The Suffragettes are all over the media at the moment,
thanks to some very significant anniversaries. This blog-post is going to argue
that the Suffragettes were a lot less significant than they are cracked up to
be, so, in an effort to divert abusive criticism, I had better make two things
clear from the start. In the first place I have tremendous admiration for the
courage and determination of those who carried out militant actions. In the
second place I am a whole-hearted supporter of the rights of women then and
now.
My main point is that the strategy and tactics of the
militants were wrong-headed and probably counter-productive. Because of the way
things panned out, with the First World War moving all the goal posts
everywhere, it is quite likely that women in Britain would in any case have
gained the vote in parliamentary elections when they did. But history is not
about what might have happened, but about what did happen, and a good case can
be made for arguing that the Suffragette militancy delayed, rather than
speeded-up, the granting of the vote.
Far too few history teachers, and almost no members of the
general public, seem to be aware that the House of Commons voted in favour of
votes for women by an overwhelming majority in 1911. It is simply untrue that
women failed to get the vote during the decade before the First World War
“because men thought they were unfit for politics.” That point may be true,
more or less, for the late nineteenth century, but by the early twentieth
century things had changed. All sorts of male-dominated organisations (the
Labour Party and the Church of Scotland for example) were in favour of votes
for women. Women already had the vote in local elections and, as I have already
said, the great majority of MPs were in favour. The arguments had been won.
The arguments had been won partly as the result of a whole
host of social and cultural changes involving education, marriage laws, career
opportunities and so on. They had also been won by the efforts of a number of
dedicated and energetic women who had campaigned and argued for four decades on
a whole range of women’s rights – Josephine Butler, Elsie Inglis, Elizabeth
Garrett and others. Their leader, as far as the voting question was concerned,
was Millicent Fawcett, and her organisation is usually referred to as the
Suffragists. This label is a convenient way of distinguishing the “rational
argument” group from Mrs Pankhurst’s avowedly militant organisation.
Given that the arguments in favour of votes for women had
been won, there were four main obstacles to a change in the law. One was Queen
Victoria, who disapproved of the whole idea. Well, she had been removed by
death. Another very serious one was political disagreement about exactly which
women should get the vote and on what terms. This was a time, remember, when
not all adult men yet had the vote. (This obstacle will be easily understood if
you have followed the arguments about reform of the House of Lords in our own
day. Because the reformers are divided about the nature of the reform, the
minority of anti-reformers are able to block all proposals.) A third obstacle,
since we have just mentioned them, was the House of Lords. The issue was not
tested by a vote, but it seemed highly likely that the Upper House, with its
high proportion of crusty old dinosaurs, would vote against. And finally, by
sheer bad luck, the Prime Minister, Asquith, was against votes for women. Prime
Ministers can be overwhelmed by democratic or party pressure, but they are
enormously powerful when it comes to setting agendas, finding parliamentary
time and prioritising business. After the 1911 vote Asquith was able to put in
place all sorts of delaying tactics.
This prevarication was what provoked the militant
Suffragette outrages; the anger is entirely understandable. But as a tactic it
was totally misguided. Mrs Fawcett was in despair. For a pressure group to be
successful it must identify, and persuade, the key figures in the
decision-making process (as the Suffragists had been doing for a long time).
Lloyd George (a supporter) wrote to Mrs Fawcett that he feared the outrages
would make political victory impossible, and so it proved. We expect modern
governments to refuse to pay ransoms, or give way to terrorism. This line of
argument reinforced Asquith’s position. One influential member of his cabinet
was the famously obstinate Winston Churchill. He was hardly likely to support
votes for women after an axe had been thrown at him.
In fact the War came along and changed everything. Asquith
publicly admitted that his views had changed. So did other leading opponents.
Lloyd George became Prime Minister. In the atmosphere of national unity in the
face of danger, and in the surge of respect for the men who had volunteered and
for the women who had given themselves fearlessly to war work, the passing of a
new Reform Act raised no party-political questions. The absurd compromise of
offering the vote to women over thirty provided they were rate-payers or the
wives of rate-payers was enough to satisfy the remaining dinosaurs in the
Lords. Mrs Fawcett was consulted by the Speaker’s Committee that drew up the
Bill. It became law with very little fuss.
In fairness to the Suffragettes, it seems to me that their
militancy may have had a favourable effect on the decision-making process at
two points. One was Mrs Pankhurst’s 1914 declaration that she would put all the
resources of her movement behind the war effort. The outrages had caused so
much publicity that this was a moving gesture. The other, just possibly, was
that the politicians in 1916, discussing the issue, may have thought “We can do
without another wave of Suffragette militancy in the middle of this war. We had
better include women in our Bill to give the vote to all fighting men.” But I
have no direct evidence of this being said or thought.
If you
want to follow up this blog with some more reading, I particularly recommend
the work of Martin Pugh. His “Votes For Women In
Britain, 1867 1928 2nd Ed (New Appreciations in History)”, for example, is excellent.
If you would like something shorter, there is a piece by me available on Kindle:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Votes-A-Grade-History-Lectures-ebook/dp/B007Y617I2/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1370082160&sr=1-3&keywords=Votes+for+women
I will, as a footnote, admit to some personal bias on this
issue. My copy of “Millicent Garrett Fawcett” by Ray Strachey, was given by my
mother to her mother as an Easter present in 1945. My mother was a London University
No comments:
Post a Comment