Changes To The Position Of Women

Question 1

Changes to jury service

Answer 1

Sex discrimination removal act gave women entry to the legal profession and also too jury service

Question 2

Local government and central government

Answer 2

• by 1922 there were more women on local councils
• this was as a result of a change whereby married women could be elected
• peeresses could now sit in the House of Lords
• by 1923, there were eight women MP’s

Question 3

Laws to help women

Answer 3

• laws which opened civil service posts at levels to women
• increasing the maintenance paid by fathers to children born outside marriage
• divorce laws were equalised in 1923
• 1925- men and women were given equal rights over the custody of children
• criminal justice act of 1926 ended the presumption that a married woman might be forced to commit a crime by her husband

Question 4

Beginnings of extension of the franchise

Answer 4

• baldwins Home Secretary sir William Joyson-Hix (normally backwards looking) made the decision
• march 1928- so-called Flapper Act was passed 387 to 10
• named after group of liberated young women in the 1920’s

Question 5

Summarise the equal franchise act

Answer 5

• also called the flapper act
• 1928
• gave parliamentary vote to women on equal conditions to men
• enfranchised women between the ages of 21 and 30
• conservatives passed this, so shows changing traditional views in society,

Question 6

Why was it passed?

Answer 6

Perhaps a reflection of pragmatic conservatism, preempting labours decision to do so