The right to vote in public elections, a suffragette struggle, is increasingly a militant struggle to seek government attention to their neglected voting rights. Having members of British that are known as Women’s Social and Political Union (WSU) in 1903, the movement had led to form a united front for the cause.
How and who propagated the women's movement?
The head of an organization was Emmeline Pankhurst, an intimidating woman, who carried out a fierce and vehement campaign to mitigate the battle against women's suffrage. The campaign was spearheaded under the banner of “vote for women” driven solely for the prevalent cause in the early 20th century.
Though the battle against women suffrage first rose in Parliament with general disdain in 1832, the movement had gained momentum in the early years of the 20th century, when organizations started to take a foothold all over the country. Despite the rising concern, there was also a strong discontent from common women, viewing these suffragettes as either moving too far or being deluded.
Highs and lows of the struggle:
Over time, there was strife within an organization of activists led by a militant front, causing it to split and the formation of Women’s Freedom League and East London Federation of Suffragettes respectively.
But Emmeline Pankhurst remains committed ferociously to her cause, intending to bring the British people’s attention by any means necessary. Their campaign was propagated on a sole motto of “Deeds, not Words”.
Violence and brutality propagated by campaign:
The suffragettes’ activists perpetuated the knock-out-and-drag-out campaign by pestering politicians, shattering windows of banks and public offices, setting fire to privately owned properties, chaining themselves to railings, carrying out a nationwide bombing and arson campaign, and confronting rage and scorn media.
These violent actions led to the imprisonment of many suffragettes, which became a significant feature of successive suffragettes’ trials. As demonstrations and activities of suffragettes have gained momentum, which was mobilized by WSU’s headquarters in London, the torture, assault, and ravish was further intensified by police officers.
The resultant detention of these activists had further radicalized this movement, as the detainees kept themselves on hunger strike. But prisoner authorities subjected these detainees to force-feeding.
In this instance, the first woman who has been forced to eat was Eveline Hilda Burkitt. As a result, force-feeding led to the gradual decline of the health status of inmates. In 1914, WWI broke out and the campaign was brought to halt.
Women’s role and support on the onset of World War:
The devotees of the campaign, consequently, started vehemently supporting Great Britain in the war effort to defend the country as ferociously as was in the suffragette movement. As the war ended, women aged over 30 gained voting rights through legislation passed by the name of Representation of the Political Act 1918.
How do women restore their electoral rights?
Eventually, after ten years of enduring period, women were able to gain electoral equality with men by Representation of the People Act 1928, thereby enabling all women to a casting vote having the age of 21.
Undoubtedly, the women’s suffrage movement was a decade-long fight to claim the vote for women's rights, but it bore fruit when on 18 August 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified by enfranchising all American women of their rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
The subsequent effects of the women's suffrage movement are evident in a range of educational, civil rights, and health care reforms, along with a rising number of women elected to governmental positions in succeeding generations.
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