Women's Suffrage Movement Analysis
The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Great Britain was conceived in 1832, when the Great Reform Act was passed which specified that only “male persons” were allowed to vote. The efforts gained momentum in the early 1900s with the founding of Suffrage Societies such as the Women’s Social and Political Union and the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. The movement ended in 1928, when women gained the right to vote through the Representational People Act, which allowed women over the age of twenty-one to vote. The Women’s Suffrage Movement has been the subject of much analysis and consists of a plethora of different viewpoints on the cause of suffrage, women and organizations that played a part in the movement, the timeline, and its political
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aspects.
Early works regarding the Women’s Suffrage Movement in Great Britain are for the most part written by those who participated in the movement such as the Pankhursts, Emmeline, Sylvia, and Christabel, along with others such as Ray Strachey. Sylvia Pankhurst, in her book The Suffragette; The History of the Women’s Militant Suffrage Movement, 1905-1910, gives the reader a chronological timeline of events and discusses the background of the movement, such as its ideas and motivating factors. The Cause: A Short History of the Women’s Movement in Great Britain by Ray Strachey also works off of a timeline of events. Strachey analyzes the social and political aspects of the movement, instead of the movement as a whole.
Sylvia Pankhurst, Political activist and Suffragette during the Women’s Suffrage Movement in Great Britain, gives her point of view growth of the movement along with the ideas, motivating factors in The Suffragette; The History of the Women’s Militant Suffrage Movement, 1905-1910, which was first published in 1911. In her writing, Pankhurst discusses the movement from 1905 until 1910 and includes strategies of suffragists and describes the consequences that often followed. These consequences included: arrest, imprisonment, hunger strikes, and forced feeding. Pankhurst includes photographs in order to illustrate events such as demonstrations, court trials, and others. The political aspects of the movement, such as the General Election of 1906, during which Suffragettes were determined to make sure that the person who became the next Prime Minister would work towards giving the vote to women is also discussed by Pankhurst.
The Cause: A Short History of the Women’s Movement in Great Britain by Ray Strachey, a British Feminist Politician and writer during the movement, was first published in 1928. Strachey analyzes the societal and political aspects of the movement along with the events that occurred during the time period in which the movement occurred. She discusses women’s place in the home and the discontent that was felt by many women by drawing upon the writings of people such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Florence Nightingale, and Jane Austen. Strachey writes about women in the workforce, such as Elizabeth Blackwell, who was a doctor, along with other women in the workplace. Strachey also focuses upon the political aspects of the movement, what she terms “the deceitfulness of politics”, the failed reform bill, and the Franchise Bill which would allow women the right to vote.
Works written during the 1970s and 1980s regarding British Suffrage analyze different aspects of the movement. Some authors discuss the militancy campaign that was prominent during this time period. Others analyze the suffragist organizations that were created, important people and their roles, political aspects, and many more.
Andrew Rosen, a British historian, asserts that the development of the different forms of aggressiveness within the movement were part of a premeditated plan in order to help progress and make the Women’s Suffrage Movement one of importance by examining the Women’s Social and Political Union. This Union was a militant organization that campaigned for women’s right to vote from 1903 until 1914. Information is given to the reader regarding the laws concerning a married woman and her ownership of property in order to help set the stage for the Women’s Suffrage Movement that would later take place. Rosen discusses the reasons why militancy was effective and the many social and political changes that were brought on by war. These would eventually lead to securing the vote for women. In his writing, Rosen draws upon previously unpublished correspondences between Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst and her colleagues, along with other primary source documents that are related to the movement.
Historian and Doctor of Public Policy, Les Garner, works to discover the main ideas that became an important aspect of suffragist organizations such as the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, the Women’s Freedom League, and the Women’s Social and Political Union. He discusses how they determined the oppression of women and their proposed solutions to the problem of that oppression. Garner also analyzes the publication of “The Freewoman”, which was a weekly feminist newspaper that was published between November of 1911 and May of 1912. Garner builds his case mostly from primary sources of the time period, such as sources written by those in the movement, newspaper articles about the previously mentioned groups, and meeting minutes and reports of groups such as the Women’s Freedom League.
Sandra Stanley Holton, a Women’s Historian, argues in Feminism and Democracy: Women’s Suffrage and Reform Politics in Britain, 1900-1918 that groups other than the Women’s Social and Political union, specifically other suffragists who drove the campaigns of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, successfully brought about an alliance between the suffragists and the labor movement, which helped to secure the vote for women. Holton gives a new interpretation to the Women’s rights movement in Great Britain. Over the course of the book, Holton discusses the ethical points of the Women’s suffrage movement, the different groups that were involved, the labor alliance and campaign, the impact that war had on the movement, and the eventual success in obtaining the vote for women.
Faces of Feminism: A Study of Feminism as a Social Movement by Olive Banks attempts to unify the first feminist movement of “old” feminism to the second feminist movement of “new” feminism in both Great Britain and the United States. Banks follows a chronological timeline from 1840 up until the 1980s. She describes the contribution that the Great Awakening had to the movement, the equal rights campaign of the French Revolution, and the feminist ideas and goals. Banks also discusses moral reform, the idea of females as superior beings, industrialization and its effect on women, and ends with the vote for women and she discusses life after winning the vote for women. Dr. Banks focuses on the social aspects of the movement regarding its birth, life, and its continuing into the modern day.
Political Scientist Joni Lovenduski works to compare and contrast progress in women’s politics within different countries in Europe in her writing Women and European Politics: Contemporary Feminism and Public Policy. She describes the movements of feminism as a first wave movement, a second wave movement, the political behavior, representation, and management of women, and the corporate woman. Lovenduski examines and discusses the political aspects of the movement, such as political participation, interests, ideology, and activism. She also references many secondary sources regarding the topic, such as Olive Banks’ Faces of Feminism, along with others. Lovenduski also incorporates tables into her writing in order to help the reader put the information into perspective.
In the 1990s, writings such as Susan Kingsley Kent’s Sex and Suffrage in Britain 1860-1914, The Women’s Movements in the United States and Britain from the 1790s to the 1920s by Christine Bolt, and Harold L. Smith’s The British Women's Suffrage Campaign, 1866-1928 examined different aspects of the Women’s Suffrage Movement than their predecessors. Kent discusses the social aspects of the movement; Bolt analyzes several aspects of the movement and compares it to the Women’s Suffrage Movement in the United States, and Smith discusses the origins of the movement.
Sex and Suffrage in Britain, 1860-1914 by British Historian Susan Kingsley Kent states that the feminist movement was meant to change how women were perceived. British Suffragists, like all other suffragists, sought to change the fact that women were judged based on their biology and worked towards changing the male dominated public sphere of politics. She lays the foundation regarding the background of the Women’s Suffrage movement by discussing “the sex”, referring to women, and aspects of their everyday life that affected them such as prostitution, marriage, doctors, and the law, along with the sex war, and finally, suffrage. All of these aspects make up the groundwork of the feminist movement that was women’s suffrage. Kent uses the writings such as Olive Banks Faces of Feminism, Les Garner’s Stepping Stones to Women’s Liberty, and Andrew Rosen’s Rise up, Women!, to support her argument.
In The Women’s Movements in the United States and Britain from the 1790s to the 1920s, Christine Bolt, a Women’s Historian, compares and contrasts the Women’s Movements in the United States and Britain.
She examines the settings of the movement, economically, socially, religiously, educationally, and politically. The forces that shaped the women’s suffrage movement, such as social change, advances in educational, religious movements, and opportunities for social reform, are also considered. Bolt then discusses the movements themselves in three parts: the first taking place from 1840 to 1860, second 1870 until 1880, and third from 1890 until 1914. Bolt references several other works regarding the Women’s movement, such as Olive Banks’s Faces of Feminism: A Study of Feminism as a Social Movement, and Sex and Suffrage in Britain 1860-1914 by Susan Kingsley Kent. Bolt concludes that both movements had a similar timeline, and both organized after a period of feminism in writing and a social movement for change. The two groups also felt that advances in education for women would lead to the advances of their cause and progress on issues, such as the improvement of education, on which men agreed and had …show more content…
sympathy.
The British Women’s Suffrage Campaign, 1866-1928, by British Historian Harold L. Smith works to explain how the Women’s Suffrage movement came about. Smith details the Victorian Suffrage Campaign and its origins, ideas, proposed legislation, parties that grew from it, and the role of the local government. Smith argues that the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), which was first started in 1897 and lasted until 1910, was more aggressive than other groups. The Women’s Social and Political Union, which worked toward achieving the vote for women from 1903 until 1914, is described by Smith as being controversial due to the idea that some give it the credit for being the group that was in many ways responsible for giving women the right to vote. Smith argues that this is not the case and that the WSPU just revived the movement in the early 1900s. In the NUWSS- Labor Alliance, which lasted from 1910 to 1914, the NUWSS aligned itself with the Labor party in order to gain more traction regarding the vote for women. The War and Suffrage reform from 1914 to 1918 allowed the suffrage movement to move forward in many ways. There were many obstacles to obtaining the vote for women, such as, Prime Minister Asquith’s resignation in 1916, as he had previously opposed the suffrage movement, along with the abandoning of the militancy movement by the WSPU. The Equal Franchise campaign of 1918, which lasted until 1928, pushed for the enfranchisement of women, which culminated into the Equal Franchise Bill of 1928 that allowed for the enfranchisement of women. Finally, Smith assesses the importance of these groups in British History and bringing about the ability for women to vote.
Writings from 2000 into the present builds upon previously published works, newly available primary sources of information, and new interpretations of materials in order to look at the Women’s Suffrage movement in Great Britain in a new way or to strengthen the thesis of previously published works regarding the subject.
In, The March of the Women: A Revisionist Analysis of the Campaign for Women’s Suffrage, 1866-1914, Martin Pugh, a European Historian, claims that the Women’s Suffrage campaign in Great Britain was a gradual political process instead of a dramatic change in society or culture.
Pugh discusses the issues regarding the women’s movement, such as problems regarding the planning of the movement, organization, leadership, strategy, and the debate regarding the movement. He also discusses the movement itself, along with the militancy and non-militancy movements that came from the original movement. Pugh builds upon the ideas of his contemporaries, such as Olive Banks’s Becoming a Feminist: The Social Origins of First Wave Feminism, Sandra Stanley Holton’s Feminism and Democracy: Women’s Suffrage and Reform Politics in Britain,
1900-1918.
Krista Cowman, a Women’s Historian, works to map the victories and losses that women have had when they attempted to be a part of the political sphere in Great Britain, starting in 1659 with Queen’s Mary and Anne and ending in 1979 with Margaret Thatcher. Cowman gives an account of how women presented themselves in politics prior to, during, and after the vote was achieved for women. Cowman describes the political presence that was started with Queen’s Mary and Anne in the 17th century and lasting into the late 18th century, which later allowed other women to come on to the political scene. In the second part of the book, Cowman discusses the organization of the women’s movement, the campaign for suffrage, women in the conservative and liberal parties, and in socialism. The third part of the book discusses politics in Great Britain since the vote for women was won. She discusses women members of Parliament, female political party members, and also changes that took place in Feminist Organizations from 1920-1979. In her writing, Cowman departs from the writings of her predecessors by focusing on women in British politics as a whole and not just those who took part in the movement for Women’s Suffrage.
Since the beginning of the Women’s Suffrage Movement in Great Britain, scholars have been interested in the history, chronology, the reasoning, and the people who were involved in the movement, along with its place in history and the political, social, and cultural implications of this revolutionary movement. There are a multitude of scholarly works regarding this movement and its many aspects. These works have changed over time with new ideas about the movement, new sources, both primary and secondary, which discuss and examine different aspects of the Women’s Suffrage movement in Great Britain. Although the publications of scholarly works regarding this movement have become less frequent, I do not believe that scholarly publications on this movement will cease any time in the near future.
aspects.
Early works regarding the Women’s Suffrage Movement in Great Britain are for the most part written by those who participated in the movement such as the Pankhursts, Emmeline, Sylvia, and Christabel, along with others such as Ray Strachey. Sylvia Pankhurst, in her book The Suffragette; The History of the Women’s Militant Suffrage Movement, 1905-1910, gives the reader a chronological timeline of events and discusses the background of the movement, such as its ideas and motivating factors. The Cause: A Short History of the Women’s Movement in Great Britain by Ray Strachey also works off of a timeline of events. Strachey analyzes the social and political aspects of the movement, instead of the movement as a whole.
Sylvia Pankhurst, Political activist and Suffragette during the Women’s Suffrage Movement in Great Britain, gives her point of view growth of the movement along with the ideas, motivating factors in The Suffragette; The History of the Women’s Militant Suffrage Movement, 1905-1910, which was first published in 1911. In her writing, Pankhurst discusses the movement from 1905 until 1910 and includes strategies of suffragists and describes the consequences that often followed. These consequences included: arrest, imprisonment, hunger strikes, and forced feeding. Pankhurst includes photographs in order to illustrate events such as demonstrations, court trials, and others. The political aspects of the movement, such as the General Election of 1906, during which Suffragettes were determined to make sure that the person who became the next Prime Minister would work towards giving the vote to women is also discussed by Pankhurst.
The Cause: A Short History of the Women’s Movement in Great Britain by Ray Strachey, a British Feminist Politician and writer during the movement, was first published in 1928. Strachey analyzes the societal and political aspects of the movement along with the events that occurred during the time period in which the movement occurred. She discusses women’s place in the home and the discontent that was felt by many women by drawing upon the writings of people such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Florence Nightingale, and Jane Austen. Strachey writes about women in the workforce, such as Elizabeth Blackwell, who was a doctor, along with other women in the workplace. Strachey also focuses upon the political aspects of the movement, what she terms “the deceitfulness of politics”, the failed reform bill, and the Franchise Bill which would allow women the right to vote.
Works written during the 1970s and 1980s regarding British Suffrage analyze different aspects of the movement. Some authors discuss the militancy campaign that was prominent during this time period. Others analyze the suffragist organizations that were created, important people and their roles, political aspects, and many more.
Andrew Rosen, a British historian, asserts that the development of the different forms of aggressiveness within the movement were part of a premeditated plan in order to help progress and make the Women’s Suffrage Movement one of importance by examining the Women’s Social and Political Union. This Union was a militant organization that campaigned for women’s right to vote from 1903 until 1914. Information is given to the reader regarding the laws concerning a married woman and her ownership of property in order to help set the stage for the Women’s Suffrage Movement that would later take place. Rosen discusses the reasons why militancy was effective and the many social and political changes that were brought on by war. These would eventually lead to securing the vote for women. In his writing, Rosen draws upon previously unpublished correspondences between Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst and her colleagues, along with other primary source documents that are related to the movement.
Historian and Doctor of Public Policy, Les Garner, works to discover the main ideas that became an important aspect of suffragist organizations such as the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, the Women’s Freedom League, and the Women’s Social and Political Union. He discusses how they determined the oppression of women and their proposed solutions to the problem of that oppression. Garner also analyzes the publication of “The Freewoman”, which was a weekly feminist newspaper that was published between November of 1911 and May of 1912. Garner builds his case mostly from primary sources of the time period, such as sources written by those in the movement, newspaper articles about the previously mentioned groups, and meeting minutes and reports of groups such as the Women’s Freedom League.
Sandra Stanley Holton, a Women’s Historian, argues in Feminism and Democracy: Women’s Suffrage and Reform Politics in Britain, 1900-1918 that groups other than the Women’s Social and Political union, specifically other suffragists who drove the campaigns of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, successfully brought about an alliance between the suffragists and the labor movement, which helped to secure the vote for women. Holton gives a new interpretation to the Women’s rights movement in Great Britain. Over the course of the book, Holton discusses the ethical points of the Women’s suffrage movement, the different groups that were involved, the labor alliance and campaign, the impact that war had on the movement, and the eventual success in obtaining the vote for women.
Faces of Feminism: A Study of Feminism as a Social Movement by Olive Banks attempts to unify the first feminist movement of “old” feminism to the second feminist movement of “new” feminism in both Great Britain and the United States. Banks follows a chronological timeline from 1840 up until the 1980s. She describes the contribution that the Great Awakening had to the movement, the equal rights campaign of the French Revolution, and the feminist ideas and goals. Banks also discusses moral reform, the idea of females as superior beings, industrialization and its effect on women, and ends with the vote for women and she discusses life after winning the vote for women. Dr. Banks focuses on the social aspects of the movement regarding its birth, life, and its continuing into the modern day.
Political Scientist Joni Lovenduski works to compare and contrast progress in women’s politics within different countries in Europe in her writing Women and European Politics: Contemporary Feminism and Public Policy. She describes the movements of feminism as a first wave movement, a second wave movement, the political behavior, representation, and management of women, and the corporate woman. Lovenduski examines and discusses the political aspects of the movement, such as political participation, interests, ideology, and activism. She also references many secondary sources regarding the topic, such as Olive Banks’ Faces of Feminism, along with others. Lovenduski also incorporates tables into her writing in order to help the reader put the information into perspective.
In the 1990s, writings such as Susan Kingsley Kent’s Sex and Suffrage in Britain 1860-1914, The Women’s Movements in the United States and Britain from the 1790s to the 1920s by Christine Bolt, and Harold L. Smith’s The British Women's Suffrage Campaign, 1866-1928 examined different aspects of the Women’s Suffrage Movement than their predecessors. Kent discusses the social aspects of the movement; Bolt analyzes several aspects of the movement and compares it to the Women’s Suffrage Movement in the United States, and Smith discusses the origins of the movement.
Sex and Suffrage in Britain, 1860-1914 by British Historian Susan Kingsley Kent states that the feminist movement was meant to change how women were perceived. British Suffragists, like all other suffragists, sought to change the fact that women were judged based on their biology and worked towards changing the male dominated public sphere of politics. She lays the foundation regarding the background of the Women’s Suffrage movement by discussing “the sex”, referring to women, and aspects of their everyday life that affected them such as prostitution, marriage, doctors, and the law, along with the sex war, and finally, suffrage. All of these aspects make up the groundwork of the feminist movement that was women’s suffrage. Kent uses the writings such as Olive Banks Faces of Feminism, Les Garner’s Stepping Stones to Women’s Liberty, and Andrew Rosen’s Rise up, Women!, to support her argument.
In The Women’s Movements in the United States and Britain from the 1790s to the 1920s, Christine Bolt, a Women’s Historian, compares and contrasts the Women’s Movements in the United States and Britain.
She examines the settings of the movement, economically, socially, religiously, educationally, and politically. The forces that shaped the women’s suffrage movement, such as social change, advances in educational, religious movements, and opportunities for social reform, are also considered. Bolt then discusses the movements themselves in three parts: the first taking place from 1840 to 1860, second 1870 until 1880, and third from 1890 until 1914. Bolt references several other works regarding the Women’s movement, such as Olive Banks’s Faces of Feminism: A Study of Feminism as a Social Movement, and Sex and Suffrage in Britain 1860-1914 by Susan Kingsley Kent. Bolt concludes that both movements had a similar timeline, and both organized after a period of feminism in writing and a social movement for change. The two groups also felt that advances in education for women would lead to the advances of their cause and progress on issues, such as the improvement of education, on which men agreed and had …show more content…
sympathy.
The British Women’s Suffrage Campaign, 1866-1928, by British Historian Harold L. Smith works to explain how the Women’s Suffrage movement came about. Smith details the Victorian Suffrage Campaign and its origins, ideas, proposed legislation, parties that grew from it, and the role of the local government. Smith argues that the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), which was first started in 1897 and lasted until 1910, was more aggressive than other groups. The Women’s Social and Political Union, which worked toward achieving the vote for women from 1903 until 1914, is described by Smith as being controversial due to the idea that some give it the credit for being the group that was in many ways responsible for giving women the right to vote. Smith argues that this is not the case and that the WSPU just revived the movement in the early 1900s. In the NUWSS- Labor Alliance, which lasted from 1910 to 1914, the NUWSS aligned itself with the Labor party in order to gain more traction regarding the vote for women. The War and Suffrage reform from 1914 to 1918 allowed the suffrage movement to move forward in many ways. There were many obstacles to obtaining the vote for women, such as, Prime Minister Asquith’s resignation in 1916, as he had previously opposed the suffrage movement, along with the abandoning of the militancy movement by the WSPU. The Equal Franchise campaign of 1918, which lasted until 1928, pushed for the enfranchisement of women, which culminated into the Equal Franchise Bill of 1928 that allowed for the enfranchisement of women. Finally, Smith assesses the importance of these groups in British History and bringing about the ability for women to vote.
Writings from 2000 into the present builds upon previously published works, newly available primary sources of information, and new interpretations of materials in order to look at the Women’s Suffrage movement in Great Britain in a new way or to strengthen the thesis of previously published works regarding the subject.
In, The March of the Women: A Revisionist Analysis of the Campaign for Women’s Suffrage, 1866-1914, Martin Pugh, a European Historian, claims that the Women’s Suffrage campaign in Great Britain was a gradual political process instead of a dramatic change in society or culture.
Pugh discusses the issues regarding the women’s movement, such as problems regarding the planning of the movement, organization, leadership, strategy, and the debate regarding the movement. He also discusses the movement itself, along with the militancy and non-militancy movements that came from the original movement. Pugh builds upon the ideas of his contemporaries, such as Olive Banks’s Becoming a Feminist: The Social Origins of First Wave Feminism, Sandra Stanley Holton’s Feminism and Democracy: Women’s Suffrage and Reform Politics in Britain,
1900-1918.
Krista Cowman, a Women’s Historian, works to map the victories and losses that women have had when they attempted to be a part of the political sphere in Great Britain, starting in 1659 with Queen’s Mary and Anne and ending in 1979 with Margaret Thatcher. Cowman gives an account of how women presented themselves in politics prior to, during, and after the vote was achieved for women. Cowman describes the political presence that was started with Queen’s Mary and Anne in the 17th century and lasting into the late 18th century, which later allowed other women to come on to the political scene. In the second part of the book, Cowman discusses the organization of the women’s movement, the campaign for suffrage, women in the conservative and liberal parties, and in socialism. The third part of the book discusses politics in Great Britain since the vote for women was won. She discusses women members of Parliament, female political party members, and also changes that took place in Feminist Organizations from 1920-1979. In her writing, Cowman departs from the writings of her predecessors by focusing on women in British politics as a whole and not just those who took part in the movement for Women’s Suffrage.
Since the beginning of the Women’s Suffrage Movement in Great Britain, scholars have been interested in the history, chronology, the reasoning, and the people who were involved in the movement, along with its place in history and the political, social, and cultural implications of this revolutionary movement. There are a multitude of scholarly works regarding this movement and its many aspects. These works have changed over time with new ideas about the movement, new sources, both primary and secondary, which discuss and examine different aspects of the Women’s Suffrage movement in Great Britain. Although the publications of scholarly works regarding this movement have become less frequent, I do not believe that scholarly publications on this movement will cease any time in the near future.