In this piece of work I will be answering 2 questions about women in 20th century Britain.

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Introduction

In this piece of work I will be answering 2 questions about women in 20th century Britain. One of which asks why women failed to gain the vote before 1914, and the other which states ‘without the first world war women would not have gained the right to vote in 1918’ then it asks whether I agree with the statement or not.

Women of the 20th century were expected to be subservient. Meaning that they should obey everything their male partner said.  

In the late 1800’s women began peaceful campaigning for the vote and equal rights. As they were not receiving much publicity their campaigning became more militant.

Why Women Failed To Gain The Vote

There are many reasons why women failed to gain the vote between 1900 and 1914, here are just a few of them.

  • Men’s attitudes towards women were terrible. They saw women as just housewives.  A women’s place was in the home, cooking, cleaning and looking after the children. This is why many women were in unhappy marriages. If a woman was not married, they were seen as a failure.
  • Also many women relied on financial support from their husbands, as they were not allowed to work, so they had to get married just to have a warm place to live, and food to eat.
  • In an extract from ‘The Whole Woman’ by Germaine Greer it says ‘while the male hunter-gatherer strolled along burdened with no more than his spear and throwing stick, his female mate trudged along after him carrying their infant, their shelter, their food supplies and her digging stick’. This extract is stating that women are just a strong and durable as men when it comes to hard manual work, it’s also saying that men see women as a pack animal, and like to take the easy way out. Although many people knew this, women were still not acknowledged as equals.
  • Most of the male population believed women had the brains of children, and if given the vote they would vote for stupid things, instead of things that really mattered.
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The suffragists showed a little of this in a postcard they produced.  The Postcard implied that men can be or could have been anything and still have the vote. Whereas women could be doctors, teachers and caring mothers yet still not have the vote.

  • In the early 1900’s many women began to get tired of the way men were treating them, and also suffragettes were getting tired of not having enough publicity for their peaceful protests. So, they got violent. People started to notice them now, but not for the right reason. Parliament knew the suffragettes were trying for the ...

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