Suffragettes

I chose to research suffragettes because they believed in the equality of the common person. It is only appropriate that I write about people wanting equality during the week of remembering Martin Luther King. The suffragettes wanted equal rights and to be able to do the basic things that all men could do politically, such as vote. They were thought to not have the brain capacity to vote and would make bad decisions that will affect the country in a negative way. "Suffrage" means the right to vote, which is what women wanted. They first believed in peaceful protest and felt that any violence would persuade men that women couldn't be trusted to have the common rights. Millicent Fawcett, the woman who founded the National Union of Women's Suffrage, argued for the rights of women. She planned to have patient and logical arguments saying that women could hold responsible posts in society such as teaching children the proper education, but couldn't be trusted to vote. Since women had to pay taxes just like men, they should have the same rights as men. One of her most powerful arguments was that wealthy mistresses of large manors employed gardeners, workmen, and labourers who could vote, but the women who did the employing could not. Regardless of their wealth, they still couldn't vote. Her process was very slow and most men in the Parliament believed that women would not understand how the Parliament worked, so they should not take part in the elections. The suffragettes started very peacefully, but in 1905 two women interrupted a political meeting to ask two politicians if they believed women should have the right to vote. Both politicians didn't reply and both women were thrown out fo the meeting and arrested. They were arrested for causing an obstructon and a technical assault on a police officer. Some women were eventually thrown into jail for burning down churches and for breaking all the windows on a street. Suffragettes refused to eat when they were thrown in prison and went on a hunger strike. The government didn't want the women to die in prison the government would be responsible for their deaths. The prison governors force fed Suffragettes, which caused even more contreversy. The government decided to use the Cat and Mouse Act, where they would let the women go on a hunger strike and when they were extremely weak, they would release them from prison. If they died from hunger out of prison, the government would not be blamed for it and if they survived, they were too weak to protest. If some of them started eating again, then the officials would arrest them again using the most trivial of reason and the whole process would start over again. This process was a very simple but effective weapon against the Suffragettes because they would slowly wear out the Suffragettes. The result was the Suffragettes becoming more extreme. The most memorable act was when a woman threw herself in front of the King's horse during a race. She was killed and the Suffragettes had their first martyr. But when Britain and Europe started World War One, the Suffragettes stopped the violence and supported the government and its war effort. Four years after the World War started, 1918, the Parliament passed the Representation of the People Act, which let women vote. They decided to let them vote because the work done by women in the war was vital for the Britain's war effort. Because of the World War, the women received their right to vote in Britain.