Women's Campaign for the Right to Vote

Authors Avatar

Women's Struggle in Obtaining the Right to Vote

During the mid-19th century women were regarded as inferior and

insignificant as they were not allowed to vote and had far fewer

rights than men. By 1918 women had equal rights to that of a man. What

had changed in 68 years? Who had changed it and why? This piece of

coursework helps to unravel the mysteries behind these questions. You

will read about Erratic Education, Weird Work and the Loopy Legal

System and also a little bit about Strange Suffrage and Wild Wars.

There were many reasons helped women achieve the vote, one of which

was changes in education.

Education

=========

In the early 19th century, women’s education was a joke. Middle class

girls were home schooled and were taught subjects like etiquette,

dancing, needlework and elementary piano playing. The working class

children may have gone to Sunday schools or mill schools. However, the

vast majority of working-class children had no education at all! Boys

in middle class families were taught the important subjects like

mathematics, science and geography, these lessons had an impact on

their life as they could receive higher status jobs. If women wanted

the vote they would need a higher education so more jobs would open to

them e.g. government jobs.

During the mid 19th century many changes in education took place. In

1848 the King’s college founded Queen’s college to educate

governesses. Two of the Queen’s school graduates both founded new

girls schools, Frances Buss founded the North London Collegiate School

for Ladies in 1853 and in 1858 Dorothea Beale founded and became the

headmistress of the Cheltenham Ladies’ College. Both of these schools

taught subjects that were previously reserved for boys only. The

schools used the latest teaching methods and entered girls for many

public examinations. However, many fathers frowned upon this as they

felt that girls’ schooling did not require such enthusiasm. This said,

the work of Buss and Beale inspired other women. Maria Grey founded

the Girls’ Public Day School Trust. She begun by opening three

schools, one in Chelsea, Notting Hill and Croydon. By 1890 it ran 40

schools teaching 7,000 pupils. She went on to set up the National

Union for Promoting Higher Education of Women in 1872 and in 1878 she

had established the first teacher training college for women.

Women had shown that they were determined enough to receive higher

education and were rewarded by the ability to apply for higher status

jobs. Women now argued that they should be able to vote, as they were

educated to the same extent as men. However, there was still much

opposition to women receiving the vote.

Another reason why women achieved the vote was that there was now

better employment now available to them.

Employment

==========

Women who before could only work in factories now became nurses and

teachers. These highly respectable positions were also highly sought

after. The increasing opportunities in schools grew very rapidly and

by 1900 75% of teachers were women. The main problem with being a

women teacher in this century was that if they married they would have

to resign. Also if you were a headmistress you would receive the same

pay as a male teacher in his first ever job! In nursing the profession

had changed from being full of lazy half-trained sisters to top class

hard working qualified nurses due to the work of Florence Nightingale.

Join now!

By 1880 the amount of new hospitals had soared and in 1900, around

60,000 nurses were working in British hospitals. Nursing became an

almost exclusively woman’s job. For women with a higher education, the

possibilities for work grew even further. New technology like

typewriters and telephones enabled literate women to work in an

office. As the Post Office expanded, their need for clerks grew with

it. By 1914, 90% of the government’s female workforce had been

employed by the Post Office. Even though the women now had office jobs

the men still ...

This is a preview of the whole essay