What can you learn from Source A about the reasons given by the Suffragettes for demanding votes for women?

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GCSE History

Women’s right to vote

Question 1:

What can you learn from Source A about the reasons given by the Suffragettes for demanding votes for women?

(Source A – A Suffragette poster produced in 1912)

The poster is one of the non-violent campaigns the Suffragettes organized during their fight for women’s rights to vote. The Suffragette often used violent campaigns as an attempt to shock and surprises the public, but posters such as these, although nonviolent achieved the same effects.

The poster has images of women at their best; in jobs such as Mayors, Nurses and Doctors. These jobs are of high occupation, and are respectable in every way. But the women in those positions were not even allowed to vote. They contrast the best of women who are not allowed to vote, with the very worse of men, who are allowed to vote. The words on the poster explains that even though the women who are of high standards, are not allowed to vote, the men who were once a convict, a lunatic or a drunkard, were allowed to vote.

This showed the separation of the sexes, from the worse to the best, as unfair treatment towards females, and was one of the reasons why women fought for the vote.

Though the Suffragettes produced posters to voice their opinions, they weren’t the only ones. Suffragists and anti-suffrages also produced their own. A good example of a poster from the Suffragists is source C, “The Shrieking Sister”.

Women fought for the vote for mainly one reason. So they can change the laws which were discriminating against their sex. If women were able to achieve the right to vote, they could undo unjustified laws, which allowed women to be second class citizens. It would have been the easier way to gain respect for women by attaining the vote, rather than fight for the individual laws.

The campaigns were done in several different ways. As described before, women used nonviolent ways by use of posters and petitions, but also used violent forms of campaigning, such as demonstrations, setting fire on important buildings, destroying public property and many other ways.

These violent campaigns were quite shocking for the public, and there was even the death of Emily Davidson, the female Martyr, who attempted to flag the King’s Horse during the Derby in the name of women in Britain.

But even though the violent approaches to the vote were great steps, the nonviolent method were the shoes which helped us get this far.

Question 2:

Does Source B support the evidence of source C about the Suffragette campaign? Explain your answer by reference to both sources.

(Source B – An extract from a book by Marie Corelli, called “Woman or Suffragette”. Written in 1907)

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This source was written by a married woman writer in the 18-1900’s. She strongly believed that women should not fight for the women’s right. This is reflected in her writings, such as the book from which the source is taken from. She believes that women are only the breeders and possessions of men, and not the equal. Her book, ‘Woman Or Suffragette’ was titled this, as an attempt to separate the two ‘species’ from one another.

The book, ‘Woman Or Suffragette’ was written in 1907, when the fight for women’s rights was not yet at its peak year. This book was probably ...

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