During the war, both suffragists and suffragettes helped in the war effort, which came as a surprise, but it was this that proved to the government that they were reliable and trustworthy enough to now vote, so when the war ended and the men came home from war, Parliament made a new Act stating that women would from then on be able to vote provided they’re over 30 and are either a property or land owner, or are married to property or land owner.
Now at least some women were able to vote, and as some men died during the war, the women who replaced their jobs kept them in a more permanent position. This boosted their efforts a great deal as they now had their own money to do with as they pleased, and if they did have a job before the war, the job’s they would’ve had during and after the war would have been in a much better environment and with a much higher salary.
Men would have also changed their opinions about the quality and work ethic of women, as they would have experienced their work first hand because they used the guns and explosives the women made. After the war I feel the men had more respect towards the women, as they ran a whole country without men, which with less people to help out was a difficult task.
I think that the war did change many people’s thoughts and attitudes to women, including women themselves as they found more confidence and self-belief. Their attempts at running the country were a success and a major factor of giving the women over 30 the right to vote.
I will now deliberate on other actions during and after the war which did not relate to women. Many events took place which was not in direct relation to the accomplishments made by women in the war effort. Soldiers who had fought in the war had lost their votes. There are various reasons why this had happened, one of the biggest reasons being that they had lost their lives during the war, and so when they had died they took their right to vote with them.
Another reason why they had lost their vote is that after they had been in war for one year, some men were declared dead. When this happened, their name was wiped off of the electoral register. Also, other men who were alive could not vote since at that time, the postal service was not all that accurate, as many letters were undelivered.
Before the world war, women could not vote. In 1916, the government held a conference where they discussed the issue of female suffrage. The conference took place over long periods of time, and then a law was passed in February 1918. The law changed from women having no vote whatsoever, to the new law giving women over 30 the vote. Although there were women who were over 30 and either owned or married a person who owned land or property, most of the women who had worked during the war were slightly or a lot younger than 30 years of age.
It took another ten years for women to secure a more equal vote to men; they both could now vote at the age of 21. This is even more ironic in my opinion, as by the time it was 1928, most of the women who participated in the war effort were over 30, and a majority of those women also were married to a land owner or owned land themselves.
I think that it was not just women that had got women the vote, as there were a lot of high powered men who also gave a lot of thought to their situation. It was also due to the sad loss of men giving their lives for their country that gave women the vote, so as some women celebrated a lot of them mourned as well.
Finally, I will ruminate over the acts of the ‘suffragists’ and ‘suffragettes’ before the First World War and how they attempted to gain the vote. Both the NUWSS and the WSPU completed various non-violent methods which helped them to win the vote. These included Petitioning Parliament (signing large petitions to show to Parliament), creating newspapers (the Suffragettes made a newspaper called ‘The Suffragette,’ whilst the suffragists made a newspaper entitled ‘The Common Cause’ ), performing demonstrations (such as chaining themselves to famous places) and holding large meetings. The WSPU’s most famous non-violent tactic was to perform hunger strikes, as women who were put into jail never ate. But the government fought back; they force fed them, and if they were about to die they would release them from jail, so that they would not die whilst in the hands of the law.
The WSPU also got themselves involved in some violent tactics. They tried hard to fight in a non-violent way, but in the end they realised that it was not doing any good. They put on rallies in front of masses of people, and also raided numerous important places. They heckled MP’s which were not supportive of their campaign. The most well known piece of violence they performed was martyrdom, as Emily Davidson threw herself in front of the King’s horse at the derby of 1913.
The Violence caused by the WSPU was supported by some, and also hated by some others. Some MP’s said that the reason they gave women the vote was due to the violence. The reason the violence had started is because they saw that the NUWSS had been fighting for around forty years without any results – why should they stay non-violent?
The people who hated the violence had a lot to say about it. Lloyd George had said that all the violence caused the views of the public to become ‘antagonised’ and ‘poisoned.’ The violence also lost them some of the support from their now former supporters.
In summary, we can see that although women’s contributions to the war effort was significant, there were a lot of contributions to male dominant leaders and soldiers, both during and after the war, as well as actions by the NUWSS and the WSPU before the war.
In conclusion, a lot of work was put in before, during and after the war by many different people in many different ways, before, after and during the war. It would be unfair to say that women did all the work when there was some help from various other people, but women do deserve to have the most credit. The war effort from the women did help the situation a lot. Their work boosted morale for every woman out there, and their past failures was put to one side. They achieved a new found confidence in themselves through different ways; the feeling of helping to run a country, the money they get paid from their job and helping the country to battle on all gave this confidence that they needed. I personally half-heartedly agree with the statement, as although women did do most of the work and got the target they were looking to do, there were still a lot of people who remain unmentioned and deserve to be mentioned.
