“‘It was the militant suffragette campaign more than any other factor that led to the achievement of female suffrage in 1918′ How valid is this view?”
In 1850 women were without the vote and excluded politically, but by 1918 most women over 30 could vote and by 1928 all women over 21 were enfranchised on equal terms with men.
There is no doubt that the contribution of women’s suffrage movement – mainly the NUWSS and WSPU, are important in the campaign to get the vote for women. Hoverer, there were several other factors which led to the granting of the right to vote to women. Changing attitudes towards women as well as the importance of the contribution of women during the Great War must be considered.
In the 19th century many men saw women as inferior and they had very little, if any, rights. They owned nothing; their possessions were the property of their husbands, or fathers; Any wages they earned by their own hard work was the property of their father or husband and women were not even able to have a divorce if they wished to. Most women lacked a decent education, most of them worked in factories or in workhouses and were denied access Schools. Even the few who were educated were denied entry into university and most jobs. Women were not happy when the law turned a blind eye to certain things men did, yet punished women who did the very same thing. It was seen as acceptable for men to sleep with other women during their marriage and the wife’s were just supposed to accept it, yet women were supposed to remain virgins before marriage and stay faithful during marriage.
The Essay on Women And Men Communicate Differently
Women and Men Communicate Differently The process of neo-Liberal dogmas, such as celebration of diversity and elimination of sexism, being showed up peoples throats, brought about a situation, when employment policies correspond less and less to the objective reality of interaction between genders at workplace. Men and women are expected to execute their professional duties with the same ...
Women were often seen as irrational, emotional and not suited to politics. Politicians argued that women would simply vote as their husbands told them – or they would vote for the best looking man. It can be noted that not all men were against votes for women. In 1867 John Stuart Mill MP for Westminster, tried to get votes for some women included in the 1867 reform act. His suggestion was defeated, even though 73 men in parliament did support him.
Don’t assume though, that all women supported the right to vote. Even Queen Victoria described the suffragette campaign as “That mad wicked folly of women’s rights” and when women presented petitions to parliament they could easily ignore it as there was a meagre amount of signatures.
Social change was an important factor in creating an atmosphere of acceptance in terms of women’s suffrage. Women were made out to be silly creatures who had a childlike dependency on men. Not much improvement was made to dispel this way of thinking until some laws were passed which gave women more rights and made them a little bit more equal in society., especially laws passed between 1873 and 1983. Laws like The Infant Custody act gave mothers more rights regarding their children and meant that they could petition that all their children below sixteen live with them in most circumstances. It even allowed women who committed adultery to keep custody of their children. The Married Women’s Property acts of 1882 and 1893 granted women so much more control of their lives. It granted them full legal control of the property they owned at marriage or property that they got after marriage with money that was theirs. Another thing that was improving for women was education. More options were opening up to women. Women were now equal in terms of primary education and more jobs such as office jobs became available to them but they still were not allowed to be married and have a job so they had to leave their job when they married.
There was also political change. The status of some women changed with the Local Government act of 1894 which gave women ratepayers and property occupiers the right to vote in local elections and even the chance to stand for election. As a result women became more involved in politics by joining political parties organising social events and volunteering. The overall effect of these developments was to destroy male prejudices of women. Attitudes that were once common were changing by the end of the century. The previous views of women had become outdated in the eyes of Edwardian men, Women began to show men that their new-found political interests and their changing role in society would not effect their traditional role as a wife or mother.
The Essay on A Womans Role In Society Is Primarily That Of A Wife And Mother Do You Agree
A womans role is primarily that of a wife and a mother do you agree? The big debate about a womans role, and place in the society has been going on for a long time, and is still continuing. Women have been fighting to be able to stand on the same podium as men for over decades of years. However, I do agree with the given statement that the primary role of women in the society is to be a wife and a ...
Overall, it can be argued that Women became increasingly frustrated by the lack of say or equal part women had in British society, and they sought to change that. One of the biggest ways they sought to change that was on gaining the right to vote. This issue will be my focus for this essay and will also focus on many factors that led to women gaining the vote in 1918.
Women decided to fight for the right to vote, and an organisation called the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, known as the Suffragists (NUWSS) was formed in 1897 and the Women’s Social and Political Union or the suffragettes (WSPU) was born out of the Suffragists organisation.
Records show that in 1860 there were no women’s suffrage societies that were campaigning for women’s suffrage but by 1914 there were around 56 separate groups with a collective membership of 300,000 people.
Historians argue whether the suffrage movements had an impact on them getting the vote. Most say they believe that the suffrage movement actually hindered the cause rather than help the cause.
The suffragists were a group of suffrage societies that came together to be known as National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies – groups of women fighting for the right to vote. They came to be in 1897 and were founded by a woman called Millicent Fawcett. They wanted the right to vote for women who owned land. They thought that they would do this by peaceful protests, public meetings, newspapers, journals, pamphlets, leaflets, petitions and lobbying of MPs. Millicent thought that if they were well mannered, intelligent and didn’t break any laws that they would be seen as responsible enough to have the vote. The Suffragists began to realise that although they were run by middle class women, they would need the support of the working class women to if they were going to make an impact in getting support for their cause.
The Term Paper on Women And Medicine Doctors People Theories
a) Whilst women werent trained in medicine during this time period, their traditional roles as healers and midwives were still important ones but women only ever performed them. These roles were mere extensions of their status as housewives as can be seen by the way the performed such tasks. Women would use their knowledge of herbs to concoct remedies for the sick and they would record them in ...
Some of the women of the Suffragists became annoyed with the lack of progress in The Suffragists’ efforts to give women the vote so they decided to break away from them and form their own group of women for Women’s Suffrage this group known as The Suffragettes or the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU).
They were led by Emmaline Pankhurst and her daughter Cristabel. They were also fighting for women’s right to vote, but in a different way. They were a very militant group that used many violent tactics to get people to pay attention to their cause and to get the government to do something about giving women the vote too. There were signs that this was starting to have an effect and there a number of males who believed that women should get the votes but this was not enough to change the law just yet.
The WSPU used a lot of very violent tactics to arouse attention from the government. Tactics like smashing windows, attacking MPs, burning buildings, lining bowling fields with acid and probably the most famous of them all was when Emily Davidson Jumped in front of the King’s horse at the Epsom derby in June 1913 and died 4 days later in hospital due to the injuries she sustained.
These tactics were supposed to arouse attention and arouse attention they did though many Historians believe that this attention was not good as it made a lot of people think that if women could do such violent and silly things then we could not trust them to vote properly.
There is a lot of debate from historians as to whether the actions of the suffragettes harmed or helped the fight for the right of women to vote. People like Constance Rover, who are very well versed on the Women’s Suffrage movement, believed that “there are marked differences of opinion about the value of militancy to the movement, there is a fair measure of agreement that it was positively helpful in its early days.” Many historians believe that the WSPU kept the government’s focus on it and constantly brought the movement to the government’s attention though not for good reasons and this attention evoked more interest by the general public and the parliament which is considered one of the reasons why parliament decided to take it seriously after 1910.
The Essay on Women in War 4
Women in War and How They Made a Difference Women who served in past wars were considered heroines, and were presented with many different, honorable awards. Women served many purposes during the war. Such as: nurses who amputated and helped soldiers, translators who spoke for the French, telephone operators who connected important phone calls to different places, and many more non-combat roles. A ...
Although this is seen as helpful to the cause by many historians it is also seen as almost setting the movement back a few years as people increasingly became to believe that they couldn’t give the vote to these unstable women who couldn’t be trusted to make a rational decision as illustrated by their actions in their attempt to acquire the vote and by beliefs like that of Viscount Helmsley who believed that “The way in which certain types of women … have acted in the last year or two… lends a great deal of colour to the argument that the mental equilibrium of the female sex is not as stable as the mental equilibrium of the male sex” This clearly illustrates the negative impact that the Suffragettes had on the view of Women being involved in politics and their capabilities in that matter.
One of the other central causes was the impact of the First World War. When the War came many women decided to throw in the towel on their votes for women campaign for the duration of the war and focus on helping with the war effort at home by doing things like driving buses, making ammunition, working as nurses in the western front and basically took over from men wherever was needed. This was a crucial role as with most men fighting in the war there was nobody left to do what was needed at home the only ones left to do what was needed were the women.
There are two major views regarding the impact of women’s role during the war on votes for women. Many historians have suggested that the right to vote was given as a token of gratitude for their hard work during the war and their eagerness to help out during the war and kept life at home going because without them I mean who would teach children? Deliver items? Or mail?.
The other major view is that women were given the vote as a token of their appreciation of the women’s political response during the war in the fact that they decided that helping their country was more important than continuing their campaign during crisis. Emmaline Pankhurst said that there was “no point in continuing the fight for the vote when there might be no country in which they could vote.” and this attitude and the way women helped during the war led many people to have a positive image of women and saw them as responsible, reliable people who could be trusted with the vote.
The Term Paper on Civil War South Men Union
... slavery. They fought for the woman's right to vote, argued against differences in pay between men and women in manufacturing jobs, and ... the Civil War, no woman emerged unchanged. Most felt more confident about themselves and their gender.Through helping their country, many saw ... or worse. Black men were paid less than white men in the Union army.The official reason was black men were not suppose ...
The last major factor in the acquisition of the vote was Democratic reform. The government passed a law that meant that all men over 21 and women over 30 or women over 21 when owned their houses or were married to me who owned their house, could vote. This was a step in the right direction towards suffrage for all women.
The government faced pressure as being a leading country in the world they were behind on voting equality, many countries like +Australia, Finland and Denmark, along with most of Canada already gave women the vote and Britain was worried that the country that was the “mother of democracy” was behind on this and Britain didn’t want to be embarrassed by this.
A lot of politicians changed their minds regarding whether women should be allowed the vote for several reasons. One of the reasons was that many men couldn’t vote because of the current criteria for voting so voting needed reform anyway. People also felt that women had done a lot of the country during the war so it would be unfair to still deny them the right to vote. Politicians who felt that their reason for not allowing votes for women was not valid any more could change their minds.
There are many different reasons as to why women got the vote in 1918 and there are many different opinions on which factor was the most important but from the evidence it is suggested that there isn’t just one single important factor, but instead many different ones.
