During the 19th century many laws were passed which made Britain more democratic by empowering men, but women were never given the right to vote in elections. Most men, including those in government, believed that women were uneducated, unexperienced, indecisive, juvenile and understood little about the world of politics, economics and business. In the eyes of the men of the 19th century a woman’s place was to be at household in the role of wife and mother; men and woman were existing in two different worlds, men in government and woman in the household . Woman wanted a voice nevertheless as it would give them a voice countrywide and they needed it to force a greater change for woman in Scotland and Britain. There were many factors in woman receiving the vote but what be the two most important were the ‘suffragists’ and the ‘suffragettes. It can also be argued that the women’s efforts during war time had a major effect on how men started to view women and how established and responsible they were.
The suffragists were important in achieving the vote for women in the 19th and early 20th century. In 1900, Scottish women didn’t have complete voting rights. They could vote in local council elections, but they couldn’t vote for Members of Parliament, and this unfairness made some women very angry . The Suffragists also known as the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) was founded in 1897 under the leadership of Millicent Fawcett and campaigned for women’s suffrage. The NUWSS believed in moderate, peaceful tactics or peaceful persuasion to win the vote for middle class woman and this is where they go their nickname of the suffragists. Their campaign consisted of meetings, pamphlets, petitions and parliamentary bills, which had been introduced by sympathetic backbench MPs. Historian Sir Robert Ensor stated that the measures the suffragists used had an effect beyond question. The suffragists had an extremely high membership of around 53,000 by 1914 and they reached agreements of mutual support with some male trade unions and the new Labour party. Historian Sandra Holten argues that pew-war campaigning was vital for women to get the vote. On one hand the NUWSS were successful in winning the support and respect of many important MPs and future PM David Lloyd George and have been credited with turning the tide in parliament towards women’s suffrage. However, many historians have claimed that the suffragist campaign was tedious and slow moving and was easily ignored by politicians and the suffragists were never able to achieve the publicity of the Suffragettes.
The Suffragettes were arguable more important in achieving the vote for all woman due to their more direct approaches in dealing with the inequality woman faced. Emmeline Pankhurst was a NUWSS member who became tired of the slow progress and formed the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) with her daughters Christabel and Sylvia in 1903. Their slogan was “deeds not words” and they wanted to use more confrontational strategies to breathe new life into the campaign- disrupting meetings, heckling MPs and chalking slogans on the streets were just some of the less violent things the suffragettes used to get their voices heard . They made headings in 1905 after they hackled a government minister Sir Edward Grey and the two members responsible were imprisoned and the Daily Mail nicknamed them the Suffragettes. At the point when enemies of women’s suffrage HH Asquith wound up Prime Minister in 1908, the Suffragettes entered their ‘wild period’ as a dissent, They smashed windows, emptied acid into letterboxes, completed illegal arson assaults, sent letter bombs and security was taken care of the nation over for example at Holyrood Palace. In 1909, Suffragette Marion Dunlop began an appetite strike crusade in jail intended to humiliate the administration if or when a Suffragette passed away in their consideration – ladies were brutally force-fed by specialists through tubes. In June 1913, Suffragette Emily Davison died when running out before the King’s Horse Anmer at the Epsom Derby while waving a banner of Green, White and Violet (GWV=Give Women Votes). It cannot be denied that the Suffragettes flourished in their aim of publicity; they recurrently made national headlines, were talked about in parliament and were almost unescapable through their vicious approaches. The lengths the Suffragettes went to gained support and appreciation from many individuals across the country and some people may have believed females should get the vote in order to end the unsettling confrontational crusade. However. Some historians argue that the Suffragettes also undermined the development that the Suffragists hade made between 1897 and 1903 and essentially triggered votes for woman to revert due to their corrupt actions. Also, many historians have claimed that the suffragettes held back progress for woman because they reinforced the idea that woman were reckless, immature and unable to cope with responsibility.
Women played a hugely important part in the war effort during the first World War. Two days after war was declared in Germany in August 1914, both suffrage groups proclaimed a suspension of their political movements for the duration of the war. The WSPU were given £2000 by the British government to stage a march and a advertising campaign demanding ‘Women’s Right to Serve’ and help the war effort, also the suffragettes even changed the name of their newspaper from ‘The Suffragette’ to ‘Britannica’ and they focussed on nationalism rather than women’s rights for the extent of the war. Throughout the war the women were largely the people working in the factories and this was a major turning point for women at this stage in the women’s rights movement and a major move in their fight. During this time Suffragettes also started the ‘white feather’ campaign to inspire recruitment, they used these white feathers as a symbol of spinelessness on men who were not in uniform. This move by the Suffragettes is still a very prevalent fact from the war that still exists today. Both suffrage campaigns increased support and respect due to their preparedness to get behind the war effort and ‘muck in’ rather than possibly sabotaging Britain. However, the Suffragettes were critiqued by some for their sudden willingness to cooperate by the government and by some extreme suffragettes. Women’s war work was significant to Britain’s ability to fight and win, Women stepped into the openings where around 3 million men went to fight. Over 700,000 women worked in munitions where explosions were commonplace and TNT poisoning caused women to be nicknamed ‘canaries’. The work that women did was of major national importance and everyone in Britain was thankful to the nation’s women for the role they had played in winning the war- it was believed Britain couldn’t have won without the women. Historians have put the ‘reward theory’- that women were given the vote as a reward for their hard work in the war and the 1918 timing of the vote and end of war might support that- the government certainly would have felt the need to do something as the huge majority of women were dismissed when men returned from war. However, it does seem a bizarre ‘reward’ because the women given the vote were 30+ whereas the majority of women who did war work were in their 20s so not actually rewarded with the vote, also other historians have said that the reward theory is ‘too simple’ as a lot of the ground labour for women getting the vote was done by the suffrage groups the war was merely a catalyst which served to change the views of legislators who still opposed women’s suffrage. It is undoubtedly true that it would be easier for MPs to award the vote to heroines in 1918 than terrorists in 1914 so perhaps the war made it more widely adequate to give women the vote.
In conclusion, there were many reasons for women getting the vote in 1918. The Suffragettes, Suffragists and war work were the three biggest reasons for this. On one hand the Suffragists were significant as they were the leading group in the Women’s right to get the vote and they used non violent tactics in order to gain what they wanted and through this they gained support from male trade unions and the new Labour party and also the NUWSS was 53,000 women strong. On the other hand, the suffragettes were imperative in getting the vote for woman in 1918 as they were the group who gained the biggest media attention with their violent/militant protests. Overall, the most important aspect in gaining the vote for women was the War work that the women carried out over the course of the war as this made the women look like the heroes and responsibly mature people instead of immature violent women that the suffragettes made the women look through their militant type actions they used to try and gain the vote.
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