Votes for women, c1900-28 - source related study.

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Year10c






1.Study source A
What can you learn from Source A about the reasons given by the suffragettes for demanding votes for women?

Source A is a suffragette poster produced in 1912. It gives various reasons for demanding votes for women. The poster shows how women can be extremely intellectual, qualified and intelligent than men but still fail to get the vote. This is shown by the types of positions they have been given in the poster, such as mayors, teachers and doctors. Women are also shown as factory helpers and nurses, which involved a lot of skill and confidence. This proves the men, who thought women needed protection at all time and were incapable of handling any kind of work, wrong. Where as, men can be ‘lunatics’ and ‘drunkards’ and still get the right to vote. The poster shows men as irresponsible and immature beings which shows the strength of women compared to men.
The suffragettes main reason for demanding the vote was the fact that they felt it wasn’t fair and that not all the citizens of the country were being treated equally. This was also against the democracy, which provoked the suffragettes even more. The source mainly explores the sexist facts over getting the vote. It’s basically conveying the fact that women deserved the vote more than men, and had a stronger right over it.

2.Study sources B and C
Does source B support the evidence of Source C about the suffragette campaign? Explain your answer.


Source B, a section from a book written in 1907 by Marie Corelli called ‘Women or suffragette’ does in a way support the evidence of source C, a cartoon drawn by Bernard Partridge in 1906.
The tile of the book in source B itself differentiates the difference between a woman and a suffragette. In the poster the two women are both campaigners for female suffrage, but the one on the left is a Suffragist and the one on the right is a Suffragette.
The two sources agree with each other in the way that they say Suffragettes are harming the vote and damaging their own cause. They both agree with the fact that violence is not the key to getting the vote and that Suffragettes were just making it harder for women to get the right to vote.
On the other hand source B and source C do disagree with each other in some ways. Source B is totally against the vote. You can say that because of the sort of words used in the passage such as “shrill cry”.  This conveys the fact that women were not capable of handling an argument and would just scream and cry instead. Source C says a similar thing. It talks about the “shrieking sister” which also implies that women would just shout their way out.
Source B also states,
“women were and are destined to make voters rather than to be voters themselves”
This statement pushed me to believe that Marie Corelli was against the vote. The source also blames women for the way men have been brought up. It is against the Suffragette act. Even though the writer realizes the inequalities between men and women, she still says that women will never be able to get the vote.
On the other hand, source C is still supporting the vote. Although it does say that Suffragettes were the worst enemy of their own cause and that Suffragists were the sensible ones who were going to get women the right to vote. The source shows a sensible women trying to stop a scruffy woman from her militancy.

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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?


Despite the Suffragette activity, women had not gained the vote by the outbreak of the First World War, because the suffragettes had ruined their own cause. They used violence to get the vote, which didn’t attract many people. The hadn’t been campaigning for long and before there were only the suffragists who had more control over their actions. But they weren’t taken too seriously by the public.
Source D a part of a book ...

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