Source C is a cartoon produced by Bernard Partridge in 1906 who is writing to arouse public attention. It is a drawing of two women campaigning for the women suffrage. One of the women is a suffragist, whilst the other is a suffragette. The illustration shows the suffragist as a mature, lady-like, high class lady, who fights for her cause maturely, while on the other hand it shows the suffragette as a violent, unruly lady, who is named as the “ SHRIEKING SISTER”, who is thought to be making the suffrage for women more difficult by using irresponsible and aggressive tactics to get her points across. The sketch shows the suffragist is against the suffragette, and is saying to them, “ YOU help our cause, why, you’re its worst enemy! “. This indicates and shows the suffragists are strongly against the suffragettes and believes what they are doing is extremely wrong and that they are a massive threat to the campaign. The suffragettes are the campaigns worst enemy and is making matters worse. They are not helping the cause in any way and are just not needed. Their violent tactics and unruly behaviour isn’t helping the campaign, therefore they should just stop while their ahead. Source B supports the evidence source C gives about the suffragette campaign, as source B shows women have made themselves get treated unfairly by men, and that it is their fault they have been treated that way, whilst source C clearly states the suffragists believe suffragettes are to blame for not getting the vote.
Study source D & E
How useful are these sources as evidence for the contribution of women to the war effort in the years 1914-1918?
Source D is a book written by a famous leader of the Suffragette group, Emmeline Pankhurst. She says the methods of getting their point across had failed to do so and all their violent campaigning had not done them any good, even when the papers were full of them and all over the public.
The suffragettes had thought the public must have been taught about women’s suffrage and the right for them to have it as there was already a large section of the public who were in favour of women’s suffrage, which would have quickly given them the vote as simple as that but the government didn’t agree. They wouldn’t give the vote therefore the Suffragettes were to resort to fighting aggressively. The suffragettes would go to such extremes yet still would not succeed on gaining the right to vote. The suffragettes would take many extreme actions just to fight for their rights. These included:
- Tie themselves to gates.
- Smash churches
- Being violent towards the public
- Going on hunger strike!
Because of these many dangerous and extreme activities the suffragettes would get arrested for it and sent to prison. Even in prison though they would continue with these extreme measures and still fight for their right. This is where the hunger strike usually came in, when the suffragettes were sent to prison. In prison, they would go on hunger strike and would not eat absolutely anything. This would lead and cause many of these women suffering and even dieing. This made publicity for the government look bad. This would lead governments having to force feed these women, using pipes through their noses to feed them. Or sometimes would even release these women from prison to recover and get back on the ball again, just so the governments reputation is not ruined. But all this didn’t get the suffragettes anywhere really. They were still in the same position they were before and almost kind of back to square one.
Source E is a speech spoken by an MP ( Member of Parliament) . This source shows and gives a reason for women not having suffrage.
The MP, who the speech was from, was a man of high class and disagreed with giving women the right to vote therefore the government rejected the idea. The opinion of this MP was the same as majority of the other Mps around, as many of these Mps were afraid of women coming into powerful occupations. They thought women in control of a country was a terrible idea as they think women cannot even think for themselves let alone run a country. The government were worried about the women taking over and being the ones in control and power. Also many of these Mps were stubborn, sexist and single minded therefore they wouldn’t allow women to gain the right to vote.
Other reasons for women not getting the vote by 1914 are because of the bad behaviour the suffragettes caused. This had only given the women the name of aggressive and out of control people who did not suit something as politically important such as the vote. The women had been putting off their supporters. They had damaged their cause as they gave a reason, that they had irrational methods of getting women suffrage, for rejecting women’s right to vote.
Study sources F & G
How are useful are these two sources as evidence for the contribution of women to the war effort in the years 1914-1918?
Source F is a poster of which is government propaganda produced in 1916 to make women want to join the “women munitions workers”. This was because there was a lack of workers and since the workers were all men at the time, they were all gone off to fight the war so the women had to fill in their positions and work at the munitions instead. The poster shows a woman on the cover and the text “women MUNITIONS WORKERS” and “ Enrol at once! “
The text “Enrol at once” shows that the government really needed the workers then and there. The woman in the poster is in front of a man working, which implies that she was just needed as men would have been.
In the picture the woman does not look fragile and weak but sturdy and able to do things that men can. This picture only suggests women worked in such jobs only men were suited for, but it doesn’t actually give evidence that they had done. The poster may look informative of the contribution of women to the war effort during 1914-18 but we cannot tell if women were actually interested by this to join the war effort, as looking at it doesn’t tell us how women had reacted about the poster. The poster doesn’t give information and tell us how many women had been killed or injured at the time due to working at the munitions. Source F is not useful as evidence for the contribution of women to the war effort, as the source doesn’t give us real facts and facts that are needed to be shown, such as how many women were injured and killed.
Source G is a table showing the data of “Women in Employment in Britain”. We can gather from this information that between July 1914-18, which is the period of the WW1, the figures for the amount of women working increases dramatically in jobs which women may have been seen as to hard to do. In one way the source is very useful because it tell us about the women’s contribution to the war between 1914-18. It tells us that during the war women contributed to the war effort by working the jobs others couldn’t do. But on the other hand it doesn’t actually tell us why women did these jobs. It could have been because of things like the freedom to do the jobs because they never had that privilege before; because of the suffrage for women groups like Suffragettes and Suffragists, telling women to go to work, or maybe even the government propaganda encouragement. Also the figures in the source were rounded up to the nearest thousand, giving us not the actual real figures. Both sources don’t tell us what women went through by getting in to these jobs and helping the war effort, whether women were look down on by the men when first trying to help or if the government repeatedly asked women for the help they before couldn’t give.
Study sources H, I & J
“ It was the work that women did during the war that earned them the vote”. Use source H, I, J, and your own knowledge , to explain whether you agree with this interpretation.
Source H tells us, a very simplified view would see the vote as a reward for their loyal wartime service. But even though they did gain the right to vote due to the hard work they put in during the war, not much had changed. Source H doesn’t agree that the wartime effort earned them suffrage as it says not much change resulted, which was that men still had the same attitude towards women before the war and after the war. Men still had the same frame of mind, thinking women were still only good for being a housewife. Men felt happiest when women didn’t do jobs in farms, hospitals and factories. They believed women should only do tasks and jobs like nursing, preparing and serving refreshments for the troops and raising up the future fighting men. The right to vote for women was not because they had earned it but as a reward for their help. There was also an age limit for the women till they could vote, which was of 30 years. This was because they believed the women were more mature at that age and would vote the same way as their husbands would as if women had no opinion or interest over anything besides being mothers and wife’s, and don’t think for themselves.
Source I shows that it was the work women did during the war that earned them the vote and that it had some truth, although it states it was a very rough generalisation. It explains that after the war everyone wanted some change, and that women’s suffrage just seemed to be one of many great social and political changes that they wanted. After the four years of conflict, the war had changed the moods of a lot people. This included people like politicians, who then agreed for women to gain the vote. People became more down to earth with their political views and government, as they wanted changes to take place rather than to just listen and do what the government said. This source implies that, if the war had not happened, women would not have suffrage as the government would not feel pressured to change laws and rules, and then have to fix the women’s right to vote along with it.
Source J shows and agrees with the war bringing women the right to vote, as the Prime Minister of 1907-1916, Herbert Asquith, said, “I therefore believe that some measure of women’s suffrage should be given because of the contribution to every service during this war except that of fighting” He previously opposed women’s votes before the war as Suffragettes had been doing their horrible campaign of violence. However this attitude hadn’t been proved changed by this, as he only though some measures of women’s suffrage should have occurred not all women should have it in other words, he only now agreed to let them vote as a reward for their “service during the war” not because they were entitled to it nor had the right to it.
The work women did during WWI did have a massive impact on their cause. They had access to jobs that were never before available to women, like bus drivers, postal workers, farmers and delivering coal. Women were meant to be feeble, delicate and weak. They succeeded in heavy work and in jobs needing skill like working in engineering workshops. Women working as such things like their vital contribution to the munitions industry, stood out in peoples minds. As the government had talked of creating a land fit for heroes when the soldiers returned from the war, the right to vote had become of the many changes to take place as surely women were heroes for helping. After the war, the politicians had not felt like having all that fighting from the wartime then going to the days where women Suffragettes and Suffragists would harass and pressure the government to let them to vote, so giving women the vote after the war was a quick and simple solution to settle down after the war too.