LESSON 1: WOMEN´S SUFFRAGE CAMPAIGN

In groups of four answer these questions. Each group must answer a

question, then you’ll tell the other classmates:

1. What does the word SUFFRAGETTE mean? When was it used firstly?
2. Why do you think women began to claim for their rights?
3. What was women’s role in the XIX century?
4. What’s women ‘s role nowadays?
5. Describe both pieces of news and tell the differences:

A.WOMEN´S SUFFRAGE CAMPAIGN GAINS NEW

STRIDENCY
14 October 1905, Manchester
Two young women have chosen
to go to prison rather than pay a
fine for causing a disturbance.
Chistabel Pankhurst and Annie
Keney are the first women to be
immprisoned for demanding the
vote.
Uproar broke out at Manchester´s
Free Trade Hall when Pankhurst
and Kenney demanded to know if
a Liberal government would give
women the vote. Their protest
came at the end of an election
address by the leading Liberal
politician Sir Edwahrd Grey,
when they stood up and unfurled
their " Votes for Women" banner.
Their behaviour provoked and
angry reaction from the crowd.
The women were drgged from the
hall and thrown in to the street,
where they were arrested by
police officers.
In 1903 Christabel Pankhurst
founded the Women´s Political
and Social Union with her mother,
Emmeline Pankhurst, the pionner
of women´s suffrage.The arrest of
the two women marks a nw
militancy in what had been a
peaceful law-biding campaign

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LESSON 1: WOMEN´S SUFFRAGE CAMPAIGN
B.VOTE CAMPAIGN GAINS A MARTYR
14 June 1913, London
Thousands of people have
attended the funeral procession
of Emily Davison, who died
after throwing herself in front of
the King´s horse at the Derby
ten days ago.
The tragedy happened as the field
thundered around Tattenham
Corner, when Miss Davison
darted out from the crowd and
flung herself at Anmer, King
George V´s horse. She was
knocked to the ground, and died
four days afterwards from her
injuries. The police found a return
ticket to the racecourse in her
handbag, suggesting that she had
not intended to die but only to
make the horses shy up.
A guard of suffragettes dressed in
white black sashes excorted Miss
Davison´s coffin as it was drawn
through the streets of London by
four black horses.
At King´s Cross Station the
mourners paid their final respects
as the coffin was loaded on to a
train bound for Northumberland,
where Miss Davison was laid to
rest in her home town of Morpeth.
Described by many as an act of
crazed sacrifice, Miss Davison´s
dramatic action has focused public
attention on the Votes for Women
campaign. There have been many
violent clashes between
suffragettes and the forces of law
and order in recent months.
Members of the Women´s Social
and Political Union have staged
noisy, disruptive protests at many
public meetings. They have
marched, shouted, chained
themselves to railings and
smashed the windows of
government buildings.
Suffraggetes have refused to pay
taxes and to recognise the
authority of the courts.
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LESSON 1: WOMEN´S SUFFRAGE CAMPAIGN

1-Answer the following questions after reading text A:

1. When was the Women’s Political and Social Union founded?

2. Who founded it?

3. Who has been arrested?

4. Why are they going to go to prision?

5. Why were they arrested?

Tell the other half of the group about your news.

2. Answer the following questions after reading text B:

1. Who has died?

2. How has she died?

3. Whose horse was it?

4. Did she want to die? Why?

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LESSON 1: WOMEN´S SUFFRAGE CAMPAIGN

5. Where has she been buried?

3-Match the following dates and facts:

1838, 1867, 1869, 1872, 1903, 1906,1910, 1918,1928, 1931,1945
- Men were given the right to vote their representatives in the Parliament
in the U.K.
- Women were given the right to vote in the same conditions as men in
Norway.
- Women were given the right to vote in Spain in the Second Republic.
- The Charter of Rights and Liberties foresaw women´s right to vote.
- The Law for older than 35 Women´s right to vote was projected and
accepted in Great Britain .
- Women were given the right to vote in the same conditions as men in
Great Britain .
- H. Fawcett founded the National Society for Women´s Suffrage in
Manchester, and similar societies appeared in London, Bristol,
Edinburgh and Birmingham.
- Jacob Bright obtained the Town Vote for women and presents a project
to obtain Parliamentary vote, but it is refused.
- Emmeline Pankhurst founded Women´s social and political union, that
initiated in 1906 terrorist campaigns to protest.
- Women were given the right to vote in the same conditions as men in
France.
- Women were given the right to vote in the same conditions as men in
Finnland.

4-The reasons men gave to deny women´s right to vote were…

A) Women were considered too immature
B) Women would vote for the same party as their husbands, so it wasn´t
worth all the trouble.
C) Women were uneducated and therefore unable to decide for themselves.
D) Women could not read and therefore could not choose the voting paper
alone
E) People who wore skirts or had long hair were forbidden to vote.
F) Women were not interested in politics

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LESSON 1: WOMEN´S SUFFRAGE CAMPAIGN