two campaigns were formed. The Suffragists and Suffragettes were very effective. In fact, it made things worse. For example, the Suffragettes were very violent, it made many people convinced that they did not deserve the vote and they were not sensible enough, which was very important.