Women over 30 gained the vote mainly because of the war effort, do you agree? Explain your answer.

As men were fighting in the war, politicians realised that by joining the armed forces, thousands of men had accidentally lost their right to vote. War heroes without the right to vote was a humiliating thought for the politicians, so they began planning to give them the suffrage back. While drawing up plans, many politicians’ realised women should have the rights to vote too. A small measure of women over thirty were given the vote for their effort in the war.

Many women’s movements ceased their battle for the vote when the war broke out. The WSPU called a truce and began to encourage women to join the Home Front and started to produce anti-German propaganda. Sylvia Pankhurst was a pacifist, so she campaigned through out the war against war work, the Home Front and the war itself. The NUWSS also ceased its women’s suffrage campaign to get involved in the war relief work. However the WFL (Women’s Freedom league) was one of the few women’s suffrage movements, which continued to campaign for women’s suffrage during the war years.

Although the war effort was the main reason why women over 30 gained the vote, the immense campaigning before 1914 also contributed to the gain. It also prepared the women for the vote; the NUWSS prided itself on preparing women for the vote democratically. The methods used by the WSPU laid the foundations for the future female voters, thus helping to prepare the women for vote. The WSPU were militant and damaged public property to get into the newspapers, whereas the NUWSS were constitutional and preferred to canvass peacefully. The WSPU was a very powerful movement, which had many supporters; its violent methods made it a movement people knew. The NUWSS was another powerful movement due to its well known peaceful protests. Their years of endless campaigning was stopped abruptly to help their country, this showed how patriotic the women were and how keen they were to help win the war.