Nowadays we think nothing of women having the vote, having supposedly equal opportunities and having the ability to get what they want. This might well be accepted now, but 100 years ago, in the early 1900's, it definitely was not, although women certainly were aiming for equality, or at least the ability to get that equality they wanted. There was certainly a great deal of poverty around as the movement began, and women were desperate for the vote. They aimed to be able to change their lives, and with that the impression of women's roles in life, through gaining suffrage - the ability to vote. But the vote was more than just an instrument; it was not just needed to change things. When asked why women wanted the vote, Emmeline Pankhurst replied that "first of all, it is a symbol, secondly a safeguard and thirdly an instrument". It was not until 1918 that women finally were given the vote, despite relentless campaigning up until the outbreak of World War I. So why were they not given the vote?
The majority of women in the country certainly could have done with the possibility of changing things. Many of them were living in poverty, and while trying to work their ways out of it, were not really getting themselves anywhere. They were almost working double shifts, doing all the work at home, cooking, cleaning, looking after the children, while at the same time helping to support the family by working to get some sort of an income. There was, at this time, no birth control, meaning that families became very large, very quickly. Women were expected to stay at home and look after these children, one in six of whom died before the age of one. This, however, meant more money going out on funerals, more money being spent and a loss of an opportunity for someone who could earn, as well as the emotional loss. Women were certainly a long way behind men, often treated as objects, as possessions by men, and were by law until 1891. Some were still locked in houses and forced to do as their husband wanted. This was until the turn of the century when education was made available to everyone, and despite the poor quality of it, this was still some kind of equality for women and young girls. And then birth control, which gave women a choice. This was to be just the start. Many women felt more empowered and angry at the inequality, and movements to try and get that equality began to form.
The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) had been around since 1887, campaigning peacefully for women's suffrage. The president around the run of the century was Millicent Garrett Fawcett, who steered the organisation in the direction of not only looking for suffrage, but also other causes to do with women's rights. The policy of peaceful protest, including public meetings, petitions, letters to politicians, published newspapers and free literature increasingly frustrated some of the members, who felt that the campaign was not going to get anywhere unless the government and Members of Parliament (MPs) were pressured a lot more. These members included Emmeline Pankhurst, with her daughters Christabel and Sylvia.
The new organisation, the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), was very much more militant than the NUWSS, shown simply by its slogan "Deeds not Words", and concentrated singularly on attaining suffrage, for then they believed other problems could be dealt with. WSPU also realised the potential of the working class, the large majority of people, and worked closely with them to use the influence of numbers on the government and the press. This was largely down to the work of Annie Kenney, an Oldham mill worker, who became the only working class member of the WSPU to ...
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The new organisation, the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), was very much more militant than the NUWSS, shown simply by its slogan "Deeds not Words", and concentrated singularly on attaining suffrage, for then they believed other problems could be dealt with. WSPU also realised the potential of the working class, the large majority of people, and worked closely with them to use the influence of numbers on the government and the press. This was largely down to the work of Annie Kenney, an Oldham mill worker, who became the only working class member of the WSPU to have a senior position. There were also other militant organisations, such as the Women's Freedom League (WFL), but it was the WSPU that would often get more coverage from the press, due to their militant activities, and organise larger demonstrations, although their membership never grew above 2,000, compared with the NUWSS peak membership of around 100,000, with 500 branches. Over the next decade and a half, these two groups, despite fighting for the same thing, would often get in each other's way, and annoy the other organisation, for example when the NUWSS was agreeing to support the new Reform Bill of 1911, or with the WSPU's militant activities, although most of the time they both thought they were acting in the best interests of the cause.
The women's suffrage movement certainly had good reason to want the vote, as we've looked at above, because of the oppression women were under. And they certainly made a lot of headlines, although not all won them praise. The good headlines were important, praise was important because it allowed more people to connect with the movement, and understand their concerns. It was certainly odd that with events such as Women's Sunday on the 21st June 1908, where hundreds of thousands of people in a fantastic procession of the colours purple, white, and green, the symbols of the woman's suffrage movement (purple for dignity, white for purity, green for hope), there was not more support for women's rights and suffrage. This was the perfect event in response to the new Prime Minster Asquith's request to show him how much demand there was for women's vote, and yet still they were denied it. But it is important to note the way the press reacted, for once, it was a positive review of a suffrage event, especially a WSPU event. The press were always going to be very important in the influence of public and government opinion, especially the big newspapers, so it was important to have them on your side, or at least giving positive reviews of the cause because people like to believe what they read, and a lot of people are influenced easily by writers. Another example of this was the pilgrimage to London by the NUWSS in 1913. There were meetings all over Britain, culminating in a 50,000 person gathering in Hyde Park, which was an incredibly large number of people for a gathering of the time. Once again, the suffragettes and suffragists were praised for their peaceful protests. The problem was that the peaceful protests, while helping the cause and promoting a positive image of women, as intelligent people who could make political decisions, they did not attract as much attention as the militant actions of the suffragette societies such as the WSPU and the WFL.
Unfortunately, the actions that grabbed the larger headlines were actions that were condemned, by other suffrage groups as well. These were actions that, while raising the profile of the ideas, and the needs of women and the measures they were prepared to go to, did nothing to help their cause, simply because they were deemed to be stupid or insane, and stupid or insane people should not be given the vote. Take the hunger strikes for example. Although the Government was also heavily criticised for the response tactic of force feeding, the WSPU was criticised for trying to stir up trouble against the government, and generally doing something very stupid and "unladylike", and many newspapers, especially right-wing ones, were very much in favour of letting them just lie there not being fed, if it was going to be that or allow them to carry on with their militant attacks. By this time, many in the press were very tired and bored by the WSPU's militant actions, and therefore reports of their actions became more and more critical, simply because they felt it was stupid they way the WSPU was behaving, and felt that women had no reason to act that way. Causing damage to property, wanting to become a martyr, anything like that was not funny, and was not a sensible way to get what you want. The "Cat and Mouse Act", as named by the suffragettes, was put through in 1913 to combat the hunger-strikes and avoid force-feeding, but when many women simply did not return to prison, they were again criticised for breaking the law.
"Black Friday" on 18 November 1910 once again saw an outcry at the behaviour of women. After the break up of parliament in the middle of passing a Women's Suffrage bill, a lot of women were furious with the government, especially with the Prime Minister Asquith. A number of women were to be at the gates of Parliament as it reopened in November, only to be met with a new batch of police officers who had no training in how to deal with women rioters. As the women tried to get through they were taunted and indecently assaulted by the police officers, who arrested 120 of the suffrage movement's protestors. Much of the press looked over the indecencies and complained that women simply should not be protesting in such a violent and vicious manner. And although, once again, the women felt mistreated, the lack of patience now felt with the women's tactics was shown. It was hard to see how the militant attacks were doing the cause any good.
Again, with Emily Davison throwing herself underneath the King's horse, Anmer, at the 1913 derby, whilst there was a great deal of sympathy, many newspapers questioned the sanity of women if they were willing to go to these lengths. They did not, however, ask why women were so desperate, when it seemed so blindingly obvious to the women. They needed the vote because they felt they were unequal, they felt they were treated below men, and while some felt they'd do anything for it, others felt they'd do anything positive for it.
The idea that a woman was stupid, or somehow less of a person than a man had been used for many years by men as an excuse and that was part of the reason women hadn't got the vote. The system of government, which was totally dominated by men, mainly felt that women simply did not need the vote, this coupled with the fact that even if some MP's felt that women did deserve it, the bill would have to go through six votes to become law, firstly going through three readings in the House of Commons, and then the same process in the House of Lords. The Conservative (Tory) party was almost totally full of "Antis", people against women having the vote, whereas the Liberal (Whigs) party had the stance of being very much the opposite, for women's vote, as were the newly established, and small, Labour party. Women knew that the Conservatives, while in power, were never going to give women the vote, and so they were very hopeful in 1906 when the Liberal party was voted in to power, and yet nothing was still done for a long time. The aim of a government is to get re-elected, and so a large problem with giving women the vote for any party, was the worry that they would then go and vote for an opposition party, and vote you out of government. This seems, however, to defy logic, why would you not vote for someone who has just helped you? As time wore on, and the pressure on the Liberal government grew - at one point there were in excess of 300 MPs supporting women's suffrage and a petition of 250,000 signatures was delivered to Downing Street - Prime Minister Asquith certainly felt he had to do something, and probably would have given women the vote if it was not for certain things blocking his way.
Firstly, there were many other progressive policies and laws that the Liberal party wanted to push through, such as the National Insurance act and old age pensions, and these were given higher priority than women's suffrage. Unfortunately, as it had been almost 20 years since they were last in power, and because of most of the peers were hereditary, descended from wealthy landowners who traditionally followed the Conservative party, the Liberal party had very few Peers in the House of Lords, where the second three votes take place for the bill; this meant the Tories could dominate votes in the House, blocking many of the bills that were put through by the Liberals. This led to a constitutional crisis when the House of Lords blocked the Annual Finance Bill, commonly known as the Budget, of 1909. The Liberal government had no choice but to call another general election, where the Liberal's large majority was cut to a very small one, and they had to call upon Irish MPs for support. After this, a bill was brought through by the King, allowing finance bills to be put through after two years, even if blocked by the House of Lords.
Unfortunately, to gain the Irish support, Asquith had had to promise home rule for Ireland, something which was dragged up the pecking order of importance. This should have been totally straightforward, had it not been for the Protestants in the Ulster section wanting to stay as a British colony, something which almost led to an Irish civil war, a threat which was only beaten down by the First World War in 1914.
The tensions in Europe had been gradually growing for sometime with the formation of the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente, and Europe was certainly a big issue for the government as the empires looked to grow overseas, and the arms race was quickened.
Unfortunately for the women they were simply not as big a priority as the possibility of two wars, and a constitutional crisis, as well as social reforms looking to bring many working class people out of poverty. Even as many of the MPs were on their side, it was always going to be hard to break through the large, if old, barrier of Antis blocking their path. The WSPU and the WFL didn't help the fight for women's suffrage however, making many people have ill feelings to the cause. Nowadays we think nothing of women having equal rights, and then, much of the government also put it quite far down the pecking order.
Max Manning History Coursework - Votes For Women Mrs. Marsden
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