There were those who also opposed women getting the vote (not only men, but some women), their arguments were:
There was a belief that women were temperamental and emotional, and those were not the sort of characteristics that someone with the vote should have.
Many men labelled women the ‘weaker sex’. As a result they were seen as not able to vote. It was also said that, for example, women would not be physically strong enough to fight in a war if they voted for it. Having the vote meant you had to do what was voted: “The voter, in giving a vote pledges himself to uphold the consequences of his vote at all costs…women…are physically incapable of this pledge.”
If women were given the vote there would be more female voters then men voters, this would cause Britain to be weakened because the votes would represent women’s views, which were ‘less virile’ than men’s.
It was also argued that women’s place was in the home, looking after the house and the family, she ought not to get involved with politics as it could lead to political disagreements with her husband, which could lead to the break-up of the family.
There are many reasons why women eventually got the vote, including long-term and short-term causes, as well as war work.
The long-term causes included the raise in educational opportunities, in particular for middle-class girls. For example, in 1870, the government made it compulsory for children up to ten years of age to be provided with elementary education (boys and girls), and later, it was enforced for boys and girls to attend school until the age of eleven, and then education was available to women at a secondary and higher education as well as it being possible for them to attend university, this in turn made them slightly more equal to men on an educational level.
The work of individuals increased the educational standards for girls. Emily Davis wanted girls to have the same education as boys. She got Oxford and Cambridge to let girls sit for public examinations and founded Girton College, which took Cambridge’s first female students. Miss Emily Buss started the North London Collegiate School where they studied the same subjects as boys. Dorothea Beale took over a school and turned it into Cheltenham Ladies College. There was also a group of ladies from Langham Place that produced the ‘English Woman’s Journal.’ It was the first paper owned and run by women. They stated that women need education to work otherwise they would get paid less.
New job opportunities also came about during the later part of the nineteenth century for middle-class and working-class women. Some of these jobs were shop work, office work, teaching and nursing. This meant that more women could stop doing labour intensive domestic ‘female’ jobs and start a career in one of those areas. This made them more equal to men on a working level.
Major improvements were also made in the area of women’s legal status, so that by the mid-1890’s, the Divorce Act and the Property Acts had been introduced, this enabled women to have more rights over their children, more power over nasty husbands, more independence (by being able to keep their earnings) and more choice in marriage (not having to live with their husbands if they did not want to). Gradually the government were realising that women’s needs needed to be fulfilled, this in turn could persuade them (the government) into giving the vote to women.
Early attempts were made to win over parliament. For example, Mary Wollstonecraft really got the campaign under way by targeting the ordinary workingwomen. And MP, John Stuart Mill campaigned for suffrage for women. He introduced the motion for female suffrage into Parliament but was defeated in 1867.
Short-term causes include the female suffrage societies. In 1897, all the women’s suffrage groups merged to form the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). They were named the Suffragists. They used a peaceful method of campaigning for the vote, made up of mainly middle-class women and lead by Millicent Fawcett. They wanted, “to show the world how to gain reforms without violence, without killing people and blowing up buildings and doing other silly things that men have done when they wanted the laws altered.”
Their campaign mainly consisted of handing out leaflets, collecting signatures for petitions and they often held meetings, including meetings with MP’s to argue their case. They backed the MP’s that supported women’s suffrage.
However by the 1900, women still had not got the vote, regardless of over half of the MP’s being in favour of women’s suffrage. The subject had been in parliament fifteen times but rejected all of those times. The leader of the NUWSS, Millicent Fawcett said that her movement was ‘like a glacier’, meaning that it was slow but once started it could not be stopped, and it was awfully powerful.
Some women thought that the Suffragists’ campaign was far too slow and they grew impatient. The women felt that they were being ignored and from this thought, a small group broke off and formed the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). They were lead by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, and they believed that radical action needed to be taken. Their motto was, “Deeds not words.”
Their campaign was a violent one, even though they started by just making speeches, they then proceeded to chaining themselves to railings, smashing windows, arson, bombing and sabotage. They even got themselves arrested so that they could be taken to prison and when they were treated as common prisoners rather that political prisoners they would go on hunger strike. This led to the suffragettes being force-fed. This then was used as propaganda towards the public, and a great deal of the public felt sympathetic towards them.
However in 1913 an act was introduced, called the ‘Cat and Mouse Act.’ It was so that the suffragettes did not have to be force-fed any more. What happened was that the prisoner would be allowed to leave prison, recover, and then be re-arrested.
The suffragette’s kept the issue in the papers and without their radical campaigning; women’s suffrage may have been considered a less important issue.
As well as the campaigning there were the individuals that also showed parliament that women were capable of being strong and not fragile. One of these individuals was Florence Nightingale, she played a very important role in, not only, opening the job opportunity of working as nurses, but she showed the doubters that women were very capable of helping in a war and that women were not as frail as they were perceived to be.
Then, in August 1914, Britain declared war on Germany. Both the Suffragists and Suffragettes halted their campaigns. They not only saw it as their patriotic duty, but also a chance to show that women could take part in the ‘war effort’. It would show that they were responsible and that they were physically and mentally strong and that they play a vital role in the war.
An increasing number if women started working in industry, for example, in shipyards, coalmines and brickyards. Some even took on the role of skilled jobs such as engineers, lathe operators and carpenters. Later on in the war, many women worked in factories, making shells and other types of ammunition for the war.
Some people think that due to the war women finally got the vote in 1918 (the year the war ended). They think this because of all the ‘war work’ that women did and the fact that women proved that they could do the jobs of men, and that they could cope and therefore that they could cope with voting.
In 1918 the Representation of the People Act was passed. This stated that women over the age of 30 or men over the age of 21, if they were a householder or married to a householder could vote.
The age limit of 30 was given to ensure that only mature and sensible women could vote, that was the stated reason however they feared the fact that if they gave the vote to every woman there would be a larger proportion of women voting to men. However ten years later the law was changed again so that women could vote at the age of 21.
In conclusion I think that all of the reasons that I have mentioned contribute to women getting the vote and without any one of them, it may have happened more slowly. It is very difficult to point my finger at one factor and say that it was the main contributor.
I think that all of the long-term causes were the foundations on which gaining the vote for women lies. The increased educational opportunities for women, the new job opportunities and the improved legal status all contribute. These in turn show that women are becoming equals to men. But would women have the vote if there were only these factors? I don’t think that it would be the case, I think that with out the short-term factors the campaign wouldn’t have been legalised so quickly.
This includes the work of the Suffragette’s and the Suffragists. The suffragists campaign was the first of its kind. It was slow and not very effective as they protested in a peaceful manner and their campaigns were not counter-productive. However it was from that, which the Suffragettes formed. Their radical and violent protest could have given a bad impression of women and could have resulted in Parliament not agreeing to women’s suffrage even so they did seem to keep the topic of women’s suffrage in the headlines, not letting it be forgotten by either Parliament or the public.
From all the research that I have done I personally think that the most significant factor for getting women the vote was ‘war work’. It seemed to change many men’s minds about women, and what they are capable of because women had proved so in the war. Controversially it is argued that many of the people that did war work were the young single and mainly working class women. And according to the act these were the people not able to vote in 1918 but the women from other classes, who did not contribute to the war effort could vote.
In other countries such as France women too worked in the war but did not receive the vote, historians believe that this may be due to the lack of campaigning that the French women did before the war.
It was also thought that (before the war) when Prime Minister Asquith was in power he was not in favour of women’s suffrage and he did not want to give them the vote because of the violent campaigns of the suffragettes. He felt that if he gave into the violent women then he would have to give in to the other violent parties as well. Therefore he didn’t want to be seen as a weak Prime Minister who gives in at times of trouble.
Many countries around the world such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the USA had given the vote to women or were introducing it. Britain could not be seen as the one that is left behind.
Having evaluated all of the evidence I believe that all the mentioned factors all contributed to women receiving the vote and that they are all interlinked with each other and each factor made getting women the suffrage happen a bit faster. I agree with this statement: “There were three stages in the emancipation of women… the long campaign of propaganda and organisation (the Suffragists)…the campaign of the militants (the Suffragettes)…war. Had there been no militancy and no war, the emancipation of women would have come, although more slowly. But without (the work of the Suffragists), neither militancy nor the War could have produced the crop.”
