I intend to examine the circumstances that led to a campaign for votes for women. The main factor was the change in how women viewed themselves and their roles in society.

Aimeé Allam

History Coursework:

Votes For Women

(1,585 Words)

Question 1

I intend to examine the circumstances that led to a campaign for votes for women. The main factor was the change in how women viewed themselves and their roles in society. Other contributing factors were that women had few legal rights and began to read news of how women were treated better abroad.

Firstly, let us consider the way in which women were viewed. A woman’s place was in the home where her role was been predominantly domestic. Docility, timidity and submissiveness were seen as highly attractive attributes in a wife. This was considered as the normal course of events. There were some women who agreed with and even embraced this stereotype, such as Mrs. Sandford who said in 1837 that ‘Women are like children, the more they show they need looking after, the more attractive they are.’

However, some women began to feel unfairly treated and realised that they were unable to fulfil their potential in life. These views were met with stern opposition from men: ‘Woman, as mother, sweetheart, inspirer and friend, man accepts and welcomes. But once she begins to invade his province… his latent jealousy will burst into flame.’ (Anti-Suffrage Review, 1910)

The voting system in place at the time was discriminatory: only men who had owned a house for six months or lived in one for twelve could vote in parliamentary elections. In practice, this was a very small minority, as most men were poor and many had no fixed address. Only one-sixth of the population could vote. This was not democratic by international standards. Already in countries such as Australia and New Zealand women had the vote. This angered women in England. They began to see that their demands were not unreasonable. They saw that the world was changing and they wanted England to do so too.

Many women in England were poor and living in atrocious conditions. Without the vote they were powerless to change anything. These women were working just as hard as their male counterparts but getting paid less and still being treated as inferior. However, upper and middle class women were also frustrated due to the limitations of their lives in a narrow-minded society.

Women had barely any legal rights in the late 19th Century. For example, a woman was listed as one of her husband’s possessions until 1884. A woman was unable to divorce her husband, even if he was abusing her and a divorcée was forbidden from seeing her children, as they were a man’s property too.

In conclusion, all of the factors contributed to a general feeling of dissatisfaction among women. Which lead them to gather and begin an organised campaign for the vote.

Question 2

I intend to examine the differences between the methods ...

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In conclusion, all of the factors contributed to a general feeling of dissatisfaction among women. Which lead them to gather and begin an organised campaign for the vote.

Question 2

I intend to examine the differences between the methods used by the National Union Of Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), who were known as the Suffragists, and the Women’s Social And Political Union (WSPU), who were known as the Suffragettes. The main difference was that the Suffragettes had a more militant approach than the Suffragists, who preferred to educate people of their views in a peaceful fashion.

The Suffragists sent out pamphlets to many homes in England as a means of educating and persuading people to think like them. They held meetings in factories during the lunch-hours so they could tell working women of the rights they could have. On the other hand, the Suffragettes would burn their mottos and messages into the grass or interrupt debates in parliament by shouting slogans from the Ladies Gallery.

To show their sincerity and the amount of support they had, the Suffragists organised peaceful marches to Westminster. On one occasion in July 1913, the NUWSS, which had around 100,000 members at this point, organised a Women’s Pilgrimage to display how many women wanted the vote, in which 50,000 women assembled from all over Britain. However, the Suffragettes tried to promote their cause with more violent, aggressive methods. They threw stones at the windows of the Houses of Parliament, they shouted abuse at their opposers and, when their struggle was ignored, they launched a full-blown hate campaign against the Liberal Party. They targeted known opposing MPs, destroyed their property, shouted insults at them and generally made life difficult for them.

Members of the NUWSS wrote letters to the press outlining why women should be enfranchised. The WSPU took to getting in the newspapers not by writing in, but by bombing churches and pouring chemicals into post-boxes. In 1913 the arson campaign reached new heights. The Suffragettes began setting railway stations, cricket pavilions and golf clubhouses on fire. In the space of 7 days the Suffragettes had managed to cause damage to property worth £17,200, according to the Morning Post in 1913.

The Suffragettes used to chain themselves to the railings near Downing Street to get the attention of passing MPs and the press. The Suffragists used propaganda as a way of publicising their cause. Some Suffragettes had been arrested and then treated badly by the police. The suffrage movement outside would have used this in propaganda to try to gain the vote. They exaggerated and twisted the truth and obtained public sympathy for it.

The peak of the Suffragettes campaign came when Marion Dunlop became the first woman to go on hunger strike and be released as a result. The other imprisoned Suffragettes joined her. The government decided not to release them all and so began force-feeding, a horrific process which disgusted the public. As Annie Kenny states ‘From that day [on], the hunger strike was the greatest weapon [the Suffragettes] possessed against the government.’

The most memorable element in the Suffragette campaign was when Emily Davison impulsively ran in front of the king’s horse at the derby in June 1913 and was killed. She had become a martyr, which took the campaign to a whole other level. Martyrdom immediately wins public sympathy. This benefited both the Suffragists and the Suffragettes.

In conclusion, both parties believed in the same thing: ‘immediate enfranchisement’ of women. What came between tem was the amount of force they felt would work. However in august 1914 they came together to stop campaigning and help the war effort. In the words of Christabel Pankhurst, ‘The militants… will fight for their country as they have fought for the vote.

Question 3

I intend to explore the evidence supporting and contesting the above statement. The main argument supporting this idea is that women worked hard during the war and proved to men that they were just as able as them. In Millicent Garrett Fawcett’s words, ‘Women, …let us show ourselves worthy of citizenship’. This was precisely what women did. However, the pre-war work of both the Suffragists and Suffragettes cannot be forgotten. To say that women’s war work was the sole reason for female franchise being granted is not entirely true.

With the start of war and soldiers leaving for service, came the need for more workers. This was the reason that women were able to go into traditionally male professions. When men saw that women could study medicine and become doctors, could learn to drive ambulances and do carpentry, it made them question their attitudes toward the ‘weaker sex’. Skilled jobs such as these required a lot more intelligence than women had been able to display before the war. This was due to the restricted nature of their lives.

With war came an increased demand for artillery. Many munitions factories started up. Naturally they required workers to fill them and with the men away fighting, women had to assume these jobs. They worked increasingly long hours. The chemicals with which they were working were potentially hazardous and eventually turned their skin yellow. The fact that the women were willing to work under these conditions showed dedication and patriotism, winning them public respect and the nickname ‘canaries’.

When women took dangerous jobs such as fire fighting and nursing on the front line, it gained women huge amounts of credibility. They were seen to be fighting for England alongside the soldiers. They displayed a great deal of bravery and valour, which made them, in the public’s eye, much more worthy of the vote.

There were a few women who demonstrated such notable heroism, that they won the nation’s heart. For example, the Two Madonnas of Pervyse, who were two nurses that went out and set up a first aid post just behind the front line fighting, or Margery Corbett Ashby who ran an entire primary school.

It was also the undertaking of difficult manual jobs by women that showed the country that, bar fighting, there was no limit to what women could do. Women took strenuous jobs such as unloading coal and ship-building and quietly got on with it. This threw out the stereotype that women were physically weak and emotionally frail.

In conclusion, all of these jobs proved to the country and, more importantly, the government, that women were men’s equals. However, I believe that what had the greatest impact on their cause, was the fact that they had a common enemy: Germany. The Suffrage movement was no longer against the government, but united with it against the enemy. The final major step was when Herbert Asquith, the prime minister openly opposed to female suffrage, finally announced his support.

Evelyn Sharp said that women, ‘By their four years war work, …did prove the fallacy of the argument that women had no right to a voice in questions of peace and war because they took no part in it.’

Bibliography

Quotes:

1) Mrs. John Sandford, Woman In Her Social And Domestic Character, 1837