Womens Right to Vote Essay - 1800 Words

Womens Right to Vote After aeons of being treated as second-class citizens, the women of Britain, around the 1860s, decided to campaign for suffrage and gain equal rights and their reasons for campaigning are explained below. Married women were always superseded by their husbands, could not own property and had few other rights. Divorce laws, too, were partial, favouring men more than women and practices like wife-battering and marital rape were still legal. After continuous campaigning, acts like the Married Womens Property Acts of 1870 and 1882, changes in divorce laws during the 1870s and 1880s and the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1884 were passed which slightly improved the situation†¦show more content†¦After such achievements, women often wondered why they were still ineligible to vote in national elections. The politicians, especially the Prime Minister, and later MP, Herbert Asquith were the main opponents of the women, often making unreasonable comments on female suffrage. The Labour Party (a minority in Parliament), however, did favour women and as time passed, the politicians started to see reason in the womens argument. Still, this wasnt too helpful until the coming of the war, when everyone, even if they refused to acknowledge it publicly, realised the importance of women in the country and the significance of giving them the vote. Realising this, the women used this argument to secure equal rights. Furthermore, Britain could not boast of being the Mother of Democracy while treating women as insignificant, second-class citizens. Women took advantage of this argument in an effort to gain equal rights and claimed that in the past, the country had had female rulers like Queen Victoria. The women were also influenced by Christian equality and used this in their arguments. Although the Church of England never made any official statements, certain Church heads like the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Bishop of Exeter and the Right Rev. Bishop of Edinburgh favoured votes for women. A Church League for Womens Suffrage was also established toShow MoreRelatedWomens Right to Vote1122 Words   |  4 Pagesï » ¿Womens Right to Vote Cover Letter ONE: My purpose in writing this essay in one sense is a reminder to myself and to anyone reading it that among the lesser known and yet enormously impactful injustices of the U.S. is the fact that it took 144 years from the time of the Declaration of Independence to 1920 when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was put in place. In those 144 years there were august debates about freed slaves rights to vote; and of course there was a bloody war over statesRead MoreA Womens Right to Vote Essay758 Words   |  4 PagesWomens Right to Vote August 26, 1920 was perhaps one of the greatest victories of the century for women. Now when the polls open women and men stand next to each other and cast a vote that holds the same importance. Every person should remember the time and effort it took to get here as they approach the poll booth. There was a struggle to over come and that struggle was won. The landmark acceptance of the Nineteenth Amendment changed the way of life in American forever. We were sixteenRead MoreWomens Right to Vote Essay974 Words   |  4 PagesWomen’s right to voting Right from the Preamble of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948), the â€Å"equal rights of women and men† are mentioned, together with the fundamental human rights, to be reaffirmed by the UN’s member states to form the background for the demonstration of the Declaration (Universal Declaration on Human Rights, 1948). 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On August 13, Emmeline Pankhurst called a temporary suspension to militancy and asked her followers to support her in the war effort. The suffragette movement was now effectivelyRead MoreWomens Failure to Gain the Right to Vote between 1900 and 19141835 Words   |  8 PagesWomens Failure to Gain the Right to Vote between 1900 and 1914 In the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, womens suffrage was never far from the headlines due to the constant bombardment of publicity stunts pulled by Emmeline Pankhurst and her Suffragettes. Using all within their power to gain attention, the Suffragettes believed in using direct persuasion, and if necessary, violent protest to remain in the public eye, pulling stunts fromRead MoreEssay on The Women770 Words   |  4 Pages The womens suffrage party fought for years on the right to vote. They werent going to stop until they got their right. For instance, Alice Paul organized a parade through Washington D.C. on inauguration day, which supported womens suffrage and also picketed the White House for 18 months. Paul was put in jail for that and started a hunger strike. Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Shanton supported the womens suffrage for fifty years later. Neither of them lived to see the 19th amendment ratifiedRead MoreThe Fight to Vote Essay1312 Words   |  6 Pageshave the right to vote. In many states, they could only vote if their state allowed them the privilege. The dedicated men and women fought for their right to vote in the Civil Rights Movement in the early and mid 1900s. Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act to give African Americans the rights to vote. It would have not occurred if the Civil Rights Movement had not taken place. The Nineteenth Amendment would not have occurred either if not for the Civil Rights Movement