The Ways in Which the Methods of the Suffragists and Suffragettes Were Different

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The Ways in Which the Methods of the Suffragists and Suffragettes Were Different

Although the Suffragists may be forgotten in history, they were as

active as Suffragettes and it was with the input of both of their

equally different methods that the vote won.

Suffragettes were militant, resourceful, intelligent and determined

and used violence and mainly illegal tactics to cause trouble and get

themselves into the publics eye to bring awareness to their cause.

Suffragists felt they were clearer about what they wanted to achieve

and how they were going to achieve it. They weren't opposed to the

suffragette methods; they just didn't believe that they would work and

felt that the less dangerous, legal methods would win for them in the

end. The NUWSS (suffragists) was much bigger than the WSPU

(suffragettes), in 1914 NUWSS had 100,00 members with 500 local

branches whereas WSPU only had 2,000 members.

NUWSS deviated as little as possible from accepted middle-class norms

of womanly behaviour. It stressed the feminine nature of the female

campaigners for the suffrage. John Stuart Mill was President for some

years in the 1860s and had insisted that the secretary of the society

should be a married woman. This contrasted with the approach taken in

the WSPU where there was less concern with femininity and more focus

on establishing a large-scale campaign. The establishment of a

national women's suffrage campaign was due to women such as Lydia

Becker who travelled round the country speaking at suffrage meetings.

She also edited the Women's Suffrage Journal from 1870 until she died

in 1881.

The WSPU was established in Manchester in 1903, the inspiration of the

Pankhurst family. It intended to combine suffrage work with the social

goals of Labour and Socialist women activists, including such things

as improved maternity provision. To start with, they resolved to limit

their membership exclusively to women and 'Deeds not Words' was to be

their motto.

The WSPU began their propaganda-based militant campaign when

Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney interrupted an election meeting

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