Suffrage for All

      Sisters of suffrage, without one, would the other have survived? The United Kingdom and the United States women fought eerily similar, within the same time period, for their right to vote. Their hopes for social peace and equal rights was what drove them to, sometimes, extreme measures in their fight. It is often debated that without one, would the other have made it? United Kingdom women were granted their limited suffrage in 1918, two years before United States women, but they had to continue fighting for 10 more years to gain universal suffrage. In the United States, women were granted full suffrage in the beginning. The fights played off each other quite a bit, showing many similarities, but there were big differences. This may explain why women in the United Kingdom had to fight longer for full suffrage.

      Within the United Kingdom suffrage was based on property, as well as, gender. This meant that they wanted to extend the vote to propertied women since non-propertied working-class men were still excluded from the vote. In the long run, in order to do this, they ended up first having to fight for the exclusion against men to be abolished. Once they had done that, two main suffrage groups were built. The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) who were coined the “suffragists” and the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), termed the “suffragettes”. The WSPU was vastly different from any groups in the US, using militant campaigning by chaining themselves to fences, burning down buildings, and causing disturbances within public meetings.

      In the United States, the fight was against suffrage along with racism. Granting suffrage to all women, meant having to grant the right to vote not only to men of color but women as well. While some agreed with this, many did not. This meant, that instead of fighting the federal government, they went state by state instead, allowing them to overlook this. The

level of militancy in the United States did not compare to that of the UK. They performed more peaceful campaigning with mass demonstrations, picketing, and pageantry.

      Both countries experienced social unrest before WWI. It was also thought that bringing women out of their “natural” social spheres was wrong. With everything working against them though, the women pushed through, gaining their rights in similar ways. While they may have not had direct contact with each other during these reforms, they played off of each other, quite well. I do believe that without the other, there would have been a longer and harder fight. The symbol of women’s freedom still stands tall as a symbolic issue, that leads women to still fight for their rights in both countries today.

Citations:

http://ap.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/politics-reform/essays/sisters-suffrage-british-and-american-women-fight-for-vote

https://www.bl.uk/votes-for-women/articles/the-campaign-for-womens-suffrage-an-introduction