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Suffragist Movement Research Paper

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The suffragist movement was a movement that is highly important to British History. This movement started in around 1832 when the first suffrage petition was sent to Parliament Bartley (2003:32). The suffrage campaign focused on getting the vote for all women in the UK – regardless of their class. In the year 1918, any woman who was the age of thirty and were either on the local government register or married to a man on the local government register gained the right to vote. This in itself was a triumph but in 1928 all women gained the right to vote despite their martial or financial status Bartley (2003:1). During this campaign, there was two main groups, the suffragettes and the suffragists. These groups started off small and local to …show more content…

Liddington and Norris (2000:198). The Women’s Social and Political Party was accused of being ‘an autocratic, man-hating, organisation that was considerably less democratic than its rival’ (Bartley 2003:40). This statement alone shows how different the suffragette groups were compared to the suffragists. Men were not allowed to join these groups as that was thought to have denounced women’s independence and ability to think for themselves. Suffragist groups on the other hand, did allow men to join who were sympathetic to their cause. This may have been done as men were more prominent within politics and so their argument for women’s votes may have been taken more seriously than a woman’s argument. Another big difference is their campaigning styles. Suffragettes sometimes used illegal tactics – sometimes even endangering lives by putting bombs through MPs letterboxes. They were more militant when it came to demonstrations. Women within these groups would commit crimes such as tax evasion and resisting signing the census – they sometimes called this ‘constitutional militancy’ (Bartley 2003:69). A group of suffragettes once smashed the windows of the Treasury and the Home Office after being evicted from the House of Commons (Bartley 2003:70). This was one of the first acts of violence demonstrated by the Women’s Social and Political Party, it was seen as impassioned. Bartley (2003:69). This militant method may not have been

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