Women started to show much interest in politics and they tried to impress the government and show them that they knew what was happening in politics. They showed this by setting up a new organisation called the Auxiliary Political Organisation. Both a Conservative and Liberal organisation was set up for the different women who liked the different parties. The organisation was where was meant for the women to discuss politics and read newspapers as a group and discuss thoroughly what they understood about the politics in the paper. After the meetings the women would go and support the different parties. They thought that if they couldn’t become MP’s and vote, they might as well show that they had interest in the politics and try to get recognised.
Women were unable to get the vote prior to 1914, and I think that the main reason for this was that both of the women suffrage groups had failed. The groups would not unite and be a one overall strong organisation. The women failed to have just one national organisation for either of the groups, and instead there were only regional divisions especially in Manchester and London. Either of the groups had different ways of approaching the situation, and either one was too soft or one was too harsh. E.g. The suffragettes used force to try and get their point across, (Window smashing, arson attacks, hunger striking and harassing authority) while the suffragists used their knowledge and persuasive skills. However, both of the groups lacked a bit of the other groups main ways of approach. The suffragettes sometimes took ways of approach a bit too far and when Lloyd George came to power, they thought that it would be a good idea to burn down his manor, but this only made him slow down the process for the women to get the vote. On the other hands the suffragists thought that they should approach the situation in a civilised manner, but it turned out that they needed a bit extra force which if they joined with the suffragettes, they would have got. However, in 1906 the suffragists did change their tactics slightly and had a protesting march. The final reason for the failure of the suffrage groups was that the militant methods also failed. The militant methods were led by Emmeline Pankhusrt and she helped convince other women to join in, in these methods. The methods were illegal which made the women very unpopular. Many people were against the actions and quotes like “ Militant acts only attracted public interest, never mass support” and “Militant acts are inadequate to coerce the government, but sufficiently destructive to antagonise public opinion.”. These quotes summed up what the women were doing and proved that they were unpopular.
After 1906 the Liberal Party was in office and votes for women depended upon their support. In 1906 the Liberals had the power to grant the women the vote, but did not. There were three main reasons why they did not grant the women the vote. The first is that simply the Prime Minister, Asquith was very hostile about the situation. The second is that the Liberals majority in Parliament was gradually whittled down by a series of elections. By 1910, it relied on the votes from the Irish Nationalists and the Labour Party to survive. They were also unwilling to risk their term of government for votes for women (Irish Nationalists do not support women’s suffrage.) The third and final reason is that Liberals had other more pressing problems such as the insurrection in Ireland, the rebellion by the House of Lords, and the widespread strike action by trade unions. This was a revolutionary period when votes for women was not a priority for the Liberal government. All this meant that the Liberal’s had to do something about the Suffragettes in particular. After 1908 the treatment for Suffragettes became much harsher and instead of the women getting 1st division treatment, they got 2nd division treatment. This was a huge difference in the way that the women were treated. They were now going to start being treated like common criminals, and were treated exactly the same. They could have shared a cell with a rapist, murderer, e.t.c. In response to hunger strikes, a policy of force feeding was brought in. Eventually the Suffragettes protested on what was known as Black Friday (1910).
The Labour party was the next party and they backed the women. They thought that the idea was very good and that women at a certain age should be able to get the vote. However, their top priority was to allow the different classed men to be able to vote and this meant letting working class men vote before higher class women. In the early days of the Labour Party in 1900, there were reported that there were links between the WSPU and the party, and this led to all the Labour MP’s voting for women’s suffrage in 1910. One of the leaders Ramsay MacDonald believed that if he backed votes for women, he would get more votes from the women and help them get into power. In 1912, the NUWSS associated itself with the Labour Party and it was the first time that a suffrage group had affiliated itself with a particular party. However, soon even some women started to say that they thought that they were too irrational to be able to vote. In 1908 there was and Anti-Suffrage League, which was the male equivalent of the women groups. It was a national league opposing Women’s Suffrage. By 1914, there were around 42,555 members of the league.
It is quite clear, from this question that there were many reasons why women did not get the vote between 1900 and 1914. Whether it was to do with the two different sets of women’s groups, and the fact that they wouldn’t join to become one overall group or whether it be due to the apparent incompetence and unreliability of women that dated back to the Middle Ages. However, one thing is for sure and that is, if the women didn’t finally sort things out with the government and didn’t have these groups trying to win the vote for women, there could still be protests and suffrage groups around today, trying to somehow get that vote.
2) In February 1915, eight million women got the right to vote after centuries of campaigning. The reason that they got this right to vote was mainly due to the First World War. However, having the right to vote was not the only cause of the war, employment became much less of a challenge for the women. Greater access was given to the women for careers and jobs that they wouldn’t have had before the war. There were a number of reasons why The First World War contributed to allowing women to vote, but the strongest of these in my view was the way the war changed peoples attitudes towards women. They saw that women were able to cover for men that went to fight. They were also just as reliable. However, there were plenty more reasons for attitudes towards women to change. Having the war, made many people forget about the troubles that the women were providing, so this meant that politicians were given a chance to change their minds, without it being widely acknowledged.
All these main changes were happening in the main part of the war, when Britain were in the centre of battle and the whole war was really starting to get gruesome. This was the time that working-class men had to go out and fight for their country. Most men had to leave their farms and shops meaning that someone had to take over. It was at this time, just after the war started that Lloyd George declared that women would need to help. The first main job that they were instructed to do was to help out with ammunition work. They were asked to come to factories and help make all sorts of ammunition and this started in 1915. This sort of work was thought to be very high profile and it attracted a large number of women . Most of whom thought that it was a safe job. However, later disasters proved otherwise. In 1917 there was an explosion in Silvertown Factory, which made people think twice about working in factories. It was not the only disaster that happened while working in the factories. There was a disease that the women picked up called TNT. This was a disease that caused the colour of your skin to go yellow, and women that had this disease were known as Canary Girls. Having women working was vital in helping women win the vote. Although, only some women worked, it was very rare to see women working, even if they were working-class. All the women thought that the idea was good and even the WSPU started demonstrations supporting and urging other women to help.
After demonstrating that women were able to work in factories and help the war progress, they soon started to join the army. If you were not part of the military, you were also not allowed to fight. This meant that lots of women signed up for it. Different types of women signed up for different military jobs. Women that were not very active and that were weaker did jobs that suited these characteristics. Such jobs included secretarial work, truck driving and maintenance of equipment. Women that were a bit more active and stronger followed more manly roles. In 1916 one of the first organisations was set up for women. This was called The Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps. Soon after this was set up, a women’s land army was also set up. This was where the women took over work from men and worked on the farms so that agriculture could still go on and not die. The reason for this change was because in 1916 conscription was introduced to men. This meant that farmers had to leave their fields and join the army. More examples of organisations that were set up were the Women’s Royal Navy Service (WRNS) and Women’s Royal Air Force Service (WRAFS). These were the two main organisations that were set up in 1918. Most jobs that were now available to the women of Britain were important jobs which allowed men to go and fight.
Another big step for the women was getting into patriotic foreign policy. This involved supporting and backing the men to go to war and help their country. The policy was crucial for the war effort and because it was so high profile, it gave Members Of Parliament to back down and lay off the women a bit. There were good outcomes from the propaganda and it removed many obstacles. Maybe the most beneficial outcome was the end of the militancy. In 1914, the WSPU called off their militant campaign and focused their energy on patriotic propaganda. There was a major craze for the women of Britain, where they would walk along the streets and look for any men. If they saw any, they would simply go up to them and put a white feather into their breast pocket. This meant that if a man was ever seen on the streets with a white feather, the man would be recognised as a coward. It was known as the white feather campaign and it urged all men to go out and fight for their country.
Through-out the war, many chances were given to the government to allow the right for women to vote. The war did eventually cause there to be a need for a Franchise Reform. This meant that the people wanted the right to vote to be improved and the government also thought that it should be improved because the whole country had help fight the war. There was awareness that all working class men should get the right to vote, before any of the women. The government also thought that the law preventing men that are not in the country for more than a year was an unfair law. This meant that fighter’s were now allowed to vote while fighting. As well as working-class men being allowed to vote, they also decided that because they were reproducing laws for the system, they might as well let women have the right to vote also. This would stop further demonstration and needless violence. These changes all happened in the 1918 elections.
Overall, it is quite clear that the First World War was the main reason for the eventual allowance for women to vote. However, a number of reasons came with this right to vote. These have been discussed thoroughly and from doing this question it has become evident to me that, if there was no World War One and World War Two for that matter, women to this day may not even have that right to vote.