Alongside the Suffragette activity, the Suffragist activity also concluded, where Millicent Fawcett took lead. She believed in peaceful methods of fighting and campaigning, or constitutional campaigning. Fawcett wrote in 1911 that she wanted ‘to show the world how to gain reforms without violence, without killing people and blowing up buildings and doing the other silly things that men have done when they wanted the laws altered’. The Suffragists used alternative tactics instead. They issued leaflets, collected petitions and held meetings. They also met with politicians and argued their case. At election times they helped any candidate who supported women’s suffrage. They believed in persuasion, peaceful marches, and making speeches. They would also canvass MP’s to try and get their vote. The Suffragettes inevitably helped the Suffragists with their campaign, by keeping the matter in the public eye. But Fawcett did say that she believed that women were not behaving the way that they should be, and so many women decided to join her peaceful movement. She described her movement ‘like a glacier, slow but unstoppable’. Her movement consisted of 6,000 members in 1906, which eventually turned into 50,000 members by the end of 1914 The suffragists were largely middle class, and believed in slow painstaking chip by chip work, by trying to get men on their side, while the suffragettes were largely working class. Another key factor of why the government did not want to give women the vote is because they believed that there would be a political imbalance, where the middle class women would all vote for the Conservative Government Party, and the working classes would vote largely for the Labour Government Party. As there were more working class women, there would prove to be a political imbalance.
Another factor to why the women did not gain the vote between 1900-1914 is because some women and men doubted the whole cause. They believed that women should be seen and not heard, and expressed many views for why women should not have the right to vote. Queen Victoria was one of these where she said that ‘ With the vote, women would become the most hateful, heartless, and disgusting of human beings. Where would be the protection which man was intended to give to the weaker sex?’. Another woman who was against the vote was Marie Corelli who claimed that ‘women were and are destined to make voters, rather than to be voters themselves’. Herbert Asquith who was Prime Minister was not convinced that politics would gain by giving the right for women to vote. His view of them was contemptuous, and he continued to look upon them in a downward manner. He believed that women did not know enough about politics, that women may vote for a different party for example, the conservatives and that women would not be able to fend for their husbands if they were given more rights.
The WSPU’s campaign was something totally new. When women took to the street to protest many men were shocked. They still expected women to be quiet and obedient ‘seen and not heard’. However, the press did take much notice, and this made an impressionable and important topic to be discussed and for the problem to be overcome. Parliament was forced to debate the situation over again and again. Each time that this happened, the Suffragettes mounted a demonstration where many got arrested and enforced hunger strikes. However in May 1911, a Conciliation Bill was passed, which the massive majority of 167. The Government announced that it would produce the bill the following year. Then in November the government changed its mind and instead introduced a Franchise bill, which did not mention women but aid that Parliament could add women to the bill if desired. When MP’s said that it wanted to introduce women to this, they were told that it would change the nature of the Bill so much that it would have to be withdrawn.
However, this period of time was important for changing the way in which people had thought in the past about women suffrage, and their present views on it. It helped to shift the gap between women wanting the vote and women actually claiming for the vote. I also believe that without the movement of the suffragists, the suffragette movement would not have been taken seriously, and I believe that the suffragette movement along would have shown a lack of maturity and a lack of sensibility of why women should not gain the vote. This would have shown that women were indeed not capable of voting sensibly, which is what many MP’s were worried about. I believe that women did not gain the vote overall due to the fact that the Suffragette movement had proved to be too violent for many of the MP’s to understand and turned many of them away from supporting them.
Question 2. Attitudes towards women and their right to vote had changed by 1918. How important was the First World War in bringing about this change? Explain your answer.
The attitudes that were expressed towards women and their right to vote had changed increasingly by 1918. This was down to many factors. The Suffrage movement was halted due to the starting of World War 1 and the women that were part of this movement instead started to fill the boots of men who were called off to war. The war effort gave ordinary women more confidence in their abilities, and so more confidence in pressing for the vote by political argument. Also, without the violent campaign the suffragettes fought before the war, no one would ever have taken their cause seriously and the government would have kept on postponing a decision, thinking that it wasn’t an important issue. Before war, many men did not see women as capable. But the women’s war effort changed this stereotype, and could not now exclude women from voting. Suffrage had been gradually extending for the last 100 years anyway, and the inclusion of women was bound to come at some time. The suffragette activity and the women’s war effort were simply the triggers that helped it to happen in 1918.
Women contributed greatly to the war effort, and Lloyd George said that the war would not have been won if it wasn’t for the women contributing. The fact that women were contributing to all aspects of work, even the dangerous laborious tasks proved that they were citizens who were worthy of gaining the vote. However, it was stated in the Manchester Guardian that without the war, the vote for women would have materialised, without the suffragettes the vote would have still materialised, but without the suffragists, the vote wouldn’t have ever materialised. This indicated that the war was not the only reason of why women managed to gain the vote, or the doings of the suffragettes, put it was the peaceful protest of the suffragists that provided the lifting ground.
The women worked hard at their new-found jobs, for their King and country, and also to prove that women were worthy of working. Some Trade Unions did not like the idea of women working, but under DORA, were inclined to let them work, and pay them the same rates as men. Women also got the same injuries that men used to get, and dealt fantastically well with them. This made women more determined to gain the vote and more confident that they were going to gain the vote.
Before the war, men did not see women as equal citizens to them. They believed that women were inferior to them and could not commit to the same amount and high levels of work which they produced. The First World War gave women a chance to prove the men wrong, and they did it very well.
Women acquired the vote in 1918 as in 1915, the government realised that it had a problem with the old voting system. It realised that many soldiers would not be able to vote as they were not living in the same area for more than 12 months. Women groups saw this opportunity and started pressurising the government by meetings between women’s leaders and politicians. Without the First World War taking place, many historians believe that the Suffrage war with the government would have continued and propelled to such an extortionate length that there may have been a revolution. This links to the fact that suffrage had been taking place for more than a century, and that women were going to gain the vote at some time or another. Before the war, these measures were getting to an extortionate level, where women were setting fire to buildings and so forth just to get noticed.
Nevertheless, some historians believe that without the violent campaign the suffragettes had fought before the war, no one would have taken the cause seriously, and the government would have kept on postponing their decision, as they believed that it was not an important decision to be put forward in parliament. The violence that was taken by these women was irresponsible but showed that they meant what they said. Various historians believe that the violence of the suffragettes actually held back women’s suffrage due to the negligent actions that were being taken by these women. They believe that it just made MP’s doubt that women were capable of holding a parliamentary vote sensibly and that they could have had the vote much earlier.
However, attitudes after the war did change slightly as people knew that women were capable of doing significant roles. However women unemployment rose as men came back to claim their old jobs. Women’s wages were only half of those compared to men, even if they were doing the same work. Trade unions continued to oppose greater working opportunities for women because they were threat to men’s work and wages. People still referred to “men’s” and “women’s” jobs. Nevertheless, women did press on, and other changes were introduced, such as better advice for women needing contraception. Women were still not viewed as equals to men, only women over the age of 30 gained the right to vote. They were not on equal terms with men until 1928. This was until the government were sure that women would take this seriously, almost like a trial period.
To conclude, the factor that World War One had impact on the votes for women was significant, however it was not the only factor that helped women gain the vote. Other important dynamics included the Suffrage movement by women in the past, both which the suffragists and suffragettes concluded to, and all that they had campaigned for. The fact that the war did help the movement get on its way is true, but this would have happened either way, with or without the war.
