how are suffragists and suffragettes different?

How were the Suffragists and Suffragettes’ methods different?

The Suffragists was a campaign to give women the right to vote and also to give women justice. It was founded and led by Millicent Fawcett in 1897. The Suffragettes was also a campaign and organisation to give women the right to vote, however this organisation started later and was inspired by the Suffragists. The Suffragettes was started and led by Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst in 1889. The main difference between the two was the methods used to get their points across. The Suffragists took a more calmer and rational approach to the situation however the Suffragettes chose to use militant methods to make people agree with them.

The Suffragists used peaceful methods which would take its toll upon the decisions of the voting in a long period of time. Some of the methods used by the Suffragists were petitions, debates, speeches and posters. All the methods used by the Suffragists were law-abiding, so they were legitimate. The organisation’s aim was to give women the right to vote and they went across of doing this by persuasion and moral force.

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The Suffragists beliefs were that’s the drip drip approach is the correct way. They thought they would be able to slowly change people’s minds and views on the issue. They wanted to achieve this by persuasion and argument not through threats and violence. So their methods would have suited their beliefs as the methods didn’t involve violence but involved persuasion. The reason why they must of chosen to start a petition was because if they could get people to agree with it and show the politicians that everyone is in favour of women and voting then that would surely change their minds, right? Debates would also support their beliefs as one it is law-abiding and two it would slowly get a message through to people exactly what the advantages of supporting their idea would mean. The reason why they used posters was because a lot of people would see the posters and that might persuade or even just give information on the campaign.

The Suffragettes used rebellious and aggressive methods, so their beliefs straight away were different to the Suffragists. The Suffragettes believed in ‘deeds not words’, they believed that women should demand the vote not ask for it. Some of their methods were heckling, debating, hunger strikes, embarrassment, and other violent immoral methods.

All the methods had several reasons behind them, their beliefs. The Suffragettes used heckling as a method because they thought if they keep irritating the politicians they are going to have to give in sooner or later. They also used debating as a method because again just to get their point across to the country. Suffragettes had a very good reason for using hunger as a method that was to make people feel sympathetic towards them, so people would think they feel so deeply about the issues that they would starve to death for it to become true. The sympathy would make people be in favour of the women and also if the women would die for their points to become true wouldn’t they go to any extent for it to happen? This must of made people fear them and the fear could have got extra votes for being in favour of it. Again embarrassment was another fine method the reason for this is because if the Suffragettes publicly embarrass the politicians or anyone in this account because other people would be scared to face them or go against them which means ‘if you can’t beat them join them’.

In my opinion I think that the Suffragists methods were a lot more efficient then the Suffragettes. The reason for this is because if the women from the Suffragettes are smashing windows and creating chaos would you trust them in having a vote on how to run the country? They have no respect from the men and the politicians were men so they are not going to take onboard their ideas. However Suffragists taking a calm approach showed men that women aren’t dense they also have a mind that they like to express but in a peaceful manner. So they must have won respect over which means votes.

There are many ways in which the two leaders’ attitude to the wole manner was different. Both of the leaders wanted women to have the right to vote, to do that they needed publicity this was where the differences showed through their attitudes. Millicent Fawcett got publicity by being civilised and making speeches, letters to politicians and many other various ways, they gained a lot of respect for women. However Emmeline Pankhurst resulted to violence, smashing windows and harassing politicians and for publicity going on hunger strikes. They both used completely different methods to get the same point of view and same change in the country across.

Mohanjit Sekhon

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