To a certain extent, Source C is similar because it gives off the same nature of message. The cartoon shows a suffragette fighting the cause of ‘Female Suffrage’. A Suffragist is holding the suffragette back. The Suffragist says to the Suffragette,’ You help our cause? Why your its own enemy!’ The suffragist is saying that Suffragettes and their violent protests are their own enemy because the Government won’t give the vote to women who behave inappropriately and lead an appalling example. This is a similarity between the two sources because they both give across the message the women are their own enemy so they will not be given the vote.
Sources B and C are similar even though one is a cartoon and one is a piece of text, and do give of the same message that women do want the vote but aren’t given it due to their own behaviour.
3) Source D is a passage from a book called my own story written by Emeline Pankhurst, one of the leading suffragettes, in 1912.
Source E is part of a speech made by a Member of Parliament in 1913.
3) Despite the Suffrage activity before 1914, women had not been given the vote by the outbreak of the First World War. This was a surprise to the Suffragettes, as they believed that suffrage activity would have won them the right to vote before the outbreak of the First World War. Emeline Pankhurst says in her book my own story, ‘the campaign made woman’s suffrage news -it had never been that before. Now the newspapers are full of us’. Emeline Pankhurst believed that the suffrage activity had helped the cause of votes for women to be recognised by members of government and the general public. She and the other suffragettes believed that without the suffrage activity and their forms of propaganda, people wouldn’t have taken notice of the suffragettes and their campaign. The newspapers being filled with the news of the suffragettes was not always good publicity. From 1908 onwards the suffragettes held a series of major strikes and demonstrations. In 1911, Emily Davidson began setting light to letterboxes in a demonstration for the female right to vote. Also on 1 March 1912 the suffragettes broke almost every window in Regent Street, Oxford Street and Piccadilly Circus. Also Emiline Pankhurst threw stones at the Prime Minister’s house in Downing Street. These methods to get publicity certainly was achieved but for solely the wrong reasons. The suffragettes behaved appallingly using violence and vandalism and this is why they were not given the vote before the outbreak of the First World War. The parliament didn’t want to give the vote to a team of hooligans.
More reasons to why women had not been given the vote before the outbreak of the First World War are that many women were not actually interested in having the right to vote. The results from a poll in 1911 show that only 15% of women wanted the vote, 38% of women did not want the vote and 39% of women did not reply to the poll. This shows that less than one sixth of the female population in Britain wanted the right to vote. Also the poll indicates that many women didn’t mind whether or not they would be given the vote. We can assume this, as many women didn’t reply to the poll. This shows that many women left the decision in other people’s hands and didn’t particularly mind the outcome result. Source E is a speech made by a Member of Parliament in 1913. The source reads, ‘I have no hesitation in voting against the principle of giving the vote to women.’ The source says that the right to vote should only be for men and not for women. Women should not be allowed to vote and it is a brainless idea to even suggest the idea.
One main reason to why women were not given the vote before the outbreak of the First World War was because Queen Victoria herself believed that women should not have the right to vote. The queen herself said that having the right to vote will ‘unsex’ women. The fairer sex i.e. women are designed to make voters than rather to be voters themselves.
One last main reason as to why women were not aloud the right to vote was that the members of Parliament and the government were extremely sexists. Source E is a speech made by a Member of Parliament in 1913. It reads, ‘In giving the women the right to vote we will ultimately put the control of this country into female hands’. This speech is basically saying that women should not be given the vote because they are incapable of running the country as they are not as politically minded as men. This is an extremely sexist comment and the reason to why women were not given the right to vote is that Parliament consisted entirely of men, elected by men to pass laws to benefit men. Women were seen as housewives rather than Members of Parliament.
In short the reasons why women were not given the vote before the outbreak of the First World War were that the Parliament was sexist towards women, Parliament didn’t want to give the vote to vandals, many women did not even want the vote and Queen Victoria herself believed that the right to vote should not be a right that women should boast.
4) Source F is a poster used to promote the idea of women helping England in the war, by working in factories. It shows a woman who is, effectively on the battlefield and the caption reads “On her, their lives depend…enrol at once”. The government was using the idea of national service to promote the much needed, factory employment during the hard times of the First World War. However this source does not show the popularity of this career change. This source shows that the government wanted women to work in factories and in munitions factories. The poster does not actually show that women wereworking in factories, but that they were needed to work in the factories to help England to be successful in the war against Germany because without their help, there would be no weapons for the British soldiers to use on the battlefield.
Source G is an extract from a British school textbook published in the 1980s. The source is a set of statistics that show the changes in the different types of jobs women could perform during the First World War. Source G shows an immense increase in the number of women working in factory work such as in metal industries for example. This would agree with the evidence presented in source F that women were needed in order for the brave men to win the fight on the battlefield. The female employment in the metal factory work increased by 424,000 people in just four years (1914-1918). This is good evidence that supports the fact that women did contribute to the war effort hugely. A once divided country over whether or not women should boast the right to vote were then working together in order to win World War One and save Britain from being invaded.
Neither source presents the full scale of women’s involvement in the war effort. In source F, the poster, shows the government’s expectation of women to work in the factories. Therefore encouraging them, and giving us the impression this line of work was not favourable.
Also source G fails to support evidence of women’s contribution to the war effort. Source G shows that along with the biggest job increase being in factory work the second biggest job increase was in fact in the government sector. Between 1914 and 1918 there was an increase of 223, 000. This leads one to believe that not all women contributed to the war effort. For some women took the opportunity to secure a future career in a job position that they might not have been able to secure if the job vacancy was a priority for the men.
Source F shows us that the government wished women to work in munitions factories to assist Britain. Source G shows a great popularity for munitions factories but also for many other sectors. Women contributed in such sectors as Food, Drink and chemical industry. Source G supports source F’s evidence of women’s contribution however it also states that women helped in many other sectors of the war effort. Source G could also be seen as unreliable because the statistics were published in the 1980s. The war itself took place between 1914-1918 and the source was written approximately 70 years after the war took place.
In my Opinion these two sources are, in some respects useful as evidence for the contribution of women to the war effort in the years 1914-1918. The two sources combined show that women were needed to work in factories to make ammunition for the soldiers and that there was an increase in the number of jobs that women could now seize in the place of men, as they were away fighting in the battles. However the sources do not show that women had to vacate their jobs when the conflict was over, so that the men could repossess their jobs once again.
5) ‘It was the work that women did during the war that earned them the vote’.
I do agree with the above statement to a certain extent but also believe that it was not only the work that women did in the war but also their attitude and nationalism that won them the right to boast the vote
“To say that the war brought votes for women is to make a very rough generalisation, yet one which contains some truth.” taken from a history book called Women at War 1914-1918 written in 1977. This source says that the war effort by female Brits was probably the reason to why women were given the vote. I do agree with the source to a certain extent however, I also believe that if it weren’t for the pressure that women placed on the government before the war demanding the vote, they would not have been granted the vote after the First World War. The right for women to vote was a reward to women for their valiant effort in the war. If however, the suffragettes had not been placing the government under pressure for the vote in the first place, they in all probability would not have been given the vote as a reward.
As stated before women’s contribution to the war effort did play role in women’s suffrage. During the war, women showed great responsibility and patriotism by doing their fragment for the cause. However the vote was not only a gift for their contribution to the victory of World War One.
“During the four years of conflict a tremendous mood favourable to change had been created” Source I, taken from a history book called Women at War 1914-1918.
As war was declared, Emeline Pankhurst called off all militant action from her organisation. After the war ended there were fears of militant action recurring once again. Due to the results of the war on the country that shattered England both economically and physically, the government would not have been able to deal with the added pressure of domestic detestation. The government wanted to keep England a united nation and so gave women the vote to stop internal hatred once again in England so soon after a World War. “For three years now the Suffragettes have not restated that horrible campaign of violence…I therefore believe that some measure of women’s suffrage should be given” Source J, a speech by Herbert Asquith 1917 I agree with Herbert Asquith and believe that this was the main reason as to why women were given the vote.
The vote also came up in discussion because of the war but indirectly. The government were in talks about changing the male voting age to include younger men who fought in the war. They decided to stretch the voting age to 18+ if one had performed national service. Until now Labour had not had the authority or opportunity to bring up the controversial topic of women’s suffrage. However since there was now a conciliation government, the vote for women would not affect any party. They were amending the suffrage bill so that they were able to establish votes for women under ‘similar’ terms to men.
I believe that the contribution to the war effort by women, their attitude and patriotism to England and the pressure that the suffragettes put on the Government were the reasons to why the Suffragettes were given the reward of being able to boast the right to vote.
