Spurce based questions on sufferage and womens right to vote.

Questions-Source work

How do sources 1 and 3 attack the role of working class men?

Ans. They show the women as hard working and the man as, in the case of Source 3, as an abuser, and in the case of Source 1, as someone who doesn’t care about his wife who does everything at home. Both the sources say that the woman does all the work while the man does nothing, or less than his fair share anyway. Source 1 says that women are still hard at work, while the men are enjoying themselves at the pub after work. Source 3 says that women bear the responsibility of looking after the entire family while men spend all the money meant for family needs. Source 1 shows the woman doing a lot, showing that she does a lot of work in the house, and shows the man just drinking, implying that he doesn’t do much. Source 3 shows the man as big, imposing and threatening.

Study sources 1 and 2. What do you think the 2 women are hoping to gain from winning the vote? Explain your answer.

Ans. I think that the women in Sources 1 and 2 want to be equal with men, and if they get the vote, the women will be. The woman in Source 1 wants to work less or at least share her work with her husband. The woman in Source 2 wants to help the man with his decisions: “Two heads are better than one.” The way to do this was to empower his wife with the vote, and if she was equal, his wife could help him around the house and with his decisions. The woman in Source 1 wants to be able to make her own decisions about whom she marries, whom she votes for, how many kids she wants to have and not having to go through every day tired from the work the day before. The woman in Source 2 wants to be able to help the man by offering him her help. She means that if women got the vote, men’s lives would be a lot simpler and stress-free, with their wives to help the men. The husband has many worries, many of which also involve his wife, like infant death rate, but he won’t let her help in making any decisions for him, as she still thinks she’s beneath him.

What point is the artist trying to make in Source 4? Is his work in favour or against giving women the vote?

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What point is the artist trying to make in Source 4? Is his work in favour or against giving women the vote?

Ans. The artist is in favour of women’s suffrage, as he/she is showing the woman as having no control over whom she married. Her parents decided this. There is a huge age difference, showing that this was definitely not her decision, as shown by the downcast look on her face. The caption is also very short, to-the-point and very precise. “His latest purchase” implies that the old man has almost bought the girl from her parents to show off. Both are from an upper class background, as shown by their clothes, which include gloves, a top hat, walking sticks, a bow tie, a posh suit and an expensive-looking dress. If women had the vote, this wouldn’t happen, as they would be equal to men and could decide whom they wanted to marry when they came of age.

Do you think there are any differences between the aims and goals of working class and middle class women from the information in the sources 1-4?

Ans. Only one source shows a working class family, and that is Source 3. The others show only middle- or upper-class people. Source 1 shows an upper-lower class family or a lower-middle class family, I’m not sure which. The working class women want improved conditions for themselves and their families, and they also want jobs to support their families, as shown by Source 3, where the woman doesn’t have enough money to support the family, and the women want to do less work, as shown by the artist in Source 1. The middle-class women have everything in life and they just sit at home most of the time. So they wanted rights that made them equal to men, instead of taking little steps like the working-class women wanted to do. The working class women want less complicated things that would make a difference in their lived immediately, like the right to divorce an abusive husband. The middle class women wanted rights that were more “fiddly”, that weren’t as simple, like the woman in Source 2 wants to help her husband with his decisions. Source 1 doesn’t want anything specific, it’s just pointing out that women work harder than men. Source 3 points out that women are still bound by old stereotypes about staying married, and listen to their husbands, and have no right to separate from them for being abusive. Source 4 shows that women have no choice over who they marry.

Sources 5-7

What does the cartoonist mean by the comment he has the soldier making in Source 5?

Ans. The comment could be taken two ways. The soldier could be guilty that he had arrested the woman, who was now his doctor and could have saved his life, and is looking away, not wanting to see her face. Or the soldier could be smirking at the thought that he had arrested this woman before. The constable may have been drawn this way because the suffragette is drawn weirdly, almost like a man. This makes you confused, until you realise that she’s meant to be drawn that way. The artist might mean that the woman became a suffragette because she looked that way, and that real women, like the nurses behind her, don’t become suffragettes.

What is the battered woman trying to suggest to the suffragist in Source 6?

Ans. The battered woman is a conservative, as is the person who drew the cartoon, who wants to have things the way they are and maintain a status quo, and believes in the old ways and stereotypes. She is suggesting that having an abusive husband is better than having no husband at all. The woman is against the movement and wants to keep things the way they are, where men are dominant. This was the common public opinion of the time.

What techniques does the cartoonists use in Source 8 to ridicule the cause of women seeking the vote?

Ans. Source 8 portrays the woman running through the crowd as being large and clumsy. She just ran through the village crowd, knocking over carts and people on her way to her oven where she left a cake while she went to vote. She looks like someone’s aunt (thankfully not yours) and she looks short-sighted (she’s squinting at things as she runs along). This doesn’t fit the description of a fickle woman that changes her mind every couple of seconds, but fits the caption at the foot of the picture: “…Mrs. Jones remembers that she has left a cake in the oven…” This shows that the woman is forgetful and can’t be trusted with a simple cake, let alone the vote.