Womens Suffrage

Women Suffrage:

How did women gain the right to vote?

How effective were the campaigns?

-          Suffragettes

o   Women’s social and political union

§  WSPU

-          Emilie Pankhurst and Cristobel run it

-           Were a break away movement from the suffragists

-          1897:

o   Millicent Fawcett formed the:

§  NUWSS

·         National union of women’s suffrage societies

o   Suffragists

§  Peaceful and persuasive tack ticks

o   Made the problem get into public eye

o   Their slow but sure approach was opposed by the WSPU

-          WSPU used direct and violent tack ticks

o   Organisation was normally middle class which made their angry and loud approach awkward and un lady like

o   Started by simply chaining to railings and disturbing meetings of political opponents.

o   As time went by they used illegal approaches, arson attacks, letter bombs, smashed windows and assaulting leading politicians and cutting telegraph wires

o   The parliament had discussed about giving rights to women but they never agreed to it and nothing ever came around from it

o   Charles hophouse, well known opponent to women’s suffrage, was given a letter with grass seed in it as they knew he had hay fever

o   Their actions, however, got them noticed most significantly in newspapers

-          The 1913 derby:

o   Emily Davidson ran in front of the kings horse

§  Suffragette’s say she was being a martyr

§  Died in hospital 4 days later

§  Trying to bring attention to their cause by disrupting the race

-          Parliament said they shouldn’t have the right to vote after her death because they were irrational and emotional

o   And couldn’t be trusted to make sensible and important decisions

-          This is why at first men didn’t take them seriously

o   Then they became infuriated when they noticed the women were being serious and wouldn’t simply give up

o   Authorities were confused about how to deal with them

o   They thought decent well brought up women shouldn’t be acting like the suffragettes

§  This made it hard for men to understand what they were complaining about

·         This resulted in many suffragettes being treated badly by the men who opposed to their ideas

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