Women’s vote

• 3 important reforms passed to give men more voting rights

  19th century
• The representation of the people act 1884 gave 60% of all men the vote
• During the 19th century British society believed men and women belong in separate spheres
• Men should be in the public sphere and make decisions in society while women should be in the private sphere and stay home to cook and clean and raise children
• Reasons why some women gained the vote in 1918


  • Suffragettes
  • Suffragists
  • War work
• Suffragettes


  The most important reason why some women gained the vote in 1918
• Suffragettes


  • Marion Wallace Dunlop
  • WSPU members like Sophia Duleep Singh
• Suffragettes


  • Used a broad range of tactics not just militancy
  • Gained publicity and sympathy from men who felt sorry for them
• Suffragettes smashed windows of businesses and government buildings


  Made women seem untrustworthy
• Suffragists


  Another reason why some women gained the right to vote in 1918
• Suffragists


  • Large scale peaceful demonstrations like the 1913 women's suffrage pilgrimage
  • NUWSS petitions
• NUWSS petitions gathered 260,000 signatures in 1896


  Achieved very little in over 40 years and there was a complete lack of progress in women's suffrage by 1914
• Suffragettes' militancy


  Many MP's took granting women's suffrage seriously
• Women's war work


  A reason why some women got the vote in 1918
• Women's war work


  • 900,000 women worked in munitions
  • 9000 worked in Gretna factory
• Restoration of prewar practices act 1919


  Forced many women out of the jobs they had been doing during the war
• By 1921 there were less women working in munitions than in 1911
• Suffragettes were more important than women's war work


  The women given the right to vote in 1918 align more closely with the membership of the WSPU than the women doing the war work