The Feminist Movement For Women's Suffrage In Britain

In the late 1800’s through the early 1900’s, women were not given the rights they have today and were being mistreated, but because of a few brave women who gave up their lives to fight for what they knew was right, this all changed. Many of these women were educated and brave, but were still denied their rights. Women have suffered through this long battle to get what they knew they deserved and took time out of their lives to fight for what they believed in, which was to have a voice. Women wanted to get the same respect that men were given. The women’s suffrage movement was not only in the United States, but it was all over the world. It took the women’s suffrage movement many years to work and come through, but women were finally able to vote and have the same rights as men. Through their work in the suffrage movement, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony and many more changed the role of women in society.

For the longest time, women’s role in society was very narrow and set in stone. Women weren’t given the chance to decide life for their own, and there was a very sharp distinction of gender roles. Women were viewed as inferior, weak, and dependant. They were expected to be responsible for the family and maintainance of the house. But as the 19th century began, so did a drastic change in society. Women started voicing their opinions and seeking change. Trying to break away from this ideology called “cult of domesticity” was a lengthy, burdensome, and demanding struggle.

This section on women's history will show the events that led to the suffrage movement and what the outcome was after the movement, plus how those events are involved in today's society. The women of the post suffrage era would not have the ability to the wide variety of professions were it not for their successes in the political arena for that time. In the early 1900’s when women were barred from most professions and limited in the amount of money they could earn, a group of suffragists led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton started to develop the women into an influential and powerful leaders of this country. The original women who started the suffrage movement had nothing to

The movement for women’s suffrage began well before the Progressive Era, in in the 1820’s, when women joined groups that wanted reforms. This was a difficult time for women to have a voice because they were mainly seen as property and should

Suffragists advocated for women 's enfranchisement to not only secure political rights for female, but also for social equality between genders. This is supported by the information that is outlined in the Declaration of Sentiments, which was written during the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. As a matter of fact, this convention initiated and set the notion of women 's enfranchisement into motion. In the declaration, pro-suffragist men and women implied that females were not treated equally to their male peers but repressed by the traditional values and ideas of the society. They also suggested that a woman did not have a legal entity under the law. Thus, the individual freedoms which are outlined in the Bill of Rights did not directly apply to women. Suffragists were convinced that in order to improve the social conditions of women, it was necessary for her to be politically represented, which can only be achieved by gaining the right to vote. It is essential to note that when referring to the social conditions, suffragists are pointing out issues, such as, women receiving smaller wages than men. Other social issues include: women having to give up the full child custody to her husband after divorce; women being discouraged from attending higher educational institutes; and more.

What if you’ve been given a million dollars to spend, what would yo do with it? During the Progressive Era(1900), there were a lot of issues with Conservation, Women’s suffrage, Child Labor, and Food Safety where people were upset with the U.S. and the way they had to live, So on 1913 there is an opportunity to distribute $1,000,000 amongst three sectors. There’s an opportunity to distribute/donate to Conservation since the U.S. would pollute their land and cut trees which cause major environmental/natural issues. To add on there’s a chance to distribute/donate to women’s suffrage since during the 1900’s the U.S. had unequal rights for women, and women weren’t able to vote which causes major issues/Civil Unrest between the women of the U.S.

The Woman’s Suffrage Movement is defined as the right for woman to vote. (Meriam Webster 2017). Before the 20th Century, women were considered to be property of their husbands. They were nothing more than pretty objects that were polished at “finishing schools”. Their minds were considered delicate, and inferior.

The traditional view of women has often been to stay at home clean, raise children and help with family conflicts. Women were restricted from gaining the same education rights as men, they were told that they could never be at the same rank of men when it came to jobs fields, they were considered the weaker sex, had no right to vote and were silenced. It was believed that men were more dominant and more intelligent than women encouraging women to stay at home and remain in the position of a housewife. However, the traditional views of women became very tiring to women which leads to the change that was soon to occur in the nineteenth century. Steven M. Buechler in his article review “The American’s Women’s Rights Movement, 1945 to the 1960s” states that the Women's Movement in the

The campaign for women’s suffrage in Britain movement key philosophy is that campaigners initially wanted women to vote on the same terms as it was granted to men. They wanted equality. As Vellacott stated, “Undoubtedly, individual suffragettes found liberation from the stifling conventions of their time in defying the canons of respectability, taking risks, and exhibiting extraordinary physical courage.”

The 18th century was a period of slow change for women’s rights in England. The Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution were coterminous at this point in history and brought the new thoughts about women’s rights to England in the late 1700s. In the 1700s women were not as concerned with voting as they were with divorce, adultery, and child custody rights. However, as the population of single women grew throughout the 18th and 19th century the concern for more rights for women became prevalent (Wolbrink, 4 Nov. 2011). By 1851, 43 percent of women in England were single and began to campaign frequency and sometimes forcibly for their rights (Wolbrink, 4 Nov. 2011). Reformer

Emmeline Pankhurst originally was an early supporter for Women’s Franchise Passion for Women’s Rights.Then she funded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903. This was an all women group advocating for women’s voting rights. When the they protested followers got arrested. This lead to the women protesting by refusing to eat in jail, which prompted the officers to give them violent force feeding sessions. The Prisoners’ Temporary Discharge for Ill Health Act was made so when a prisoner was sick, from not eating for example, they were released so they could become healthy again. ​

From the late 1850’s onwards the women’s suffrage movement took on a new era, with a growing crowd of followers, and two main movements the Radicals and the philanthropists of the fifties and sixties. () Both which were attributed to statesmen and philosophers: John bright, Richard Cobden and John Stuart Mill. One of the most important radicals was John Stuart Mill, whose aim was to create a “complete equality in all legal, political, social, and domestic relations which ought to exist between men and women.” He founded the British Woman Suffrage Association, who was opposed by the British Prime ministers William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli, as well as by the monarch Queen Victoria. In 1867 philosopher John Stuart Mill petitioned the

Social change in Britain has been achieved primarily through the hard work of organized political groups. These groups created events to recruit and educate supporters of social equality to join them in fighting for progress. The Women’s Suffrage Movement between 1866 and 1928 in Britain is no exception to this trend. The reason for the great efficacy of these political groups, including the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies and the Women’s Social and Political Union, was the women who pioneered the groups and fought alongside them to create the change that they believed in. The goal of these political groups was finally realized in 1928 with the passing of the Representation of the People Act. However, the Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain would not have been successful without the influential actions of several significant women. In addition to the overall necessity of female leadership for British Women’s Suffrage, the central efforts of Millicent Fawcett, Lydia Becker, and Emmeline Pankhurst particularly played a large role in the movement’s success.

Women’s Rights was one of the major social changes that began to gain attention in the media and to peak in active activity during the twentieth century. Women’s rights had been in the making since the eighteenth century. Some of the earliest documented words for Women’s rights appeared in a letter to John Adams by his wife Abigail Adams. During the making of the United States constitution (from the eighteenth to nineteenth century), she wrote to her husband and asked him to “remember the ladies”. The first state to permit women to vote in the United States (before the nineteenth amendment was drafted) was New Jersey. However, there were restrictions upon who was eligible to vote. Some of these restrictions included

Emmeline Pankhurst utilized the idea of revolution in several ways. Perhaps the most prominent way it was used was to describe the methods and reasoning that people would use to fight back against an injustice. She used the idea of revolution to explain the state of politics at the time in which women were denied the right to vote. They had adopted active methods of obtaining their political and representative rights. Women weren't able to get their complaints heard in ways that men could because they weren't able to vote. Women were being governed without approval and, because their concerns weren't being heard, they turned to revolutionary means instead. Pankhurst explained that if someone is not able to vote that they can either continue