Why Didn't Women Get the Vote in 1914?

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                                                                                                         History Coursework

Why didn’t women get the vote in 1914?

The reason for women failing to get the vote in 1914 was due to the Government being too occupied with other issues such as other events going on at the time for instance crisis in Ireland and trouble in Europe. The other reasons were the attitudes of Asquith and the Liberals, violence and direct action endured from the suffragettes, traditional attitudes and lastly splits amongst women.

The reasons why women wanted the vote was because they wanted to be treated equally to men, also they paid taxes just like men so should be able to influence MP’s on how money is spent.

   

The most important factor, for women not getting the vote, was the other issues going on at the time. The main thing was the trouble in Europe. The problems Europe were facing was tension being built up amongst all the European countries, therefore Asquith had a great interest in what was happening. As, like it eventually did do, could have led to war so was curious to see if anything more serious developed. This meant for the women wanting the vote that Asquith and the Liberals were too engaged with this to have time to sort out their problem of the vote and also Asquith and the Liberals saw the problems in Europe as more serious and important. This meant that the women wanting suffrage would have to wait longer. Also, Asquith had a lot of problems with the Constitutional Crisis (Parliamentary Bill for money). As there were many Conservative supporters in the House of Lords, they blocked the budget. Asquith new he could not run a country without a budget, so this was a serious problem; consequently Asquith had to bring forward the election. During the time this was going on, it meant that the campaign for women’s suffrage was delayed, so lost out on time of making there vote law, because Asquith was way more concerned as he could have lost his job, over women getting the vote. The last of the other events going on at the time was Ireland. Seen as the Irish MP’s helped Asquith to stay in power, therefore he had to do something in return for Ireland. Ireland wanted home rule and by 1910 Asquith had accepted to do this. The problem that Asquith and the Liberals faced was what to do with Ustler, a part of Ireland, as most of Ireland were Catholics and wanted home rule, whereas in Ustler there was mainly Protestants living there who wanted to stay part of Great Britain. By 1913 it looked like there was going to be a civil war in Ireland, as both the North and South had begun to raise their armies. This again took up most of Asquith’s time leaving the women who wanted the vote angry and still not any further.

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As Asquith was posed with the problem of the women going on hunger strike he decided that the best alternative would be to force feed them. Originally this had a positive effect for the women campaigning for the vote as they gained a lot of publicity but on the other hand it did not help them win the vote as many people saw them as stupid and not responsible as they were starving themselves, therefore shouldn’t have the right to vote. The fact that Asquith was against the vote for women from the start; he didn’t really support the ...

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