'To what extent was the granting of the right to vote to women due to their role in the First World War?'

Extended Essay – Women’s Suffrage Lauren Ford 5R2

‘To what extent was the granting of the right to vote to women due to their role in the First World War?’

The outcry for women’s suffrage was an ongoing issue in Britain in a major way as early as the 1830s. From roughly the 1830s ‘til 1918, women struggled to win the right to vote. This all in all denied women the same legal rights as men and furthermore offered them inferior education as they were seen as the ‘weaker’ race. Although some women did have the vote up until 1832, this was quite clearly not the case in the following years. Women did have the right to a decent education and also worked in the superior jobs for example lawyer or a doctor. But this made no difference when it came to politics as in 1832 the men introduced a law, which banned all women from the suffrage. As women’s job prospects grew more and more superior so did their demand for the vote. But men still had the ongoing argument that all women were physically too weak to deal with politics and too interested in fashion and what dress to wear. They also stated that a female couldn’t be an MP because she gets easily excited in an argument and faints. This could well be down to the fact that men at the time forced their wives to wear a tight corset under their frocks to create a desirable shape, which resulted in a lack of breath and the tendency to faint if, engaged in an argument! In the years running up to 1914 women campaigned hard to achieve their goal but to that date never succeeded, this could be down to the fact that they had yet to prove themselves in the great war of 1914-18. Up until that point many men had viewed their campaign as unruly, out of order and far too radical. But during World War One, their contribution to the war effort proved them to be strong and capable of a lot more than the men had viewed. Their sheer determination and the hard work they put in to hand in hand win the war with the men along with the campaigns prior to the war helped them to gain the respect they needed to gain the vote. By 1918, all women over the age of 30 (householders, wives of householders or university graduates) were given the right to vote and this was later extended to all women in the year 1928. So, the granting of the right to vote to women was to a significant extent due to their role in the First World War (1914-1918).

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For years, women campaigned for the right to vote in parliament but most men saw the very prospect of this as being ridiculous. As early on as 1866, JS Mill presented a women’s suffrage petition to the House of Commons, which was unsuccessful after being defeated by 196 votes to only 73.

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The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies led by Millicent Garrett Fawcett used peaceful methods of protest to gain the vote e.g. posters and rallying in order to put their feelings across to the parliament. In 1903 the founding of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) intensified the campaign for women’s suffrage. Led by Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia, they ran a much more violent campaign than the NUWSS had in previous years. They smashed windows in the parliament buildings, spat at policemen, poured lime on golf courses and set them on fire in order to force insurance companies to pay out and heckled the government, they set post boxes on fire and harassed MPs. Most famously in 1913 Emily Wilding Davidson threw herself in front of a galloping horse during derby day for women to gain the vote. In 1911 a further suffrage bill was proposed and won a majority vote of 167, although no bill was passed at that time. 1911 also saw the Suffragettes tactics become violent once again when they smashed West End Shop windows. In 1913, the Labour Government enforced their famous Cat and Mouse Act. This Act was aimed at jeopardising the suffragettes’ hunger strike plan whilst in prison. They were simply released from prison to regain their full health and later arrested. However successful this campaign was, it was seen by the general public and many MPs as inhumane and was quickly and quietly abolished.

However successful the women’s suffrage campaign had been, it did not prove to be successful enough to provoke the all male parliament to grant the vote. But they persisted with their campaigns, continuing the violence and somewhat degrading actions, which came to a halt when war was finally declared in 1914.

Whilst the majority of men had been called up to fight for their country in World War One, women did not just traditionally sit around at home looking after the children and doing the housework. They now had many more responsibilities than ever before. They had the opportunity to work in all fields of work ranging from a bus driver to factory munitions work to civil service work with the male soldiers on the front line. Women clearly did not just sit back and let the men take all the glory for the war effort, as figures show that between the years 1914-18 the number of women working in the labour force increased by 1.5 million. Most women could now work in areas of work, which had previously been deemed as ‘unsuitable’ for them.

Two very popular and important fields that needed to be filled were that of the munitions and farming. The factory munitions work was indeed an extremely dangerous job to fill, which didn’t seem to put most women off as during the war roughly 950.000 women worked in the munitions factories. The work was extremely dangerous and in one explosion in an East London factory, 12 women were killed. Final figures showed that well over 200 women were killed in munitions factories during World War One. Others suffered health problems e.g. poisoning because of the dangerous chemicals the women were using. Many of the workers working in the munitions industry were in actual fact women. In 1914 there were 212,000 women working in the munitions industry, by the end of the war this figure had increased to 950,000. Christopher Addison, who succeeded David Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions, estimated in June 1917, that women were producing about 80 per cent of all weapons and shells. These women became known as ‘Munitionettes’.

Women also now had the role of producing food for the nation. Food was short and rations were not unusual. The government produced the slogan ‘God speed the plough and the woman who drives it’, in a 1917 campaign to try and persuade the male farmers to employ female workers. As the intake of female workers on farms grew, they became known as the Women’s Land Army and by the end of the war almost 300,000 women were employed in this field.

On the home front, women filled many other important jobs during World War One that included police women, post women, bus and taxi drivers, and all other factory work that the men had left behind for example in the breweries and gasworks.

Many men had opposed women’s cry for the vote because they felt that the women could not cope with the responsibility. But during the war, they had to deal with many hardships in and around their work that would need a lot of responsibility. Many women were paid wages that were a lot lower than a male of the same age would receive and also had to cope with the long working hours and the maximum of one day off per week. The emotional burden that most women carried was immense. They had to run a country and at the same time cope with the loss or absence of a loved one be it a son, husband, brother or granddad.

But the women’s role was not only needed at home in the UK. Women’s services were also needed alongside the soldiers on the front line. The trained nurses who mostly worked for the Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs). Katharine Furse eventually became the Commander-In-Chief of the VADs and campaigned for them to be allowed to work alongside the soldiers on the front line. In 1915 the restriction was removed and all female nurses over 23 who had worked in the service for a minimum of three years were allowed to enter the front line. During the four years of war over 38,000 women worked as VADs on the front line, this was seen by many as a very heroic task, which came hand in hand with high risks such as death.

By the end of the war, the number of women employed in war related jobs increased from 5,966,000 in 1914 to 7,310,500 in 1918. This was a huge increase of 23% over the small period of four years.

The opinions and attitudes towards war differed and this caused a few problems for women’s gain of the vote. If they opposed Britain’s war campaign this could seriously imperil their chances of ever getting the vote. Luckily it was only a small number of women who opposed war but they did form two organisations (Women’s International League for Permanent Peace and the Women’s Peace Crusade). Members of these organisations were branded traitors and attacked at meetings. All the same, both had a membership of several thousand by the end of the war.

To conclude, women’s role in world war one did play a major part in them achieving the vote by 1918. By taking on the roles of many stereotypical male jobs during the war they proved themselves to be responsible and strong when put under pressure or in a hard situation. The situation of war is about as hard as it could get and women proved men’s views that had been prominent for centuries to be wrong. Women had proved themselves in the years of 1914-18 not to be ‘weak, emotional, inferior and over excited’ but in actual fact strong, brave and responsible with the superiority of the majority of males in working Britain. In a way the suffrage campaigns prior to World War One did have a slight input on them gaining the vote as it highlighted their sheer determination to the male run parliament that they wanted the vote with passion. Although, as evidence proves, the women did show themselves to be out of order by far in many cases when it came to the suffragette campaign led by Emmeline Pankhurst. Their tactics were too radical and degrading and proved them not to be responsible and tactical in many ways. So, the women really did prove themselves during the four years of war (1914-18) as being able to deal with the responsibility of the vote after their role in the war. Working in ammunitions, on the front line and in the Women’s Land Army to produce food for the country and fighting soldiers all helped to keep Britain running as a strong country and to go on and win the war. Overall, the granting of the right to vote to women was due to their role in the First World War to a significant extent.

2000 words.