Women Suffragettes

Intro + public opinion :

“Man for the field and Woman for the hearth: Man for the Sword and for the needle she: Man
with the head and woman with the heart: man to command and woman to obey; All else
confusion.” Alfred Tennyson.

But we already know that women have worked since women have existed. Not only did they
work domestically as servants of the household, and as maids and governesses and wet nurses,
but women have also always been in the field, as well as the hearth. Women have always
carried the sword as well as the needle, and they have always had heads, surprisingly enough.
They have just never been credited for it.

To set the scene, It’s the Victorian era. Society begins to adjust itself to a much more advanced
life with even more advanced ideology. Men seem to be coping well with the change as society
favors them as usual. Women, however, begin to pave their way through an endless series of
difficulties outside of the confines of household duties. Both genders begin to stand on a
slightly more equal footing when it comes to intellect, thanks to the emergence of public
schools, mandatory education, and the simplification of the press. The more accessible
education made it easier for women to take on more complex job positions. However, society
refuses to let women thrive, and they are immediately shot down with a series of inequities.

A woman of the Victorian era was viewed as incompetent, unskilled, and generally inferior to a
man. Women’s professional lives were confined entirely to working in the service sector, in
order to be paid less than the apparently more intelligent, superior man. A Victorian woman had
no access to degrees from higher education; she might achieve a higher academic score than a
man in the same field yet still be denied a degree from places like Oxford and Cambridge. A
woman was denied ownership of her wages and property. She had no right for divorce, or of
custody. A woman had no right over even her own body, as refusal of sex was grounds for
annulment of the marriage, and a husband was allowed to beat his wife and even rape her
without fear of prosecution. Most importantly, or at least what is most relevant to our
presentation, a Victorian woman had no right to vote.
Throughout the 19th century, women had been making many demands for change. Equality
when it comes to education, employment, marriage, and property became the worldwide aims
of feminist movements across the western world, particularly in America. However, as we
focus more on England and Victorian women during the 19th and 20th century, we will find
that their primary goal was to gain the right to vote in public elections and have the same
political rights as men. A consistent slogan used by the woman suffragettes was “Votes for
Women.”

The term Suffrage, according to the Webster dictionary, was “A vote given in deciding a
controverted question or electing a person for an office or trust.” The Women’s suffrage
movement fought mainly for the right of women by law to vote in national or local elections. It
doesn’t take a very wide imagination to picture how difficult attaining such rights would be in
such a misogynistic society. By the end of the 19th century, women’s suffrage was an important
political issue.

One of the most prominent organizations that laid the foundations for the women’s suffrage
movement was Manchester Women’s Suffrage Committee, founded by Lydia Becker. She
published the Women’s suffrage journal between 1870 and 1890. Becker also promoted and
encouraged scientific education for girls and women, and she argued that there was no natural
difference between the intellect of men and women.

Mary Wollstonecraft was also one of the first advocates of women’s suffrage. She argued for
the social, political, marital, and educational equality for women. Wollstonecraft published her
well-known work: A Vindication of The Rights of Woman, in which she argued that the
inadequate education that catered for women back then was designed merely to make women
more alluring in the eyes of men. As in, their education served only in shaping them to be the
perfect wives. Her work became a bestseller that largely influenced the women’s rights
movement in Great Britain. Another well-known work was published by John Stuart Mill in
1869, titled On the Subjection of Women, and it was inspired by the ideas of his wife, Harriet
Taylor Mill. It became one of the most translated books of its day.

Women like Marie Curie challenged the belief of women's incompetence and professional
inferiority by being the first woman to win two Nobel prizes in two different fields. However,
because she was a woman, it was widely believed that her husband, Pierre, must have done all
the work for her. But Pierre had actually been dead for five years when Marie had won her
second prize. Similarly, one of the main obstacles that feminists faced was the resistance they
were met with by misogynists. They were ridiculed, dismissed, discredited, and dehumanized.

Misogynists argued that, “For gender roles and stability to be maintained, a man needed a
woman who looks up to his intellectual superiority and wishes to do nothing but subordinate
herself.” The prime minister of Italy himself responded in the 1890s to the women suffrage
movement with: “Women’s hands were not made for voting, but for kissing.”

Very slowly and gradually, feminist activists began to achieve little gains under laws throughout
a large part of Europe. For example, the Act of Married Women’s Property in the 1870s finally
gave women the right to buy, sell, and inherit anything they possessed and attain degrees.
However, one issue still eluded them: The right to vote.

Anti-suffragettes:
In 1867, John Stuart Mill, an English philosopher, testified before parliament in favour of
women's suffrage and brought a petition requesting the right to vote for women and it almost
had fifteen hundred signatures.
Unfortunately, none of the top politicians at the time dared to insult Queen Victoria, therefore
his repeated attempts were unsuccessful.
Misogynists like Queen Victoria were an obstacle in their own right.
Despite that the suffragettes were excited and inspired by Victoria’s success as a modern
woman leader, the queen generally thought little of them.
She was not amused by the assorted women demanding the right to vote.
She even called the fight for women’s rights “Mad, wicked folly.”
The suffragettes believed it to be absurd that a woman ruled the nation yet her female subjects
couldn’t even elect a political representative, let alone obtain a university degree or even keep
their property once married.
When excerpts from Queen Victoria’s diaries were made public following her death, the
suffragists were disillusioned.
She was the living proof that women could as well hold positions of authority, yet she wrote in
her diary: “I am everyday convinced that we, women, (if we are to be good women; feminine,
amiable, and domestic) are not fitted to reign.” “We women are not made for governing and if
we are good women, we must dislike these masculine occupations.”
The Queen wasn’t against women’s rights as much as she was cautious, and thought that this
change was unnecessary.
She seemed to go along with the opinion that women having franchise could harm what she
saw as the “necessary division of labour between men and women.”
Victoria believed that women were needed primarily as mothers and that they should not try to
become, as she saw it, more like men.

It's simple to think that it must have been largely men who oppose the suffragettes.
In 1889 there was an organised petition against women's suffrage & its leader was Mrs.
Humphrey Word, a very famous novelist, along with other women.
These were women who were very involved in politics but many of them had a very strong
resistance to the idea that women had any role in national government because giving women
the right to vote was saying that women have the same role in society as men do, and for a lot
of women, that was terrifying. I guess we can all see why now.

The society that we’re living in is exactly what the anti-suffrage wanted to avoid. And they
were very aware that, once you allowed the principle that men and women should share power
in society, keeping their roles separate would eventually be impossible.

The stage of public opinion was deeply divided & voices were raised on both sides of the
argument.
Cartoons were used as creative ways of expressing opinions subtly / not so subtly.
For example
This pro-suffrage image depicts a common nation of the female vote instigating some
municipal housekeeping asserting that women's positive moral influence would be an asset to
the corrupt world of politics.

This poster also is another great example of pro sentiments.

As caretakers of the next generation women should have a say about who is making the laws
affecting their children.

This image promoted by the other side of the controversy shows how upsetting it would be
when gender role reversals occur & a woman with her business chic clothes go to vote leaving
the man behind with an apron & fussy babies.

This image promoted by the other side of the controversy shows how upsetting it would be
when gender role reversals occur & a woman with her business chic clothes go to vote leaving
the man behind with an apron & fussy babies.

Methods\goals:

Equal access to education and employment, equality within marriage, and a married woman's
right to her own property and wages, custody over her children and control over her own body
were the worldwide aims oof women’s suffrage movements across the western world,
particularly America. As we focus more on England and Victorian women during the 20th
century, we’ll find that their primary goal was to gain the right to vote in public elections and
have the same political rights as men. A consistent slogan used by them was “votes for
women”. Don’t say that.

“It surely will not be denied that women have, and ought to have, opinions of their own on
subjects of public interest, and on the events which arise as the world wends on its way. But if it
be granted that women may, without offence, hold political opinions, on what ground can the
right be withheld of giving the same expression or effect to their opinions as that enjoyed by
their male neighbors?” -Lydia Becker

If you have been on social media at all recently, considering recent events, you’d have seen a
lot of posts with the phrase “violence is never the answer” but a quick look at history proves
otherwise. You cannot talk and sit and wait for your oppressors to decide to see you as human,
you need to force them to give you your rights because they’re afraid of what you’ll do to them
if they don’t. No one has achieved freedom from their oppressors with words, they will not care
about your words, but they will care about your actions, and that was the suffragettes’ motto:
“Deeds not words”. Historically speaking, violence has always been the answer, and oh boy
were the suffragettes violent.

Emmiline Pankhurst was arguably the most important member of the women Suffragettes. She
founded the Women’s social and political union, known as the WSPU and a women’s only
organization, in 1903. Her daughters, Sylvia, and Christabel Pankhurst joined her in later years
in leadership of the union. ???

Initially the WSPU's tactics were to cause disruption and some civil disobedience, such as
interrupting meetings only attended by men, organizing marches and rushes on parliament,
submitting to parliament petitions demanding the franchise for women, reaching a total of
almost three million signatures, and chaining themselves to government buildings. They also
preferred going to prison whenever possible to gain publicity for their cause.

Out of frustration at the lack of governmental action, however, a segment of the woman
suffrage movement became more violent under the leadership of Emmeline Pankhurst her
daughter Christabel. As the campaign became increasingly militant, over a thousand
Suffragettes, including Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel, Sylvia and Adela,
received prison sentences for their actions. Many Suffragettes were sent to Holloway Prison in
North London where they protested against the refusal to treat them as political prisoners by
going on hunger strike. In response, the government introduced a policy of force-feeding.
When force-feeding failed, the British government passed a law that was referred to by the
Suffragettes as the Cat and Mouse Act in 1913. This was a law that allowed hunger-striking
Suffragettes to be released from prison when they were weakened, but only 'on license’. Once
their health has been restored, or they reappeared in public taking part in militant Suffragette
actions, they would be re-arrested and returned to prison.

Christabel’s new tactics oversaw a nationwide bombing and arson campaign that the
newspapers quickly dubbed the ‘Suffragette Outrages’. They were attacking important figures
and arming themselves with catapults and missiles, attacking property and law-breaking. These
tactics attracted a great deal of attention to the campaign for votes for women.

One of the most dangerous suffragette attacks occurred in Dublin in 1912. Four suffragettes,
including Lizzie Baker, attempted to set fire to the Theatre Royal during a packed lunchtime
matinee attended by the Prime Minister. They left a canister of gunpowder close to the stage
and threw petrol and lit matches into the projection booth which contained highly combustible
film reels.

1912 was a turning point for the suffragettes, as they turned to using more militant tactics and
began a window-smashing campaign. Some members of the WSPU disagreed with this strategy
but Christabel Pankhurst ignored their objections. In response to this, the Government ordered
the arrest of the WSPU leaders although Christabel Pankhurst escaped to France.

The campaign was then escalated, with the suffragettes chaining themselves to railings, setting
fire to post box contents, smashing windows, and eventually detonating bombs.

In 1914, at least seven churches were bombed or set on fire across the United Kingdom. Places
that wealthy people, typically men, frequented were also burnt and destroyed whilst left
unattended so that there was little risk to life, including cricket pavilions, horse-racing
pavilions, churches, castles and the second homes of the wealthy. They also burnt the slogan
"Votes for Women" into the grass of golf courses.
They also targeted major works of art, such as March 14th, 1914, when a suffragette made
several cuts across Valezquez’s painting “the toilet of Venus” in the national gallery, aimed at
Venus’s torso, as a protest the government’s treatment of Emmeline Pankhurst.

One suffragette died under the King's horse, Anmer, at The Derby on 4 June 1913. she was
trying to attach a suffragette scarf or banner to the horse.

Violence was also not their only form of protest. Stung by the stereotypical image of the
strong-minded woman in masculine clothes created by newspaper cartoonists, the suffragettes
resolved to present a fashionable, feminine image when appearing in public. (slay)

The suffragettes' color scheme was purple for loyalty and dignity, white for purity, and green
for hope. Fashionable London shops sold tricolor-striped ribbon for hats, rosettes, badges, and
belts, as well as colored garments, underwear, handbags, shoes, slippers, and toilet soap. As
membership of the WSPU grew it became fashionable for women to identify with the cause by
wearing the colors, often discreetly in a small piece of jewelry and in December 1908 the
London jewelers issued a catalogue of suffragette jewelry in time for the Christmas season.
Sylvia Pankhurst said at the time: "Many suffragists spend more money on clothes than they
can comfortably afford, rather than run the risk of being considered outré, and doing harm to
the cause”.

Not only were they fighting for a revolution, but they were also accessorizing it. Slay.

In the early 20th century until the outbreak of World War I, approximately one thousand
suffragettes were imprisoned in Britain. While incarcerated, suffragettes lobbied to be
considered political prisoners. However, this campaign was largely unsuccessful.

By the start of WWI, however, the Women’s Suffrage Organizations shifted their energies to
aiding war effort. Meanwhile, public support of the woman suffrage movement grew in volume,
and public demonstrations, exhibitions, and processions were organized in support of women’s
right to vote, and their effectiveness did much to win the public wholeheartedly to the cause of
woman suffrage.
In 1897, New Zealand granted women's suffrage.
1902 Australia, 1906 Finland was the first European country where women could vote. Then
Norway in 1913.
In 1918 Representation of the People Act. Gave the vote to all men over the age of 21 and all
women over the age of 30 and in 1928, said act was reformed to grant all women above the age
of 21 the right to vote.

Egyptian Women:
The Egyptian women's movement is considered the oldest women's movement in the Arab
World.
It emerged in the last quarter of the 19th century.
However, during the reign of Mohammed Ali, a debate raged over whether female education
was essential to national development.
By 1914, there were 14 magazines devoted to women's issues.
And In 1924, Egypt became the 1s Islamic country to deveil women without state intervention.
The Egyptian Feminist Party was founded in 1923, and the Women's Political Party was
established in 1942 to coordinate the fight for women's equality & the revision of family law.
Women's full political rights gained recognition when Egypt won independence in (1956).
Nearly 40 years after the suffragettes.

As we come to the end of our presentation, we’d like you to use this as a reminder that when
western media tries to tell you can achieve freedom without violence, just point them towards
every page of their history books.