Women's Suffrage in Britain

Before the Suffragettes, women were not able to vote and the move for women to have the right to vote really started in 1897 when Millicent Fawcett founded the National Union of Women’s Suffrage. Fawcett strongly believed that women should have the right to vote but also believed in peaceful protests, patience and logical arguments. She felt that if any violence occurred then men would believe that women could not be trusted and therefore should not have the right to vote. She also made the argument that if women were made responsible for sitting on school boards and paying taxes that they should be part of the process to make the laws and should have the same rights as men. A main argument of hers was that even though some women who were wealthy mistresses of large manors and estates employed gardeners, workmen and labourers who were able to vote but women still could not, regardless of their wealth and social class. However, the progress of Fawcett was very slow and although she converted some of the members of the Labour Representation Committee (The Labour Party) but the majority of men felt that women would not understand how parliament functioned and therefore should not take part in the electoral

After the Civil War, the movement of women’s suffrage had a new inspiration, as they used African American suffrage as a stepping stone towards women’s suffrage. Organizations, such as the National Association Women’s Suffrage Association and Women’s Christian Temperance, had clear goals to reform the urban areas with women’s suffrage. As this empowering reform took place, women of the late 19th and early 20th centuries started to question their own roles within society. As women faced opposition and had diminished roles within society, the women of the late 19th century sought equality.

In England, a large portion of the population was being unrepresented in legislative decisions. As a result, the London Workingmen’s Association called for all people over the age of twenty-one to be a registered voter. (Document 3). This addendum to the People’s Charter voiced male suffrage of every man, regardless of social class or landowning status, to have equal rights. Some activists, like Pauline Roland, took the London Workingmen’s petition a step beyond and worked to earn universal suffrage for all people, both men and women. Roland wrote during the nineteenth century, where society was dominated by males. She published newspaper articles contending that true equality couldn’t be achieved if both men and women were heard from (Document 7).

Many women believed that the right to vote would improve their position among everybody. In Europe, the most vocal and active women’s movement was the British Women’s Movement, which was divided mainly into two groups. The first group was organized by Millicent Fawcell, who believed that women must demonstrate to Parliament that they should have the right to vote. Along with Fawcell, Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, Christabel and Sylvia founded in 1903 the Women’s Social and Political Union. The main actions of this group was to call to attention the media and use of unusual publicity stunts to get their attention. These women used forceful tactics to get their message heard by pelting government officials with eggs, chaining themselves to lampposts, smashing out windows of department stores, and burning railroad cars. Even though these women did these daunting tasks only in Finland, Norway, and some American states allowed women the right to vote before 1914. Another topic that was important to women besides the right to vote was peace movements. A famous women became the head of the Austrian Peace Society, who was Bertha von

To understand the reasons behind some women getting the vote in 1918, one must look back at the history of the women’s movement to fully understand the reason female suffrage was sought and gained. In Victorian Britain there was a longstanding and persistent belief that men and women occupied separate spheres. The

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many European women were still struggling for basic rights such as choosing who they married, obtaining full citizenship and having the right to vote. Because so many women were fighting for the same thing, many formed groups or alliances that were designed to fight against the male-driven political parties that wanted to deny them their rights. As the “woman question” became a bigger deal in politics and society, people began to form stronger opinions about whether or not they thought women should be allowed to vote. The eighteenth century in Europe began a revolution on the topic of women’s suffrage. An overwhelming amount of feminist groups argued for women’s suffrage and fought against

1) According to Woman Suffrage, Ann D. Gordon tells us that American’s women suffrage movement finally got triumph after going through all of difficulties and hardships. Also, in American’s history, there were two important women who led women’s suffrage movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. At that time, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony proposed an amendment about voting by women and working in office, and the amendment was finally approved with their efforts also because many of their followers keep doing the movement and making a good future, such as Alice Paul and Lucy Burns. However, I see there still are many places that do not allow women to vote and work outside, so I really hope could understand what I know and care now and hope you can grow up to a wonderful woman who also care about pursuing your own rights and caring

In the late 19th century, woman’s suffrage was an extreme idea usually promoted by outspoken people on the outside of polite society. The beginning of the movement was weak and fragile, with supporters trying their best to push woman’s suffrage into the spotlight and onto the main party platforms. The movement could not afford to have supporters more volatile than the already radical idea of allowing woman the vote. In an effort to push support for woman’s suffrage in the 1880s, the National Woman’s Suffrage Association (NWSA) decided that they needed to portray themselves and their supporters as respectable and honorable women. Matilda Joslyn Gage was one of several woman whose contributions were downplayed by the history books and by

The attitudes of the government obviously had a huge effect on the success of women’s suffrage. In 1900 the conservative government was in power and they believed in the ‘separate spheres’ theory and therefore didn’t want women to vote. The existing political system in Britain worked well at the time so the conservatives did not want to risk the stability of it. Britain had become the most powerful country in the world and changing the system would be a huge risk to take. When a Liberal government came to power in 1906 the problem was that the party was divided on the subject, despite the fact that the leader, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, supported the idea.

Women’s Suffrage is a subject that could easily be considered a black mark on the history of the United States. The entire history of the right for women to vote takes many twists and turns but eventually turned out alright. This paper will take a look at some of these twists and turns along with some of the major figures involved in the suffrage movement.

All through American history women have frequently asked and ordered the right to vote. Roughly, they were prohibited. One of the first recorded noting of the request for women’s voting advantages were from Abigail Adams, who was the first lady of the second president. She asked her spouse in a letter to not ignore the right to vote for women. She primarily said that if women cannot vote, then they would not have a reason to pursue the new legislation acts.

On June 4, 1919, the 19th Amendment was passed, that guaranteed all American women the right to vote. For about hundred year, women fought for women’s citizenships as a result, women formed different organization such as the Suffragettes in order to get the recognition from the public and the government that women’s citizenship matters. The Suffragettes of the 1920s challenged gender roles and forced Americans to encounter their gender biases. As a result of the suffrage movement that explored ideas of gender discrimination, women encountered a higher education, equality in workplace, and the impact in the power structure of women.

Voting can either be characterized as a “natural right” or others consider it as a privilege of civic duty. While this may be the case, why are some people not allowed to uphold their position on certain topics. The United States is said to be the country of freedom however, our opinions aren’t always what matters. In regards to women, they never had as much privilege as men or any other citizen. Voting was a way for all citizens to get their voice heard but, women were not a part of these decisions for a while. Women’s suffrage was a strategic long-fight in order to help women win the right to vote in the United States. This disagreement lasted for almost a hundred years. Women believed that they were just as equal as anyone else and they should get the chance to vote as well. Women are believed to have stereotypical lives and they could care less about political matters.

The women’s suffrage movement adopted tactics of British suffragist, having Alice Paul to head those activities (Keyssar 2000, p. 203). British tactics played an important role in the latter half of the movement’s deployment of aggression on that account a crucial causal factor of successful outcomes. The women’s suffrage movement also exploited the opportunities of the U.S. engaging in World War I and using wartime as an advantage. The first advantage, the war enabled suffragist to mobilize and diminish the ancient argument that women shouldn’t vote because they didn’t bear arms (Keyssar 2000, p. 216). The war’s second advantage was the mobilization of women allowed them to stress the importance of their role and pressured congressional support for the 19th amendment (Keyssar 2000, p. 217). Exploitable advantages World War I provide suffragist the persuasive power they need to stress women’s rightful ownership of suffrage. The international factors were of utmost importance to the final success of the women’s suffrage

From the late 1850’s onwards the women’s suffrage movement took on a new era, with a growing crowd of followers, and two main movements the Radicals and the philanthropists of the fifties and sixties. () Both which were attributed to statesmen and philosophers: John bright, Richard Cobden and John Stuart Mill. One of the most important radicals was John Stuart Mill, whose aim was to create a “complete equality in all legal, political, social, and domestic relations which ought to exist between men and women.” He founded the British Woman Suffrage Association, who was opposed by the British Prime ministers William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli, as well as by the monarch Queen Victoria. In 1867 philosopher John Stuart Mill petitioned the