The changing role and status of women in Britain since 1900.

Hannah Greenslade 02/02/03

Coursework Assignment: The Changing Role and Status of Women in Britain since 1900

Explain why women failed to gain the right to vote between 1900 and 1914

During this piece of exploratory writing, I am going to look at the different reasons for why women failed to win the vote from 1900-1914 and what in particular led to this.

The Suffragists, despite their determination, were not dynamic enough in their actions to secure the vote for women from 1900-14.

The Suffragists were the early (mainly middle class) campaigners for women’s suffrage (votes for women). Their methods were legal and peaceful, they did not believe in violent protests to get their point heard. They were made up of a number of suffrage societies across the country, which came together in 1897 to form the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), led by Millicent Fawcett.

They used many peaceful tactics such as running meetings, holding processions, leading a deputation to the Prime Minister, public debates and petitions; all of which they achieved between 1905-10.

They had a number of successes in the early 1900s. By 1900, they had the support of more than half of MPs and in the following two years secured the support of many working class women as well.

Although the suffragists failed to gain women the vote, they made a significant start to the women’s suffrage campaign. Millicent Fawcett said that her movement was “like a glacier”; slow moving but unstoppable.

The Suffragettes were more effective in the campaign for women’s suffrage than the Suffragists but they experienced many setbacks along the way meaning that by 1914, women still did not have the parliamentary vote.

Many women lost patience with the tactics of the NUWSS. The peaceful campaign seemed to be going nowhere. It had little press coverage and therefore little public interest. In 1903, the campaigner Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters formed the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). They were nicknamed the Suffragettes and campaigned, not only for women’s suffrage, but also for better living and working conditions for women. Their actions were a lot more active and militant and they quickly gained a lot more attention from the press. Between 1905-10, the Suffragettes took part in a number of militant strategies as part of their campaign, causing disruption at important meetings, deliberately trying to get arrested and sent to prison, attacking property and smashing windows. Later in 1913, they carried out arson, bombing and sabotage in many areas of Britain.

Those Suffragettes successfully imprisoned would go on hunger strikes, refuse to be fed until the government, not wanting to create martyrs, ordered the prisoners to be force-fed. This barbaric procedure played into the hands of the Suffragettes as it won them sympathy with the public.

This is a preview of the whole essay

In May 1911, it looked as though the wait was over. Parliament gave its first reading to the Conciliation Bill, which would give women the vote. However, in November the bill fell through. This was the turning point for the Suffragettes. They became more violent and many MPs, who had been in favour of women’s suffrage, turned against them, believing them to be chaotic and untrustworthy. Support for the movement went rapidly downhill and by 1914 the situation looked hopeless.

Britain’s political parties had very mixed views on women’s suffrage which meant that parliament found it difficult to come to a decision.

There were many different views in Parliament. Many backbench Liberal MPs were in favour of votes for women but the leaders opposed it as they felt that they would lose votes to the Conservatives if they gave women the vote. The majority of Conservative MPs completely opposed any change. The leaders however, felt that if the vote was given, it might be given to property owners, likely to vote Conservative, so were generally in favour of giving the vote to women.

The Labour Party supported women’s suffrage but was still small and newly established so had very little power to change anything.

Between 1906-1913 there were 13 bills for female suffrage, none of which were passed. Many politicians who had supported the vote for women when it was first put forward, changed their minds when the violent protesting increased. They felt that these women could not be trusted with the vote.

To pass a bill needed a majority vote from parliament but the constant changing of minds by MPs made it difficult for this to happen.

Many MPs felt that there were other more important issues than women’s suffrage.

There were a number of other important concerns circulating in parliament at the time of the women’s suffrage movement. The Liberal party gained a landslide victory over the Conservatives in 1906 and they set about reforming the country, introducing much new legislation such as Old Age Pensions and the National Insurance Act. There were preparations also for the possibility of war. Many politicians felt that these were issues that should have been given higher priority and more attention than votes for women.

The women’s suffrage campaign was disadvantaged because of the very traditional view on the role of women and their place in society at that time. Women were expected to stay in the home, looking after the children and the household if they were married, while the men took up jobs and earned money for the family. Only one in seven married women worked, and this was only in jobs such as Domestic service, textiles and clothing. Things had improved a lot during the second half of the 19th Century, with new girls schools opening and various professions such as medicine opening their doors to women, but many people were still not prepared to grant women equality to men in areas such as politics.

Many people believed that women could not be trusted with the vote, (although there were many exceptions) that they were not rational enough to make responsible decisions and that the vote would lead them to neglect their home and family. Even some women had these beliefs and opposed the suffrage movement.

Campaigners argued that giving women the vote was the next logical step after creating such promising education and employment opportunities for women.

In addition, at this time, only a certain proportion of men had the right to vote and many felt that all men should be given the right before the women’s case was considered.

The Suffragette movement was going against the grain of society by campaigning for something that many people believed to be wrong or unnecessary. This made success extremely difficult without a change in people’s views on a woman’s place in society.

Fortunately for the Suffragette movement, this was to come with the First World War.

There were a number of reasons why women failed to win the vote before the war. I think that the biggest reason was people’s views on a woman’s role in society. Unless people believed that women were entitled to the vote, it would always be hard to get the bill passed

Attitudes towards women and their right to vote had changed by 1918. How important was the First World War in bringing about this change?

For this question I will look at the First World War and the effect it had on the women’s suffrage movement. I will consider a number of different points, things that had changed since before the war, and explain how each one helped the Suffragettes towards success.

War work led to a change in perception of the role of women.

In 1918, the government finally passed a law that gave all women over 30 the right to vote. There were a number of reasons why MPs changed their minds.

During the war, the majority of working men went to fight, leaving empty jobs. Women were called up to fill positions such as bus conductors, drivers, munitions factory workers and farm labourers. Many men felt that they had proved that they were important to public life as well as home life, something that many people had doubted before the war.

The freedom and responsibility given to women during the war gave them more confidence and experience to ask for a change in law.

The way in which they held the country together so effectively during the war gave women faith in themselves and their judgement. They realised that they did not need their husbands to make themselves heard, that they could have their own voice. The women’s suffrage movement had many more supporters in 1918 than it had in 1914.

The war had led to a change in a different voting law. Campaigners thought that women’s suffrage could be included in this bill.

As it stood, the law regarding voting was that a man had to have been living at the same address for 1 year to vote. This needed to be changed as it meant that soldiers who had been fighting were not included. If the law was changing anyway, why not include women? The women now had something to push the government towards. If it hadn’t been for the war, this change in law would not have come about, making the war a significant contributor to this aspect of the women’s suffrage movement.

The Suffragettes had called off their campaign at the beginning of the war and the government did not want to give them cause to start it up again.

Many politicians were concerned by the amount of damage caused by the Suffragettes before the war. When it was over, the campaigns started to show signs of returning. The government knew this had to be prevented and one way of doing this would have been to give the campaigners what they wanted; the vote for women.

The government thought that if any women were going to vote, it should be those older, married women who had done less in the War, were not after jobs in the industry, and would probably vote as their husbands did.

The government was beginning to resign itself to the prospects of women’s suffrage, but still believed younger women to be unstable and likely to want to dominate politics. They were not yet prepared to give all women the vote and they wanted to maintain an element of control over them, so they granted the vote to all women over 30, and all men over 21. Women of this age would not be allowed the vote until 1928.

Obtaining the vote was an important step forward for women in the early 20th Century. It helped them to bring about wider social changes and improvements in the position and status of women such as being granted equality in divorce cases and professions such as the Civil Service opening their gates to them. The result was more respect for women who would prove themselves worthy of an equal place in society.

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