One of the main features of the 19th and 20th centuris is its relentless need for change. Although not every body wanted it at first, the strugle for freedom and equality brought about many changes in law and society. One of these changes was the improvement of women's status in the 20th century.One of the most fundamentle ways in which women's status improved in the 20th century was by the representation of the people's act in 1918. Although this act is famously known as the act that marked the success of the women's movement, it also had agreat impact on the male franchise. The two main aims of the act was to give all men the vote while also giving the upper class women the vote. The importance of the act was that firsty it franchised all men over the age of 21, secondly it franchised all women over the age of 31 who were either ratepayers or were the wives of ratepayers and finally it laid the way for the representaion of the people acts of 1928, 1948 and 1969.
The representation of the people's act in 1918 was passed through parliament for two main reasons. The first is the impact of the Women's Movement. The Women's Movement was lead by two main groups, the Suffragists and the Suffragettes. Both the groups had one objective, female suffrage. However, one employed mostly constitutional campagns and the other used mostly unconstitutional campaigning. The second reason is the impact of the First World War. The First World War created the Women's Movement an oppotunity to demonstrate that they were indeed all that their opponennts claimed they were not. Inaddition the first world war had the so called "democratizing" effect on Britan. Therefore the factors that lead to the representation of the people act in 1918 were war and protest. Hence, the way in which these two factors together brought abou the representation of the people act is detailed beolow.
The Women's Movement was the campaign by women for feamle suffrage prior to 1918. The representation of the people's act represented the triumph of the Women's Movemen. Therefore, this movement was one of the most influential factors for the passing of the representation of the people's act in 1918.
The women's movement did not begin on a specific date. It was simply the result of the attitudes of people changing through time. In 1851 the Shefield Women's Political Assossiation formed. Its aims were to spread political awareness amongst women. The forming of the Shefield Women's Political Assossiation was one of the first sighns of the beginning of the women's movement. However, it was not untill 1867 that the women's movement became a wide spread issue.
The status of the working and middle classes had begun to change in the 19th century. It started with the reform act of 1832. This act franchised most middle class men. Then a follow up was made with the reform act of 1867. To this John Stuate Mill, an English politician and philosopher, suggested that the act should be emmended in favour of women. Only 73 MPs favoured the ammendment and the move was defeated in parliament. Although this happened, it caused many "constitutional suffragist" soceties to form all around the country. The suffragists were those who used constitutional campaigning to spread their message. Their campaigning tactics mainly included handing out leaflets, demonstrating in public and presenting their case to politicians. These campaigns were co-odinated by the Central Committee of Women's Suffrage ( which formed in 1872) and was carried out by individual constitutional societies.
In 1897, Millicent Fawcett formed the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) and with it a new era in the women's movement.The NUWSS formed the main face of the women's movement. Although it carried on the same style of work that the earlier suffragists had done, it had too main new advantages. Firstly, they held more power. What ever the NUWSS said, it was backed by its 500 local branches placed all around the country. Secondly they were able to take larger action (they could for example hold larger demonstrations). However, the government always seemed to hve much more pressing matter to be concerned with such as the issue of Home Rule in Ireland, than to be concerned with the constitutional campaigns by the NUWSS and its suffragists. Therefore, in 1903, the face of the womens movement changed with the forming of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). The WSPU was lead by Emmeline Pankhurst. She was the founder of the Women's Franchise Leageu and had been disappointed by the lack of sucess by the suffragists. Emmeline Pankhurst noticed that the government was ignoring the suffragists and their constitutional campaigns. Therefore, she calculated that the government would have to respond to a more agresive form of campaigning.
At the start of the WSPU's (or the "suffragettes" as the Daily Mail called them in 1906) action in 1903, they used minor forms of violance such as disrupting political party meetings. However as the years passed, the campaigns beacame meore and more violant as bill after bill failed to make it passed parliament. The first time the suffragetts steped up their millitant campaig was in 1908 after after another bill for women's suffrage got no further than its second reading. The action taken by the suffragettes included throwing stones at NO.10 Downing Street and attmpting to march on the houses of parliament (for which Emmeline and her daughter Christable Pankhurst were both arrested and sentenced to three months in Holloway). The increased amount of violance caused a split betweened the suffragettes (WSPU) and the suffragists (NUWSS). Although many suffragists admired the suffragettes for their corage, they also felt that the violance was putting off many modeates from their cause. More violance came in 1910 when the First Conciliation Bill was rejected by parliament and suffragettes came into direct conflict with the police. However, the atmosphere calmed for a while in 1911 when the suffragetts called a truce while the Second Conciliation Bill was being debated in parliament. Thereofore, when the Bill was defeated, the suffragettes used more violance than they had ever used befor. In riots they smashed shop windows in the west end. After the Electeral Reform Bill was abandened in 1913, the violance further eccerlated, with Emmeline Pankhurst burning down David LLoyd Goerge's privet home and the other suffragettes resorting to bombing and arson. The imprisonment of many suffragettes followed. Inside the prisons they used hunger striking as a form of protest. Force feeding was used by the prisons and the horros of this meathod were used by the suffragettes as propaganda. Therefore in April 1913, the Cat and Mouse act was introduced to stop women from using hunger strikes as a form of protest. The highlight of 1913 came when suffragette Emily Davison "apparently" jumped infront of the Kings horse and commited suicied at Epsom. Her daeth was the last event that was to be of great importance for the Women's Movement before war broke out in July and August 1914.
The months of July and August 1914 brought war to the world and an oppotunity for women. The war required all the young men who had worked in the factories and replacements were hard t find. Therefor the government had to take on women to do work that had ben before branded as for men only, espetially in he amunition factories. Women also managed to do the jobs without fault. Thes suffragettes stoped their female suffrage campaigns and took on a campaign to enlist men into the army. By 1915 the government began to understand that they would have to change the voting rights in Britainas because it was unfair that many soldiers were not franchised. The women's movement pushed on but only applying preasure on the government to award them the suffrage as a reward for their effort.
The womens movement was such an influential factor in bringing about the representation of the people act was because it made wome's suffrage a wide spread issue. The suffragettes were more succesful by their meathods because Pankhurst's theory that "the arguement of the broken glass is the most effective arguement in mordern politics" in the end seemed to have been proven right. After they began their action the government was forced to take action. However, the representation of the peoples act would have not been passed if it was not for the first world war. It was because of the firsr world war that a new government had to be apointed and a reveiw of the voting rights made. It was also because of the war that women were able to blow people's perseptions that women were an inferior sex. Inadition the war provided the campaigns a brake, which alowed people to consider female suffrage without predjudice. Therefore it was because of the the women's movement that the
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