Although it may be said that there were no significant feminist developments in the 19th century, it can be argued that some of the most important ideas were discovered in this period, which has a knock on effect to the outcome of female suffrage. I believe the intense debate about the nature of women, marriage, and family life, and the increasing emphasis on moral capacities of women. This would raise questions about the nature and the situation of women. This discussion that made the role of women, at this time would have offered a redefinition of 'womanhood' which would have been central to much nineteenth century feminism.
At this time, it is known that women were becoming increasingly active in a range of public activities. For instance, during the wars with France, women became involved in patriotic endeavours, establishing a civic role for themselves. In addition to this, women were beginning to set up their own groups and organizations. These activities must have raised the range of women's public involvement and provide women with the skills, self confidence, connections, sense of identity, and commitment to public and political activism that would have provided the basis for organized feminism.
The development of British feminism during this period is likely to be closely linked to the events and developments elsewhere, for example in America. Also, opposition to slavery and to the slave trade had been voiced by many prominent women at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including many female radicals. More significantly, in the late nineteenth century the question of women's right finally became a matter of public and political debate. After decades of discussion of the role of women, the knock on effect consisted of public discussion and press coverage which became even more extensive and developed into mass suffrage demonstrations that occurred in the early twentieth century.
Therefore, the extensive discussion of the 'new woman' in the nineteenth century raised a number of questions about marriage and sexuality that is likely to assume, were rarely publicly debated before. It is notable by the rapid increase in suffrage societies and suffrage activity in the early twentieth century and seemed to have created a new image to what women could become. This was able to occur due to activities that took place in the nineteenth century that allowed women to be pushed into society and have an impact in the community they lived in. This new role led to public awareness and gave women the possibility to organise, as well as share their views of the 'new women'. This must have given women the courage to speak up and demand for political rights, such as suffrage, in the 19th century.
