Campaigns for Women Suffrage and their Effectiveness

Campaigns for Women Suffrage and their Effectiveness

Throughout the nineteenth century, the suffragists and the

suffragettes worked hard campaigning for women suffrage. Finally, in

1918, the vote was given to women, but only women over thirty. But

suffrage campaigns, although important, were not the only reason that

the franchise was granted. Some other reasons include, a fear of the

return of suffragette activity, the government following an

international trend, the government making changes to the voting

system anyway, and the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, being more

sympathetic to the cause that the previous Prime Minister was.

The long-term factor was, in fact, the suffrage campaigns. Both the

suffragists and the suffragettes had very different styles of

campaigning. The suffragist's tactics were based on putting steady

pressure on politicians, by holding lectures, organising marches,

publishing leaflets and gathering petitions. They were led by

Millicent Fawcett, and the group consisted of mainly middle class

women, although many working class women were recruited. However, the

suffragette's tactics were nearly the opposite, for they used militant

tactics to attract as much attention as they could. They were a

breakaway group, and were led by Emmeline Pankhurst. The militant

methods that they used were very violent and radical. They felt that

the only way to gain suffrage was to show extreme force. 'Never before

[had the British ruling class] awarded the vote without some show of

force', stated Emmeline Pankhurst. They thought that politicians would

never be able to ignore them, if they were always in the spotlight.

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the franchise. Women had now won the right to have a say in how the

country was run because they had served their country well. But if

that was true, why did only women over 30 get the vote, when it was

mainly the younger, working class women who did most of the work? It

seemed that the government only gave suffrage to the less radical

women, and 'war work' was not such an important factor after all.

Suffrage campaigns were important to the gaining of the franchise,

because without the campaigns, the support, the publicity, the

changing opinions and putting the topic back on the political agenda,

it is very unlikely that women would have gained the vote. As women

hadn't yet gained the vote by 1914, it proves that even though the

suffrage campaigns were important, there was a trigger cause needed.