The Fight For Women's Suffrage

Question 1

What were the arguments made at the time for women having the vote?

Answer 1

• Women pay taxes just like men.
• Other countries like New Zealand allow women to vote.
• Uneducated working men can vote.
• Women could vote in local election since 1888, who not national ones?

Question 2

What were the arguments made at the time against women having the vote?

Answer 2

• Women and men have ‘separate spheres’. Women inhabit the private world of the home and men the public world of work and politics. If women start operating in the ‘public sphere’ the home would be neglected.
• Women don’t fight for their country and so haven’t earned the right to vote.
• Women’s views are already represented by their husbands.
• Women are too emotional to be trusted with the vote.
• A quote from Sarah Ellis (1845) who stated: ‘as a women, the first thing of importance is to be content to be below men – below them in mental power, in the same proportion that you are in bodily strength’.

Question 3

When did no women not have the right to vote?

Answer 3

1900

Question 4

What was the nation completely ruled by?

Answer 4

Men from parliament

Question 5

What were women expected to do?

Answer 5

Know their place

Question 6

What was it belieived that a woman’s place was?

Answer 6

It was widely believed by men and some women, including Queen Victoria, that women’s place was in the home, looking after her children and husband.

Question 7

What would happen if a woman had a job?

Answer 7

They would always be paid less than men and they were only allowed to work in positions deemed suitable by men.

Question 8

By 1900 what were women doing in protest?

Answer 8

50,000 women were members of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies.

Question 9

What does suffrage mean?

Answer 9

It is another word for vote.

Question 10

What was this new group known as?

Answer 10

Suffragists

Question 11

What did suffragists do?

Answer 11

They collected petitions, wrote to Parliament and went on marches to highlight their cause.

Question 12

How were the Suffragists doing by 1905?

Answer 12

They had gotten nowhere and some of their members decided to change tactics.

Question 13

What was this new group of women called?

Answer 13

Suffragettes

Question 14

Who led the Suffragettes?

Answer 14

Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia.

Question 15

What was the Suffragettes motto?

Answer 15

‘Deeds not words’

Question 16

What did the Pankhursts decide was the best way to highlight their cause?

Answer 16

To commit spectacular stunts that would guarantee an appearance in the newspapers.

Question 17

What did the Suffragettes do?

Answer 17

They disrupted political meetings, chained themselves to railings in Downing Street, pelted politicians with eggs and flour and smashed parliaments windows with stones. They set fire to churches and railway stations, some poured acid on golf courses and others attacked MPs on the way to work. They destroyed buildings and houses, they exploded bombs, they assaulted the police and broke up meetings.

Question 18

What happened when the Suffragettes were arrested and fined?

Answer 18

They refused to pay and were sent to prison - knowing this would make the papers.

Question 19

What would Suffragettes do in prison?

Answer 19

They refused all foods in prison, hunger strike. This gave the government a terrible choice, free to suffragettes or let them starve to death. At first. They released all hunger strikers, but soon decided to force feed them instead.

Question 20

Why did Suffragettes do all of this?

Answer 20

Because it guaranteed that they were front page news.

Question 21

What happened to hunger strikers in prison?

Answer 21

They were force-fed meat and lime juice.

Question 22

What did the suffragettes try and use the harsh treatment of force feeding to do?

Answer 22

To gain sympathy for their cause.

Question 23

What were the governments views in 1913?

Answer 23

Many MPs sympathised with the cause of votes for women, but didn’t want to look as if they had given into the suffragettes demands.

Question 24

Had women won the right to vote in 1914?

Answer 24

No

Question 25

What happened when the war broke out?

Answer 25

The Pankhursts called off their campaign and asked supporters to help with the war effort.

Question 26

What happened when men left to become soldiers in war?

Answer 26

Women got the chance to do jobs they’d never done before.

Question 27

What jobs did women do during the war?

Answer 27

They became bus drivers, milk deliverers, police officers and car mechanics. Thousands of women also worked in munitions factories.

Question 28

How did many people feel by the end of the war?

Answer 28

Many people felt women had earned the right to vote.

Question 29

When did parliament change the law and what did they change it to?

Answer 29

In 1918 parliament changed the voting laws to allow women over the age of 30 to vote.

Question 30

What was there for women who didn’t support the Pankhursts?

Answer 30

There was a Women’s Anti-Suffrage League that campaigned to stop women getting the vote.

Question 31

When did the parliament change the laws again and what do they change it to?

Answer 31

In 1928, all womn over the age of 21 had the right to vote. Women finally got the same political rights as men.

Question 32

What was the quality of women’s work like?

Answer 32

Metal - women’s work better than men’s
Aircraft woodwork - women equal to men
Bullet making - women equal to men
Shell making - women’s work poorer than men’s

Question 33

What was the quantity of women’s work like?

Answer 33

Metal - women’s production equal to men’s
Aircraft woodwork - Women’s production equal to men’s
Bullet making - women’s production equal to men’s; in some cases women produce 20% more than men
Shell making - women’s production behind men

Question 34

What happened in 1903?

Answer 34

Some women had become impatient with the lack of success so far. They felt that a more active campaign was needed. In 1903, Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst with her daughters Christabel, Sylvia and Adela, formed the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). Their aim was to put pressure on the government by using militant protests,

Question 35

What do militant protesters use?

Answer 35

Actions rather than words to get their point across.

Question 36

How did the Pankhursts begin their campaign?

Answer 36

By shouting out slogans, while a government minister was making speech at a public meeting in 1905, when a policeman tried to throw them out, Christabel Pankhurst, spat in his face.

Question 37

What happened after the Pankhursts first protest?

Answer 37

The women were arrested and went to prison rather than paid fine they were given for their behaviour. Newspapers gave headline coverage to the event and the WSPU were soon the best-known campaigners for women’s votes.

Question 38

What did the newspapers call these new militant protesters?

Answer 38

Suffragettes