- 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?
Source D is written in 1912, from a book by Emmeline Pankhurst, who was a leader of the Suffragettes. Since the 1906 election, the Suffragettes had used violent actions, by 1912 when this source was written, violence was not working and women still had not got the vote. Source E is part of a speech given by a Member of Parliament in 1913. Both sources are contemporary sources, written around the same time. Emmeline Pankhursts book was written to show a point of view as well as the speech in Source E, but the book was also written to educate people about the fight that women had to go through and the speech was also written as propaganda in order to persuade people on the speakers point of view. Source D is defending why the Suffragettes were using a violent system, it is saying that not getting the vote has made their campaign stronger, it got them in the news, got politicians thinking about them and educated people on what they were actually fighting for. In Source E, the speaker’s opinion is that he didn’t want women to end up governing the country, which would have happened if women got the vote. He is not biased against suffragettes or suffragists; his point of view is on women in general. There are many reasons why women had not won the vote by 1914. In 1906, the failure of the suffragette campaign caused them to declare war on the liberal government, and then they took militant action e.g. Emmeline Pankhurst and Emmeline Lawrence caused a disturbance outside the House of Commons and arrested and sent to Holloway Prison. In 1906 – 1908, a split within the WSPU forming the suffragettes and the suffragists, which introduced more violent campaigns, showing lack of cooperation in the movement. In 1908, there were attacks on the new Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith who was against the vote for women. In 1909, a new kind of weapon was introduced, the women prisoners went on hunger strikes causing themselves to be force-fed, and this became a propaganda campaign and made a huge impact on the general public. In 1910, the government produced the conciliation bill, which stated that only some women could get the vote, but this idea never got put into action. As well as the main points, men’s view that women should not be given a position of authority, and problems in Ireland, affected women not getting the vote by 1914. I don’t think the main reason why women did not get the vote was because of the violent attacks e.g. on Herbert Asquith because these attacks got the attention of the press and the government and got them thinking about women and the vote, if the women had stayed quiet and had not been so violent, the government may have not thought twice about giving women the vote. I also don’t think the main reason is the force-feeding or the hunger strikes because if anything this got the Suffragettes the sympathy vote from the general public. I believe that the main reason why women did not get the vote was the split of the WSPU. If they had stayed as one committee, disregarded using violent actions and worked together as a movement they could have persuaded the government and general public to give women the vote, but instead showed the government why women should not get the vote by being irresponsible and violent human beings and letting determination get the better of them.
- Study Sources F and G.
How useful are these sources as evidence for the contribution of women to the war efforts in the years 1914 – 1918?
Source F is a poster produced by the government in 1916 at the time when conscription was introduced. Source G is statistics from a school textbook, published in the 1980’s. The sources main difference is that the poster was produced entirely as propaganda; and the school textbook was produced entirely for education purposes. Source F is persuading women to join the workers union, since all unmarried men over eighteen had been forced to go to war, there were no men left to do the jobs back home so women were being persuaded to leave their house wife roles and take the mans place, at work. This is shown in the poster as in the background are the men at war, and smoke in the air from a gun. This is to encourage women to help the men who are at war and to help them by joining the work force, it also shows that men are working so hard and are putting their lives in danger while women are back home, so it is showing that women should be doing something for their country. Source G is showing how in most industries in Britain between the years 1914 – 1918, women in employment had increased by an immense amount. These statistics show that the propaganda must have worked and encouraged women to join the work force. Women had always had the role of being at home with the children but as soon as they got the opportunity to fulfill their greatest ambitions they left that role and went to work (Source F and G.) Even though women were doing the same jobs as the men, they were paid less then men, had harder jobs than men and generally were treated worse then men. Women were unfairly treated, at first there was propaganda encouraging them to go to work (Source F) but as soon as the war was over, they was propaganda encouraging them to stop work and go back to their original roles at home, being that the men who were fighting needed their jobs back. You can see from Source G that women contributed greatly to the war, as the statistics show that as soon as they were encouraged to do something by the government, they did it. An inference made from these sources is that women in theory were working harder than some men at war, as well as doing a full time job, to keep the income coming in while their husbands were away, they had to look after their home and their children. There are also some limitations of the sources, source F doesn’t show what kind of work the women were being encouraged to do. Source G shows the employment rates in the years before and during the war, but it doesn’t show the years after the war, which doesn’t show us whether the women continued to work after the men came back from the war or if they went back to their original roles of being at home. Neither of the sources shows the ages of the women going to work or the types of women whether they were single or married and young or old. Both these sources are still quite useful even with limitations, as evidence for the contribution of women to the war efforts in the years 1914 – 1918.
- Study Sources H, I and J and use your own knowledge.
‘It was the work that women did during the war that earned them the vote’. Use the sources, and your own knowledge to explain whether you agree with this interpretation.
Source H and I are from history books written in 1980, their purpose being to educate people on women’s suffrage and women at war. Source J is from a speech by Herbert Asquith in 1917, its purpose is to express a point of view, usually speeches are made for propaganda use, to encourage people on a certain opinion, but this speech is not biased, it is written by a man who opposed giving women the vote, and has evaluated women’s effort in the war and believes that some sort of voting should be given to women, although he is not saying he believes that all women should have the right to vote. Source H and I show reasons that women were given the vote, they both have a link between women at war and the vote for women. Source H shows the views of different people. Both H and I show giving the vote a minor thing especially due to war effort, if anything Source H is saying that women should be rewarded for their role of bringing up their children not for their effort at war. Source I shows that women getting the vote is important but not because of women’s war work but because of the social and political change in Britain after the war, due to the four years of conflict. Source H and J have a link, neither of them are saying that they believe women should have the right to vote, but both reflect on the practical reasons why women should be rewarded and not the principle reasons for getting the vote.
Women could have got the vote for many reasons. Before the war the government were giving into violence from the Suffragettes and after the war they were not. Politicians hoped that new women voters would support them so were no longer afraid of giving the women the vote. Herbert Asquith who was the prime minister who therefore influenced the government, opposed votes for women before 1914, but after the war spoke out in favour for women. The government decided to change the law and make such the war heroes got their vote, women saw the opportunity and began to put pressure on the government to include votes for women in the changed law. Politicians were much happier with the older married family women voting than the young and single women because their husbands would encourage voting as they did and the government wanted to give those women the vote. I don’t think that there was a significant reason why women got the vote, if it wasn’t for women’s effort in the war and it was something else that gave women the vote, then why did women not get the vote before the war? It is true that women’s right were most probably improved as a kind of reward for their work during the war. Women were almost equal, but this did not improve the life of the majority of the women war workers, who were young and single. It was a mixture of things that gave women the vote, due to their effort in the war, people were beginning to notice them as an equal race, Herbert Asquith changed his mind about them, the government thought twice about giving into them and the general public became convinced that women deserved the vote. I think the work done by women in the First World War could have been a significant steeping stone forward for British women and could have partly won them the vote, however, I don’t think it was the final leap, it just contributed to the building up of it and even if the war did not contribute fully to them getting the vote, the war did lead to real changes in social attitudes especially that women had more freedom after the war than they ever had done.
