Another place women were discriminated against was in the world of education. They weren't allowed to go to university and couldn't have important jobs such as lawyers or doctors and were not given proper technical training. This left them without the opportunity of having as much knowledge and intelligence as men. Many women became teachers with the introduction of the 1870 Education Act. Women entering the teaching profession meant a lot because women now had a chance to mould young minds, thus children were taught about equality and the next generation’s views towards women began to change.
After the war women proved to society that they were able to do the same jobs as men. They proved to be more dedicated and more hardworking than men. Their jobs as nurses in the army helped a lot.
Women in Britain were very strongly discriminated at the end of the 19th century and so a campaign for women's suffrage developed because women wanted to try and get equal rights for themselves in a male-dominated world.
2. Describe the ways in which the methods of the Suffragists and Suffragettes were different?
Suffragists were different to Suffragettes in the sense that they came first and were more respected and established in society although they both had the same aim but used different methods. The Suffragist groups such as NUWSS in 1867 were accepted by society as a group of women who were respectable and were working for a cause. People didn't agree with them but neither did they try to arrest them or destroy them. These women came mainly from the middle class's and kept with puritanical views on their dress and actions; they didn't conduct a lot of outrageous actions and relied on the power of words to get through to men. In 1903 when the WSPU was formed it was because of women becoming impatient towards the progress of the Suffragists. These women resorted to drastic public acts of violence to get the attention of men and reach their goal.
The one crucial difference between the Suffragists and Suffragettes was that Suffragists were non violent whereas Suffragettes were very violent. We remember more names of Suffragettes than Suffragists because they are the ones that became martyrs for the cause, they were arrested and they went down in history as the constructive or destructive members of the women's suffrage movement. The only real name remembered by people from the Suffragists is Millicent Garrett Fawcett who was the founding member of the NUWSS. The Pankhurst's founded the Women's Social and political Union (WSPU) and Christabel Pankhurst are known for interrupting political meetings and harassing politicians. Mary Richardson was a Canadian famous for jumping aboard King George V's carriage and presenting him with a petition along with being one of the most militant suffragettes. Emily Wilding Davison was killed under the hooves of the Kings horse at the Epson derby.
Suffragettes often opted for the more violent methods of protests such as arson, vandalism and verbal abuse. They were frequently seen sailing down the river Thames shouting abuse at Parliament; they were known to repeatedly chain themselves to public buildings. Suffragettes were famously blamed for the destruction of all the windows on Oxford Street. They often went to prison rather than pay fines to accentuate the injustice of the system, when in prison they would go on hunger strikes meaning they had to be force fed causing more problems for government and prison wardens. After awhile Government got used to this and issued the Cat and Mouse act that said that if a woman went on hunger strike she was released after they had become incredibly weak. After a brief period of time in which they could recover they were arrested again for minor offences to start the whole cycle again. After a few times of going through this the woman would be too weak to protest and would be unable to cause much trouble for the Government. This was an act against human rights but worked efficiently in the way it was designed. Suffragist used methods such as petitions, strikes and public meetings to get their message across; they also went campaigning door to door to find more support for their cause. This meant they were not arrested but in the same time they didn’t get much publicity.
It is not certain whether or not suffragettes were a help to the suffrage movement. They got the issues into the paper but mainly had bad publicity, the Cat and Mouse act showed how Government looked down on these women as a nuisance. After the Emily Wilding Davison incident men thought that women were going too far and could not be trusted with the responsibility of being able to vote as they were silly in getting themselves killed. Suffragist used non-violent methods and did not get very far in over 30 years but gradually things were beginning to change and they were being listened to but when the suffragettes came along not much more was improved until after the war.
3. Women over 30 gained the vote in 1918 mainly because of women's contribution to the war effort. Do you agree? Explain your answer.
Yes, women over 30 gained the vote in 1918 mainly because of women’s contribution to the war effort. Women over 30 were given the vote as long as they were over 30 and owned property. This enfranchised about 8.4Million women in all. This was still quite an achievement for women’s suffrage campaigners.
One of the reasons that women over 30 got the vote in 1918 was because of the Women’s Suffrage campaigns that had been going on as far back as 1850. Women were originally thought of as delicate little things that did as men said and enjoyed doing the housework and looking after the children. These were the women’s jobs and men didn’t think they could do much else. Women were also stopped from having similar careers and educations as men. Women were seen as domestic, caring people. Soon after the Suffragists started campaigning in 1866, attitudes began to change. As the women were using their own knowledge and organization skills to set up a successful society, men started to notice that women had a higher intelligence level than they previously thought. The Suffragists used their own political knowledge to help them in their campaign and created propaganda. This made men more aware of the women and their cause.
Another reason why women got the vote was because of another women’s suffrage society, The Suffragettes. The Suffragettes used a lot more direct methods of making people aware of them, and used violence to gain publicity. This changed Men’s attitudes towards women considerably. Women were now seen fighting and breaking the law which was something never seen before. This was unfeminine and men didn’t think that women were capable of such things. In one case a women, Emily Davidson died for the right for women to vote. Davidson threw herself in front of the King’s horse at Epsom Derby and was trampled to death. This just shows how serious women were, which helped MP’s sit up and take notice.
A third reason for women getting the vote was because of the war effort women contributed during World War Two. Emmeline Pankhurst called off the militant campaign as her response to the war; the government then ordered the release of all the imprisoned suffragettes.
During the war women also continued to campaign for the right to vote. Women were now stronger as they were contributing to the war effort, and more and more men were aware of their cause. The women said that there should be ‘Votes for Women as well as Votes for Heroes’. Parliament thought that this was a strong point as the women had been playing their part.
Women were then allowed to work in ammunition factories, making weapons, ammunition and planes for the army. This shows that women were going out and earning a living the same as men and were also helping their country to succeed in the war.
Finally, women also got the vote because men over 21 had just been given the vote. The fact that women had no vote at all and now 21-year-old men could vote was incredibly unfair. The government feared that the women would protest more so decided to consider giving women the vote. Also women around the world had started to be given the vote. Women in Finland and New Zealand had been given the vote and the British Government now felt that they had to be more easy-going towards women and the vote.
In conclusion I disagree with the statement ‘Women over 30 gained the vote in 1918 mainly because of the women’s contribution to the war effort.’ I think that women’s contribution to the war effort definitely played a part in helping the campaign for votes for women and in helping men to realize that women were capable of making a genuine contribution to society. But I disagree that this was the main reason. Women’s suffrage campaigns had been on going for years and I believe this to be the main reason. Also other factors such as 21-year-old men getting the vote and women in other countries being given the vote helped the British Parliament to consider giving women the vote. I think that the suffragette movement and the war acted as a catalyst and actually pushed parliament to eventually give women the vote that they had been procrastinating over doing for years.
