The next reason people supported votes for women were because Britain was a democratic country. This meant that everyone should have an equal say. This was not the case in Britain, as only half of the population were not voting.
All these reasons obviously had counter arguments, also people are never 100% for something, and there are always going to be reasons why people did not want women to have the vote. These included: People believed that women and men had different roles in life and voting was a mans thing as cleaning and housework was a woman’s. There were also arguments that most women did not want the vote and that it was a small band of extremists, who were not contempt with their role in life. Other women felt that their husbands were already representing them.
I feel that the main two objections people had to women having the vote was the fact that women did not fight for their country. This is one of the main issues in the argument I am presenting as men and other women felt that as they did nothing to defend the country, they did not deserve a vote. They also worried that women were too emotional and would not be prepared to go to war if they had a vote and the country would be weaker for it. Source F backs this argument up as it says “The first whiz of the bullet, the first boom of the cannon and where is the equality of the sexes then? This is meaning that they would be useless in a war situation and there is no equality when a war comes. This is coming form a Conservative leader who’s party was firmly against women getting the vote, this speech would have been made to people and to try and influence peoples votes. A political party try to reflect the opinion of people and try to attract votes. This was maybe the opinion of the majority of conservative voters, which may have been up to 49% of men. . People also believed that women could not fight and could not manufacture anything.
Another reason was the fact that people believed that the system in place was working efficiently and there was no need to change it as it could disrupt the country and again make it weaker.
As you can see, there were many arguments and opinions, which were circulating around the issue of women’s voting,
In 1907, the Suffragists organised a march in which over 3000 people attended. This march was later named the ‘Mud march’ due to the adverse weather conditions. The march showed that the numbers of women were growing and it showed the seriousness of the women, as most of the women were middle or upper class and they were marching in mud. Something you would not relate rich people to do.
Women were slightly aggrieved in 1908 when Herbert Asquith became prime minister in Britain. Unlike Campbell, Asquith was against votes for women and he told them that they needed to prove there was support for the vote, for him to take any action.
This is just what the women had wanted to hear and I believe that Source C is trying to give reasons why women should join the suffragettes as in 1908 they were looking to show support for the vote to prove Asquith wrong. Pankhurst uses the lines “very little has been done for women by legislation” and also “No woman who joins this campaign need to give up a single duty she has in the home, for a woman will learn to give a larger meaning to her traditional duties”. I feel this is an advertisement and could have possibly a recruiting speech or it is an explanation for why people should support the suffragettes.
Now the women had an incentive to work towards in showing that they were serious about the votes and showing they had plenty of support. They began to protest, both the NUWSS and WSPU. The two firms began to organise huge processions and attract supporters from all over the country. They now have huge support and if Asquith was true to his word he would have began to strike a deal. The women were always growing in numbers and people all over the country knew about them and what they stood for. The processions were happening frequently and it was all peaceful. Still Asquith did nothing and the Suffragettes began to get impatient and began to turn violent, they smashed windows and chained themselves to railings. The suffragists were not happy by this and they thought that the violence compromised their position and they have made the chance of women getting the vote less. Now that the Suffragettes have split away from the suffragists, they can now govern themselves and if the party wanted to do something they could go right ahead and do it.
The Suffragettes grew popularity and attracted new members due to the propaganda that they put out. An example of this is Source E; the source, which I have already explained, was intended to change opinions. Propaganda was a peaceful type of protest and was a very clever way of getting your message across. The Suffragettes had there on newspaper called appropriately ‘votes for women’ in this they could get there views and opinions out to people without doing anything but writing and printing. The Suffragettes had recognisable colours of purple, white and green to sell clothes, dolls, jewellery, belts and other things people would buy. Other than things, which you could buy, there were items such as postcards (source E), posters and leaflets.
As I am discussing the ways, in which the suffragettes made a stand, the work they done to secure the vote before the war included peaceful methods such as propaganda, which I mentioned above they also, refuse to pay tax’s as you were only allowed to vote if you paid tax’s. As they felt discriminated against the women refused to pay the tax’s, which secured even more prison sentences. There main form of peaceful protest was there meetings and demonstrations, which were a common occurrence and seemed to grow in the number of people by the year due to the increased popularity.
All of these protests were gaining followers but it was not making any difference in the mind of the liberal mps and mainly Asquith. The government also banned them from meetings and marches.
This made the women turn violent and these methods included widow smashing, arson and putting chemicals in the post boxes. They also attacked people.
Due to all the increased violence, more and more people were being sent to prison. In the prison, the women viewed themselves as being a political party and when they were arrested, they wanted to be treated as political prisoners. This was denied from them so they went on hunger strike. The government proceeded to force feed the women which many women saw as terrifying and people outside viewed the women as courageous for sticking to there morals and being force fed over and over again even though it was intense pain. This gained enormous sympathy of the public, yet again, there public impression was increased, and now people really saw how serious they were about the issue and began to take notice. Again, more women joined after seeing the struggle.
Now Asquith saw that the Suffragettes had amassed a huge following and he could not deny the women any negotiations, he opened talks about creating a conciliation bill, which would have given women the vote. The women had done their job and this had made a big enough impact for the government to take action. This proves that the women had made a stand and this was another reason why the women did get the vote without the war as the government were concerned and the conciliation bill was doing well in the House of Commons. I can see from Source A that the women were marching outside possibly ready to celebrate the vote outside. The protest looks peaceful, people in the crowd seem to be taking an interest, and there seems to be no abuse or trouble coming from them. This shows that people were cautiously optimistic about the women. The women look like they are well organised and it looks like a massive number of women which shows how much support they had. The problems I have with this source, is that it only shows a part of the protest. In the other part of it there may have been violence, also you can not see the look on the peoples faces so you have to guess the peoples attitudes by their stance. Also the fact that there is only one policeman holding the crowd back so they may not see the women as a threat or maybe not take the women seriously. This source was maybe taken by a suffragette and could maybe have been used as propaganda.
However, a major turning point for the women getting the vote pre-war was the fact that Asquith began to stall and was undecided about the vote. This sparked off a mass protest. This escalated into violence and was one of the major clashes between the women and the police. This later became known as ‘Black Friday’. The women were obviously no matches for the male policemen and they were physically abused and even sexually assaulted.
The violence is shown in Source D, which is taken from the same time as Source A. Source D shows the women as ‘Disgraceful’, and they show the women to be like football hooligans, as they use the lines ‘women pushed at the police rugby style’. The source is a newspaper cutting and newspapers are very influential in the country as they reflect and try to influence the public opinion. Some papers were totally against women getting the vote and showed stories in a biased way, which Source D may be, and that is the problem I have with the source.
This event left the public opinion firmly in the balance as it gained sympathy form some but was frowned upon as a desperate attempt by others.
The Suffragettes had certainly made an impression on people and they had themselves in the public eye, which again makes me question the fact that they could not have got the vote without the war.
They saw that their violence had caused a stir and called off all violent strikes. They did this in the hope that the conciliation bill would have been passed. This was not the case and the government instead of giving voters to women gave more to men. This outraged the women and again the violent strikes started. There was now mayhem in Britain as leaders were telling all members to smash windows. The leaders began to be arrested as the government thought they could sort the problem that way. The leaders again began to go on hunger strike in prison, as they demanded political status. The government put back the force-feeding and introduced a scheme called the cat and mouse act. This was when the women were allowed to go on hunger strike in prison and when they became ill they were sent home to recover and then re arrested again. This meant the government were not liable for the women’s health and if they died it was there own fault. It also made the women look silly as they were starving themselves for no reason.
People were beginning to get tired of the suffragettes and the women were now desperate to win over public opinion, so the suffragists began to recruit and try to grow in size and stature within Britain.
They failed to make any impact though as the suffragette’s increased there violence. People had had enough of the suffragettes in 1914 and women were banned from art galleries and museums.
People argue that the violence the women did before the war had good and bad points. The good aspects of it were that: They brought the issue to all the people in the country and made the government take notice of them, Also the issue was always going to be there and people would link any argument to the fact women could vote.
The bad aspects were that the government used the violence as an excuse not to give the women the vote, which is probably the main aspect of the whole argument and why they did not get the vote pre war.
The fact is that the women had laid the foundations for the case for women’s voting and when the war started in 1914 the women gave up there quest for votes and looked to help there country.
With so many men out fighting in the war, it was left up to the women and the remaining men to carry on the production and keep up Britain’s economy.
1 million more women went to work during the war. The women kept the factories going, they proved that in a war situation they did as much as the men in there own way to help the war, which disproved one of the main opposing arguments, Source H is form a magazine in the war and it shoes men and women standing side by side working for the same goal. This was good for the women as people were recognising the fact and felt strongly enough to put in on the front of a magazine cover. The problem I have with the source is it is titled the war worker and most of the workers were mostly women so it could have been used as a bargaining tool for the vote as I know that some women still carried on with marches and petitions throughout the war.
The men did not really like the women working as it meant they were more likely to be conscripted in the war. This is proved by Source I
One of the main factors of women getting the vote was that men who had been out of the country for more than a year had lost there right to vote. This meant there needed to be a change in the policy as this applied to most of the male population. The women saw this and they introduced the women’s rights issue. Lloyd George, the new prime minister was more sympathetic to the idea. The other main factor is that without the women, the country would have fell into enemy hands and many men felt they owed this to the women.
The government were also worried that if the campaign for the votes started again and the violence happened, how could they lock up war heroes.
The feelings of Asquith are summed up in Source J as he says ‘how could we have carried on the war without women?’. That came form a person who had imprisoned and force-fed the women; the extent of the women’s work must have been huge.
In conclusion, I feel that without the war, the women would not have got the vote and at the same time if none of the pre war antics had happened they would not have had the base and the knowledge people had about them. They had also found out what they needed to do and why they were not getting the vote, when they disproved all these arguments, e.g. Women were no good in a war situation. I feel that the work pre war put the foundation in place.
