Suffragettes Dbq

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World War 1 (WWI) played a major role in getting the vote for women in Britain, however, the role of suffragette and suffragist movements cannot be ignored as a factor. On the one hand, WWI played a role in getting women’s franchise in Britain. Source A suggests that the war ‘helped women advance politically and economically’ and that it revolutionarised the industrial position of women- saying it ‘found them serfs and left them free’. Source F also agrees that WWI got women the vote saying when men left to fight, women took over their jobs, creating ‘new opportunities for women’, and that it even allowed educated, middle-class women to have a chance at professions previously closed to them. Source D also agrees with this statement saying …show more content…

Although they were unsuccessful in getting the vote, their failure led to the formation of a new, radical movement formed by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903 called the Suffragette movement. This is evidence of the determination of both these movements as being a factor in getting women’s franchise. Source A sees suffragette Millicent Fawcett and the National Union of Women’s Suffrage as having been persuasive by drawing attention to the work of women in the war and playing a great part in getting Liberal leader Henry Asquith to grant a minority of women the vote. In 1918, 8.5 million females were enfranchised. This is proof that the suffragette movement and the pressure it put on the government was another factor that helped women get the vote. Source B states that ‘suffragettes reacted with violence every time the campaign for women’s franchise got bogged down in politics.’ Suffragettes went as extreme as going on Hunger Strikes- and one particular suffragette- Emily Davison- went as far as throwing herself in front of the King’s horse at the Derby racecourse in 1913 and died. Source E also agrees with this, suggesting that the waging of guerrilla warfare such as the ‘orchestrating of systematic window-smashing and arson attacks’ definitely ‘raised the profile of the issue of women’s votes to that of national

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