WOMEN GAINING THE VOTE IN 1914

Women Gaining the Vote in 1914

Women Gaining the Vote in 1914

Although today women have the equal right to vote, very few actually use the right to get involved in politics. However 90 years ago, many of our female ancestors struggled to gain female suffrage. By the time of 1914, they have dreaded over their continuous failures over their right to vote. The factors that led to their failures were complex and intricate, but by analysing the main events and important figures in depth we will be able to see why women failed to gain the vote by 1914.

In the Victorian times, women did not have equal rights as men. Women were considered as less intelligent but more emotional and hysterical, and should stay in their domestic spheres.

In 1914, women had finally gained the right to vote, after 68 long and hard years of campaigning and rebelling they finally got the vote they wanted. The women had tried everything like campaigning, getting them selves arrested, using the media and many more things were done. However, there were a couple of things that they did which really helped them get the right to vote and they were the fact that they helped the men in World War I, like loading the bombs shells with explosives and tidying the bomb shelters. Also I thought that the Suffragists played a vital role in getting the rights for women to vote because they proved to the men that they could protest and campaign without using violence or breaking the law, unlike the Suffragettes, who resorted to violence when they wanted their way or when they wanted to be heard.

Before World War 1 there, were two groups of women that campaigned for votes for women and they were known as the Suffragists and the suffragettes. They called themselves the Suffragists because they were trying to mock the word Suffrage which means the right to vote. Then there were the Suffragists they were so different from the Suffragists yet they were so similar. Both groups of women were campaigning and fighting for the same thing, but the way they achieved the vote was very different. First of all the Suffragists only protested and campaigned without violence and they were law abiding. They thought that they should prove to the men that they were responsible and could act in a civilised manner. The Suffragists held meetings all over the country, they held over 1,300 meetings in 1877-78. You would have found that most of the campaigners were middle class women. All the groups around the country united to form one big group called the NUWSS, which stood for 'National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies'. They were led by Millicent Fawcett and they thought that peaceful demonstrations were the way forward. They had started a pilgrimage and were travelling around the country, they had started in the south of the country and they worked their way up to ...