A Comparison of the Methods of the Suffragists and the Suffragettes
There were two main groups in Britain during the early 20th century
who were both fighting for the same cause, women’s suffrage. Although
in the end they both wanted the same outcome, they went about trying
to win the vote in completely different ways. the first group to be
established lead by Millicent Fawcett were the suffragists, they were
made up of mainly middle class well educated women, and the
suffragists believed the best way to get the vote was through peaceful
tactics such as petitions and peaceful marches. Groups began to set up
all over the country showing their support for this movement, and
eventually the unified in 1890, to work together to fight for women’s
suffrage. Their plan was to operate within the law, not offend anyone
and act as women were expected to in their day, which was for those
who were in the higher classes shop, eat lunch and attend social
events along with anything else their husband told them to. They
planned to use the strength of their argument as their main point of
persuasion. A famous quote from Mrs Fawcett was that the campaign was
like a glacier in that it was slow but unstoppable, and this is
basically the theory the suffragists based their campaign on. The
suffragists were successful in gaining greater equality with men
during the late 1800’s and then set their eyes on what they saw as a
significant milestone in their campaign, the campaign for suffrage.
Although the Millicent Fawcett led suffragists were making steady
progress, some campaigners were angry at the time it was taking for
them to succeed and felt the campaig...
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... The main differences in methods between the two groups are that the
suffragists had a peaceful rigid plan which they stuck with
throughout, whereas the suffragettes had a disruptive campaign that
escalated into an out of hand violent campaign. They started off with
the same aims but then they divided into two groups with opposite
attitude. The suffragists felt that the suffragettes were jeopardising
the years of work they had put towards the cause through their violent
actions, and although they were gaining publicity it was bad publicity
which was loosing them support, and they were even referred to as the
cause’s worst enemy. The suffragists saw the government as their key
to gaining suffrage whereas the suffragettes saw men as their enemy
and felt they had to pressure and intimidate them into giving women
suffrage.