History Coursework
Votes For Women
C1900-28
Bethan Coulbeck
Question 2 - Does source B support the evidence of source c about the suffragette campaign?
I believe that the two sources do have certain aspects of them that support each other, however they also contradict each other in other aspects.
Source B is a primary source taken from a book by Marie Corelli, called “Woman or Suffragette”. This title gives insight into Marie’s views that if you are a suffragette you have lost your femininity.
“Votes for women’ is the shrill cry of a few discontented ladies.” This is the rather patronising comment she makes about the suffragettes. She then goes on to blame women for men’s injustices made on them saying, “this is the result in the way in which mothers have reared their sons”. This quote is particularly surprising as it comes not from a sexist man but a woman, but this was a common belief in many women who had been indoctrinated into believing they were not capable of voting.
Source C is a picture by Bernard Partridge containing two women one(a suffragette) is shouting and madly gesticulating while the other ( a suffragist) is calmly standing with one arm raised restraining the suffragette. There is a caption that reads “THE SHRIEKING SISTER” The person on the left, described as the sensible woman says “YOU help our cause? Why your its worst enemy!”. This poster illustrates the division in the women fighting for the vote. Suffragists were women who believed that being perfect and going through all the correct channels would eventually win men’s trust and therefore win the vote whereas suffragettes became soon frustrated with this method as they seemed to be overlooked and not taken seriously so became more assertive and aggressive. The caption on the poster shows how suffragists did not approve of this method, even though it was exaggerating publicity.
To compare these sources I have to take into account that they are both different in the sense source C was made as propaganda by a man whereas source B is written by a women trying to convey a point.
These two sources support each other in the sense that both are criticising the suffragettes by implying that they are slightly crazed and don’t deserve the vote. However these sources also disagree, Source B’s Marie completely denounces the right for women to have vote. She doesn’t seem to believe that any women should have the vote saying “Women were and are destined to make voters rather than to be voters themselves”. This is not the case in source C, Bernard seems to not argue those “sensible” women or suffragists should have the vote, only that suffragettes shouldn’t.
Question 3- Study sources D and E and use your own knowledge. Why despite the suffragette activity, had women not gained the vote by the outbreak of the First World War?
There were many reasons why the suffragettes had not won the fight for the vote by the outbreak of the war.
One of the biggest problems for the suffragettes was entrenched tradition and beliefs. It was, to some a preposterous proposal for women to have any say in the “mans” world of politics as in source E where a member of parliament comments “in giving women the right to vote we will ultimately put the control of into female hands”. This is a good example of how men could not comprehend that a female could handle the responsibility of voting. Another argument for people against the women’s rights movement was that women would only vote for whom ever their husbands voted for as Britain was at this time plagued with domestic violence. Punch magazine commented on this in 1870 “The ruffians accustomed to beat their wives will not be incapacitated by their brutality from voting”. I have talked of the problems concerning men, although I have not mentioned the opposition from women, they were probably worse than the men as it is hard to help those who don’t want help these women ridiculed
Question 4 – How useful are these two sources (F and G) as evidence for the contribution of women to the war effort in the years 1914-1918?
Sources F and G both give an insight into the work contributed by women while a war took place, however they are both published in different times and give a different side of the story which in turn makes their usefulness variable.
I believe that source F is useful in some senses but still does not give a clear, unbiased picture of how women contributed to the war effort. The poster is a piece of propaganda issued by the government to attempt to get women into factories. I can tell this by the text “women munitions workers, enrol at once”. This text shows me that the government was trying to recruit women into factories which gives the impression that women were working in these factories, this helps me to see that women did contribute to the war effort. However, this poster is not useful as it does not tell me how successful the poster was so I cant tell how many women were working in the factories. The poster’s actual layout also doesn’t help me much as it’s a composite picture in which an image of a attractive, smiling woman in a working uniform, behind her is a backdrop of a picture of the front line complete with weaponry and a soldier. Its obvious this woman would never be on the front line, but with a soldier on the poster I’m sure the government were attempting to play on guilt and to induce women that if they enrol they will be directly helping their loved male out on the front line. All these images were contrived and manipulated to help convince women to “enrol” which means I cannot use this evidence as factual and I have to realise its biased, even though it is primary evidence its not entirely reliable.
I believe that source G is superior in information to source F as it gives a wider spread of information and is less biased, this does also mean I think its more useful and more reliable.
Instead of only an image issued by the government as in source F, source G is a group of statistics. The source is a table showing the amount of women working in different jobs in July 1914 compared to the amount in July 1918. This, firstly, shows me the types of industry women were working in- “metal industries, chemical industries, government offices, food drink and tobacco”. It also shows me that the amount of women in these jobs went up by huge amount between these years, women in government offices increased form 2,000 to 225,000! This information gives me a new insight that makes me deduce that women did put themselves out and fill in to help Britain in the war. Even though it was slightly hypocritical for a government that wouldn’t give the women the vote and would have previously scorned them for not being at home in “the woman’s place” to call for help. Maybe these women were hoping to be rewarded.
However even though I can see some evidence that women did in fact contribute hugely to the war effort source G doesn’t give me the bigger picture. It doesn’t show me how many women were working in total so I don’t know the percentage of women that contributed. It doesn’t show me what happened before and after 1918 so I cant see how long it lasted, and it doesn’t show me these amounts compared to the amount of men.
So, after analysing both sources to see how useful they are to showing how much women contributed to the war effort in the years 1914-1918, I have decided that Source G is more useful than source F however neither give a complete picture to how much women did contribute.
Question 5- ‘it was the work that women did during the war that earned them the vote’. Use the sources and your own knowledge, to explain whether you agree with this interpretation.
I agree with this interpretation to a certain extent, although I believe there are many other reasons that came together and resulted in women gaining the vote.
It is true that women did seem to prove themselves to men in the war as being overly capable of doing all the jobs a man can do which
