Suffragettes Question 2

Votes For Women

Ravi Desai 10V

Question 2:

Describe the ways in which the methods of the Suffragists and Suffragettes were different

The Suffragists were formed in the 1850’s and in 1897 the National Union of Women’s Suffrage (NUWSS) was formed. They campaigned to win the right to vote for women. They used peaceful methods to get what they needed such as demonstrations, marches, speeches in large crowds, petitions; they supported the MPs that supported the women in getting the right to vote and the use of their own newspaper which was known as ‘Voiceless London’. They believed in peaceful methods because they wanted to show that women have the same logical capacity as men and they also wanted to secure the vote by non-violent means as opposed to the way men secured the vote. The main reason was to gain the respect of middle class men and politicians to show they were law abiding citizens who could participate and contribute to politics and the governing of the United Kingdom. The women’s suffrage bills were rejected 15 times, because if any parliament member objects to the right to give women the vote he could talk it out as they were private member mills. By 1900, over 50% of MPs supported women’s suffrage and they managed to introduce a number of bills for women’s suffrage in the House of Commons, but the government prevented the bills becoming law.

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Some women couldn’t tolerate the tactics used by the NUWSS. They thought they were too peaceful and nothing could be gained out of it and the media didn’t notice their campaign so the public also ignored it. In 1903, a lady called Emmeline Pankhurst created a breakaway group called Woman’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) also known as the suffragettes.

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Suffragettes used more violent ways compared to the suffragists and they also wanted to campaign for better working and living conditions for women. Their methods included the use of their own newspaper, ‘heckling’ MPs at meetings, attacking MPs physically, smashing windows and cutting telephone wires and gaining as much publicity as possible. They would also choose to be kept in prison rather than to pay a fine when arrested because this led to disruption to the police and also the parliament. In prison, they could not to do much but however they went on hunger strikes in the prison which led to ‘force feeding’. This act from the suffragettes led to more and more publicity and this attracted other women to join.

The suffragettes wanted to be noticed and publicized, they also used propaganda posters and leaflets to show how the government was ill treating the women who were arrested and force fed in prison and more people were sympathetic. They were protesting atrociously and did many things such as chain themselves to railings outside Downing Street. The suffragettes also campaigned with the aid of using biased posters on bill boards to get attention.

Emmeline Pankhurst became a political threat towards the rights of women’s vote as their combative actions played into the hands of opposes of women’s suffrage. The suffragettes were moving on to more confrontational action, but they still failed to get what they wanted. The suffragettes increased the confrontation and terrorised people that included disturbing the politicians by letter bombs and breaking windows of the MP’s property,

In 1907, some of the foremost members of the WSPU started questioning the two leaders of the clan, Emmeline Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst, because all the other members objected the decisions that the Pankhurst’s made without asking the other members if the decision was appropriate. Due to this matter, 70 members left the WSPU to form the Women’s Freedom League (WFL). Their methods were also analogous to the WSPU. They also used violent acts to break the law, 100 members of the WFL were sent to prison while demonstrating. They also were known for not paying their taxes to gain attention.

From 1912, the Labour party started to support the general suffrage or known as common suffrage which meant the right to vote for all adults, men or female, this breached a split into the WSPU. As the clique started to break, some of the members left and joined the WFL, other groups and some MPs. In 1913, women’s suffrage was debated in Parliament where they were defeated by 48 votes and were defamed and they had lost many members and then after the NUWSS worked hard to get back the support they had lost from the public. On the August 4th 1914, England had declared war on Germany and that’s where the WSPU consented to help in the war and to end their violent protests. This was a huge step in the history of the WSPU as it had changed the social thinking of people later on.