General Chat

Yes definitely strong women Huia and with determination to succeed,it would have been a hard life.

What a pity you never thought to ask your mother questions Sylvia,but at that time young folk didn't ask of their elders (or so it seemed to me at the time,)as I was guilty and now sorry I didn't ask more.

There were lots of working class women who became suffragettes,especially if they belonged to a Union,to fight for rights.....brave women I think.

I agree wholeheartedly with your last comment

Mau

My 4 gt grandmothers and some of their daughters were on the 1893 electoral roll, the first year that they could vote in NZ. I should think that they all voted. They all seemed to be strong minded independent women. I suppose they had to be to settle in a strange country.

Huia.

My mother was born in 1903, so would have been old enough to participate in some of the suffragette activities in 1918 or so.

BUT ...... that's another of those questions I never thought to ask her!

What is interesting is that practically everyhting I've ever read about suffragettes has been in London


Did anything really happen in the rest of the country? In Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Scotland? Or were the women in the North more concerned with plain survival in daily life?




In Canada, widows and unmarried women were granted the right to vote in municipal elections in Ontario in 1884. That right had been extended to all other provinces by 1900.

The right to vote in provincial elections was first granted in 1916, in Manitoba

The right to vote in a federal election took place in 2 stages:-

a) On Sept. 20, 1917, women gained a limited right to vote:- "women who are British subjects and have close relatives in the armed forces can vote on behalf of their male relatives, in federal elections."

b) The right to vote was extended to all women at the beginning of 1919 ..... though not in Quebec. It was 1940 before Quebec women could vote.


The first woman was elected federally to Parliament in 1921




I firmly believe that if you don't vote, whether male or female ........ you have no right to complain about what happens after an election is over!


:)))



sylvia

Julia I think the government appreciated the womens' work but there were other factors considered.
They probably thought that if they continued to imprison women, fighting for their rights, there could possibly be a public outcry.

Interestingly New Zealand was the first country to give women the vote.

Theres a lovely clip here on YTube

http://www.alicesuffragette.co.uk/alice_montage.html

.....and also with an account of her working class life....there are some very interesting drop down menus to read..

Spanish Eyes, One of the questions on the 'A' level paper I took a couple of years ago, for this period of history was.
"Was the Suffragete movement instrumental in achieving the vote for woman, because of WW1, or in spite of it. Debate"
There are many differing opinions on this, and you had to show that you were conversant with both sides. Not as easy a question as is first thought.
Julia in Derbyshire

The programme finished with the song..."Nana was a Suffragette" by Jules Gibb

I hadn't heard it before.

When women played such a big part in the first world war,they proved their worth right enough!

Thanks Bridget

Wat an interesting thread this could be. Just because I love a debate I thought that I would post this.

"Men and women were very opposed to the Suffragettes.


"One of the problems was the effrontery which people felt that the Suffragettes were behaving. People felt very threatened by them, because they were stepping out of their sphere; and people were very angry and took it as a rather personal challenge. And it wasn't just a male reaction; it was a female reaction, too. And once you have Suffragettes smashing windows, and burning down churches and attacking works of art, a great mass of society had a very negative view of them, which is, perhaps, not surprising.

"But very often the Suffragettes were responding to the treatment they were given by the police. They were responding to the stories they heard about prison, about Suffragettes being force-fed because they were on a hunger strike. So it was a fast-growing response to a very intense and brutalizing situation, which they felt that their sisters in prison were facing.

"When Suffragettes went to prison – and they could be arrested and sent to prison for quite trivial offenses – they went to prison and said: 'We are political prisoners. We demand special treatment.'These were rights, which had been fought for and won, in the 19th Century. So they said: 'We want special prison cells. We want to wear our own clothes. We want freedom of association. We want the rights of political prisoners. We're not asking for anything new, this has been established.'

"The authorities did not want to accept that this was a political campaign.

"They did not want to give them the political status that they were demanding. And so they said: 'No, you are ordinary, common criminals and you can be treated in this particular way,' which involved prison food, prison clothing, and no privileges.

"In response the Suffragettes said: 'Okay, we're going to demand our political rights, and we're going to go on hunger strikes. We're not going to take any food.'

"Now, the authorities at first said, 'Okay.' And they released them early from their prison sentences. Public opinion is not behind them on this. They say: 'Well, you've got convicted criminals in prison, you're letting them go. This will not do.'

"Then the government starts force-feeding.

"Force-feeding was done in three different ways.

"A Suffragette was taken out of her cell, was taken to the hospital ward of the prison. She was held down and often food was just pushed into her mouth, but she could spit it out.

"So the next two measures were the ones that were most used. One was the nasal tube. The nasal tube was where liquid food was poured down a funnel and gradually food trickles down into the back of the throat. Sylvia Pankhurst was rather unusual in the sense that she went on hunger, thirst, and sleep strikes. She wouldn't eat, she wouldn't drink, and she wouldn't go to sleep. She just paced her cell continuously. Of course her health broke down.

"We know that it had a psychological impact on women. Some women's health suffered quite a major breakdown. Very often the food went down the wrong way and the lungs filled with food, and there was pleurisy and pneumonia. There is a serious health risk, apart from the psychological damage, that this kind of experience could have on women."



Women and the Vote in Britain
The British Suffragettes

16.50hrs Spain

Yes Mau, we do owe them such alot.
I remember with pride, how on an election day when I was just over 21, I was able to vote. The fact I had something drop on the door mat that was actually addressed to me, myself, and not in the name of my OH, was a feet in it's self.
By then, I had gone to work and paid my taxes, I had married at 18, could go into a pub for a drink without the OH, had one child, and pregnant with another. Yet, I had to wait until I was 21 before I could vote
But I do believe that when women were first given the vote, they had to be 28, so I suppose it was an improvement.
Julia in Derbyshire

Hi Julia,I always think of that barbaric image too.
What they did in their struggle to gain women the vote, and recognition in many aspects of life fills me with admiration.

It wasn't only the middle classes who took part. I've just heard a Scottish listener (who became quite emotional) recalling the tales of working class men, women and girls,who,after finishing a very hard day's work,marched in the streets for the right to vote.
We owe them all such a lot!

Mau

Sorry, no Mau, but I did watch a programme on TV many years ago, and that was very interesting. It showed them being forced fed, and that image has always stayed with me.
Julia in Derbyshire

any GR members have/had a grandmother who was a suffragette? listening to interesting programme at the moment on radio 2 about the struggles of these brave women.

Mau