On this day, 18 February 1918, the British parliament introduced voting rights to some women. This h
On this day, 18 February 1918, the British parliament introduced voting rights to some women. This had followed many years of militant and often violent struggle by women for the right to vote. The law gave the right to vote to women aged 30 and up who were homeowners or the wives of homeowners – essentially covering six million of Britain’s 11 million women. For the government this ensured that women’s votes would not outnumber men’s, many of whom had been killed during World War I. Millicent Fawcett, founder of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies said that they accepted the compromise as they did not want to “risk their prospects for partial success by standing out for more”. Despite five million women still being disenfranchised, organised feminism as a mass social movement had largely ceased to exist following the outbreak of the war in 1914, and other than the right to vote there was a powerful backlash against women’s rights. From women wage workers being lauded for saving the nation during the war, media outlets began attacking them for supposedly stealing men’s jobs. For example journalist Philip Gibbs complained that ex-servicemen could not find work because “the girls were clinging to their jobs, would not let go of the pocket-money which they had spent on frocks.” While nearly 1.5 million women entered the paid workforce during World War I, within three years of it ending, the number of women in paid employment had dropped to below its pre-war level.This is and informative account of the movement for women’s rights and World War I: http://libcom.org/history/world-war-i-demise-british-feminism-susan-kingsley-kentPictured: Asian suffragettes in London including Mrs P. L. Roy, Mrs Bhagwati Bhola Nauth and Mrs Mukerjea, June 17, 1911. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1654932944691849/?type=3 -- source link