Womens Rght To Vote

Women's Right to Vote Coursework

1. Study Source A. What can you learn from Source A about the reasons given by the suffragettes for demanding votes for women?

Source a show how the suffragettes thought that it was unfair that men that were irresponsible like convicts, lunatics and drunkards could vote. Unfortunately the responsible women like mayors, nurses, doctors or teachers that were mature could not vote.

As this source is coming from the suffragettes it shows that they thought the suffragists methods had failed. They may have also thought that their violent action didn't have any affect on them getting the vote. In the end suffragettes resorted to using the suffragists' tactics so they made themselves look silly.

2. Study sources B and C. Does Source B support the evidence of Source C about the suffragette campaign? Explain your answer by reference to both sources.

Source B is called "Women or Suffragette" which tells us Suffragettes are not classed as women by the author of the source, Marie Corelli maybe because Suffragettes were violent and unruly women where women stereotypes are not, hence the term, "Lady-like". Also, as a woman wrote the Source, a woman's view on Suffragettes is that they are not lady-like. Marie Corelli does not agree with letting women have the right to vote, but to rear their sons to treat women more equally as she says, "Women were and are destined to make voters rather than to be voters themselves". Maybe she has said this because she was raised with the attitude that women are only meant to be mothers and wives, rather than people with interests in other things like politics.

Source C, produced my a man, with male views is an illustration which shows a lady-like, mature and high class lady Ð'- the Suffragist who fights for her cause maturely on the other had the violent and unruly Suffragette, who is named as the" THE SHREIKING SISTER" who is thought to be making suffrage for women more difficult by using irresponsible and aggressive tactics to get her point across.

3. Study sources D and E and use your own knowledge. Why, despite the Suffragette activity, had women not gained the vote by the outbreak of the First World War?

Source D was written by a famous leader of the Suffragette group, Emmeline Pankhurst, says the methods of getting their point across had failed to do so. They had thought the public must have been taught about women's suffrage and the right for them to have it but there was already a large section of the public who were in favour of women's suffrage, which would have quickly given then the vote as simple as that but the government didn't agree. They wouldn't give the vote therefore the Suffragettes were to resort to fighting aggressively.

Source E also gives a reason for women not having suffrage, the MP who the quote was from, a man of high class, disagreed with it, and so the government rejected the idea. The opinion of this MP was regular as most MPs were afraid of women coming into powerful occupations and thought women in control of a country was a terrible idea as they cannot think for themselves, are not skilled enough and to immature to control a country.

Other reasons for women not getting the vote by 1914 are because of the bad behaviour of the Suffragettes, which had only given women the name of aggressive and out of control people who did not suit something as politically important such as the vote. They had been putting off their supporters. They had damaged their cause as they gave a reason, that they had irrational methods of getting women suffrage, for rejecting women's right to vote.

4. Study Sources F and G. How useful are these two sources as evidence for the contribution of women to the war effort in the years 1914-1918?

Source F, a poster of which is government propaganda produces in 1916 to make women want to join the Ð''women munitions workers', as there was a lack of workers since the workers would have been men but most men had gone to fight the war. The text Ð''Enrol at once' shows that the government really needed the workers then and there. The woman in the poster is in front of a man working, which implies that she was just needed as men. She is a stereotype of a woman, which are the women that are not able to do things besides be a wife and a mother. In the picture the woman does not look fragile and week but sturdy and able to do things that men can. This picture only suggests women worked in such jobs only men were suited for, but it doesn't actually give evidence that they had done. The poster may look informative of the contribution of women to the war effort during 1914-18 but we cannot tell if women were actually interested by this to join the war effort as looking at it doesn't tell us how women had reacted about the poster.

Source G is a table showing data of Ð''Women in Employment in Britain.' We can gather from this that between July 1914-18 which is the period of the WWI the figures for the amount of women working increases dramatically in jobs which women may have been seen as to hard to do. In one way the source is very useful because it tell us about the women's contribution to the war between 1914-18. It tells us that during the war women contributed to the war effort by working the jobs others couldn't do. It does not actually tell us why women did these jobs. It could have been because of things like the freedom to do the jobs because they never had that privilege before; because of the suffrage for women groups like Suffragettes and Suffragists, telling women to go to work, or maybe even the government propaganda encouragement. Both sources also don't tell us what women went through getting in to these jobs and helping the war effort, whether women were look down on by the men when first trying to help or if the government repeatedly asked women for the help they before, couldn't give.

5. Study Sources H, I and J use your own knowledge. Ð''It was the work that women did during the war that earned them the vote.' Use Sources H, I and J and your own knowledge, to explain