The Changing Role and Status of Women in Britain Since 1900.

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The Changing Role and Status of

Women in Britain Since 1900

Questions:

  1. Explain why women failed to get the vote between 1900 and 1914.
  2. Attitudes towards women and their right to vote had changed by 1918. How important was the First World War in bringing about this change?

1)Despite many attempts by the suffrage campaigns, between 1900 and 1914, women were still not able to get the vote. They used all sorts of methods to try and get the vote, many of which were illegal. There are a number of reasons why they did not get the vote, many of which were long term factors. Long term factors were social attitudes towards women from mid 19th century to early 20th century, and how these attitudes had to be changed in order for the women to get the vote. They had to prove themselves to the men and the government and show that they were just as good at many of the careers that men did. This would prove to be very difficult. Another long term factor was the Franchise Reform in 1900, which gave the chance for the government to choose who was to get the vote. At that moment, it was only rich people and landowners that were allowed the right to vote. Women were determined to turn around the Franchise Reform and get the right to vote themselves.

It was always going to be hard for the women to get the vote especially with the understanding of many people that women were the inferior race and that both genders had different roles in the world. This theory led to the Separate Spheres Philosophy where men and women worked in different areas. Men were meant to take part in hard labour, politics and military, while women were meant to be the more domestic of the two and were supposed to stay at home and sew, cook and look after any children that they had. There was a supposedly intellectual as well as physical difference between the two. Women could not think rationally about anything and rational thinking was the main skill that was needed in politics. Women were also thought to be very emotional, and this made politician believe that the women were unable to cope with the pressure that the job came with. This hysteria came from the middle ages when women were said to be very fragile and weak. At this time many women were fainting and the men thought that it was because they were not as strong. However, it was soon discovered that it was due to the tight corsets that the women wore. These corsets prevented the women from breathing freely.

Another reason for the thought of women being inferior to men was because they did not have the education that many of the men had. They were trained at home to become good housewives and it wasn’t until 1870 that it was compulsory for all girls and boys to have an education. After the girls had finished their studies, it was compulsory in 1878 for the women to learn basic domestic jobs such as cooking and cleaning. However, the girls that were able to intellectually challenge the boys were allowed to go to university. The universities that accepted the girls were Manchester and London. Oxbridge did accept girls, but were unable to get a degree, unlike the boys who were allowed. Even if the boys were inferior to the girls, they were still unable to get their degree.  

In the 19th century there were many political changes. The government had a general reform movement in which the government tried to allow more than just upper-class people and landowners the right to vote. They wanted to be able to allow the middle class and working class the right to vote, even before the upper-class women could vote. Eventually middle class men were also allowed to vote. These decisions that went against the women caused a group of women to come together at the end of the 19th century and set up a campaign called the NUWSS (Suffragists). These women performed legal methods to try and help them convince the government to allow women the right to vote. They were fed with being known as the inferior to men and wanted to prove that they were real citizens of Britain. However, the group did not seem to make any progress and this caused another group of women to come together and form a group called the WSPU (Suffragettes).  These women thought that using force was going to help get the vote, but it only proved to make the situation worse. This was a group that used militancy radical methods, such as breaking windows. These methods only made them become unpopular. However, the government had other things to worry without having to worry about the two suffrage groups. They had to worry about Ireland trying to become an independent country, which was a serious matter at the time. They also had to worry about the build up to the First World War and all the preparations.

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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 ...

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