Apush Dbq Research Paper

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Pages: 5

Women in the 19th century were treated as second class citizens, they were seen to be inferior to men, mentally, physically and emotionally which caused them to be unable to participate in such an important undertaking as voting. Women belonged to their husband, her soul purpose in life was to bring up her family and look after her husband this led to the common idea that men and women were separate spheres – they each had their own different duty in life. However, in the middle of the C19th education was beginning to become more common amongst middle class women. This raised awareness of their political position amongst women. The traditional boarding school e.g. Cheltenham Ladies’ College in 1858 aimed to prepare girls to be wives and mother. …show more content…
This was important in making changing attitudes the major reason why some women received the vote in 1918 as the increased social changes such as increased female education led to the change in society as women were able to prove themselves to be equal to men and to be seen to have the mental capacity which was capable of taking on such a challenge as voting, which eventually led to changes in the law. This was demonstrated by the changes to the law that allowed women to participate in politics at a local level, 1892 Local Government Act. This was significant in giving women the vote as the increased politicisation led to women starting to campaign, which can be seen by the rise of the suffragette and the suffragist campaigns. As Martin Pugh has argued the importance of this by saying: “involvement in politics at a local level made women’s exclusion from national politics increasingly untenable” . This was evidenced by the support for women’s suffrage seen in the House of Commons through the Conciliation …show more content…
In 1897 several local women’s suffrage societies united to form the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) under the leadership of Millicent Fawcett. The suffragists used a different approach they believed in: “peaceful persuasion” strategy. They campaigned by using meetings, pamphlets, petitions and parliamentary bills. The organisation had an impressive membership and spread support, the membership totalled 53,000 by 1914. The peaceful methods used by the suffragists led to the common misconception that the organisation was ineffective. However, the peaceful methods where arguably more effective than the violent method of the Suffragettes. As Joyce Marlow said: “For every Suffragette there was always dozens of non – militant suffragists” . Added to this, they attracted the support of many backbench MPs who regularly brought the issue up in parliament. They also were rumoured to gain the support of Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, in this archive, 22 August 1918: David Lloyd George clearly shows his opinions on women and the war and that he is in favour of women’s suffrage: “In the past I have heard it said that women were not fit for the vote because they would be weak when it came to understanding the issues and bearing the strains of a great war. My recent experience in South Wales confirmed