100 Years since women got the vote

My DD is with a grouo of dancers from Rambert performing a celebration of the Anniversary at Victoria Station in London today. I am celebrating by belting out the March of the Women at the too of my voice, all day long. Here’s a link if anyone wants to join in. (I want this played at my funeral)
vimeo.com/109623197

We have come a long way - Womens Hour was interesting this morning.The next step for me is the need to alter the hours of parliament to 9-5 like most of the rest of us. Possibly a day a week in the constituency. Six weeks holiday, not school terms! and illegal to have a second job. Voting at midnight after the men have been to their club is ridiculous in 21st Century.

I was one of the ones that got the chance to vote at eighteen, when the voting age was changed, and the first time I voted was in the referendum to JOIN the EU. But I remember my much loved Auntie saying to me "women died to get you that vote, NEVER forget that! You owe it to those women to always vote! And if you don't, I'll come back and haunt you!"

I have always valued my vote and never miss the chance to use it, as a point of respect for those brave ladies.

Thank you gadaboutgran.

Good to see that Labour has a gender balanced shadow cabinet

I very nearly abstained in the referendum as I was so undecided, but I knew I HAD to vote, I just couldn't not, so I weighed it all up for the umpteenth time,and - voted!

The Scottish Parliament works 'family friendly' hours and MSPs are only allowed to vote if they have been in the chamber during the debate. High time Westminster adopted the same rules.

One of the reasons that there are so many Women MSPs (and a gender balanced cabinet) is that for most (but not for MSPs for Highlands and Islands) it is perfectly possible to have a normal family life, going to work in the morning and home most evenings, living in and spending weekends out and about in their constituency. This is good for male MSPs too, and shows what can be done where there is a will to change.

On the other hand MPs from Scotland (and other far flung parts of the UK) have to split their time between London and Home, maintaining 2 homes, spending hours travelling and seeing little of their families - a horrendous schedule which has destroyed many marriages.

Surely it is time to move to a sensible, centrally located modern Parliament and dispense with all the outdated, arcane rules and practices which lead to bad governance and undue strain on MPs trying to do their job of representing their constituents.

Love that brooch Mags50 - we all need to celebrate the work done by our grandmas to get us the vote - proud to say that the Pankhursts lived in the next street to my own grandma in Seedley, and that Emelline got married in the same church I did, and that my daughter went to Manchester High School for Girls which is where the Pankhurst girls went - great northern traditions underpin the suffragette movement - I'm in celebratory mood today.

There's no point in universal sufferage until you have a reasonably well-educated society. You'll just get Brexit, but worse.

Thanks Gadaboutgran
I’ve never heard that song before much to my shame. What a great anthem to have at your funeral - not for many years we hope!

What a patronising comment EW! I think you'll find that quite a few educated thoughtful women were among that 17 million voters!!

nigglynellie I think a slightly higher proportion of women voted to remain than men.

Are you suggesting that people should have an IQ test and a certain level of education before they are given the vote ExaltedW?
in which case I think quite a few of the male species may fail.

I'm sure they did Jalima, but to effectively say that those who didn't are ill educated in every respect and therefore not fit to vote is, to say the least a sweeping, patronising and simply not true statement, however you look at it!

In Denmark women were granted the vote in 1915, but sadly here too, most people (both men and women) know nothing of the hard work women (and a very few men) put in to make it possible for women to vote.

By 1915 women had been able to go to university since the late 1890s, simply because one brave young woman made up her mind she would read medicine. Once she had persuaded the University of Copenhagen to admit her, a couple of others followed suit and two years later the Faculty of Arts admitted a woman too. Now there are more women than men reading the humanities and more or less an equal number of both reading medicine or law.

A lot has happened in the last hundred years and now the women of Saudi Arabia will soon be legally able to drive cars! Another thing the rest of us take for granted!

Oh, I agree nigglynellie

In light of the research that stated that the brain isn't fully developed until age 25 I think that the voting age should be raised to 25. Talk of reducing it to age 16 is ridiculous.

I shall celebrate in ten years time with more enthusiasm. Giving the vote to over thirty year old property owners would not have helped the women in my family in 1918.

I also feel we should restrain our admiration of some of the suffragettes' methods. I would have chained myself to railings and probably thrown a few tomatoes at MPs but I hope I would not have burned homes, detonated bombs or admired those who did.

I value my vote and always use it but it was probably gained more by the suffragists (and the peaceful endeavours of women during WW1) than by the activities of the suffragettes.
I daresay I'll get backlash from this post but we have all witnessed too many outrages in recent years by people who (in their own minds) felt the end would justify the means. Endangering innocent lives is terrorism, whatever the cause.

GrannyRowe Looking back do you feel you made the right choice?

Other groups campaigned for the right for women to vote but it is the Suffragettes who are the most well-known.
The campaign for women's suffrage took several forms and involved numerous groups and individuals. The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), formed in 1897, was constitutional in its approach. This meant that it campaigned peacefully and used recognised ‘political’ methods such as lobbying parliament and collecting signatures for petitions. The group also held public meetings and published various pamphlets, leaflets, newspapers and journals outlining the reasons and justifications for granting women the vote. Members of the NUWSS and other such organisations were known as 'suffragists'.

In order to gain publicity and raise awareness, the more militant Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), formed in 1903, engaged in a series of more violent actions. They chained themselves to railings, set fire to public and private property and disrupted speeches both at public meetings and in the House of Commons. Members of the WSPU and other militant groups such as the Women's Freedom League were known as 'suffragettes'.
www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/21cc/struggle/suffrage/background/suffragettesbackground.html

Would they have succeeded without the violent actions of this group?
Probably, as other countries were becoming more enlightened and giving women the right to vote.

My fathers mother was a Suffragette, so not to vote would be an anathema to me.
I vaguely remember her, I am 72, so only little when she died.
But because of her I am truly grateful.
Her husband (my grandfather) was a German Jew who was interned in a concentration camp and made to go on a forced march and inevitably died. I never knew him.

I didn't realise until today that it was not only women (who met all the conditions) who got the vote but working-class men as well.

When there is a long and hard campaign for really deep s aged social change such as universal suffrage or the end to segregation (USA) or apartheid its inevitable that there will be a wide range of groups employing a wide range of methods. It’s probably a combination of all of that that eventually leads to change. What I’ve learned in this last few days is the depraved depths that some men went to punish the suffragettes - some of the forced feeding was done rectally and some women were subject to rape and beatings by police, prison officers and so on.

s aged = deep seated <must remember to preview>

Tahnks Mags for telling me the reason why the suffragists' colours were green, white, and violet.
At school, my house was Pankhurst, but i was deeply underwhelmed by her actions especially as I didn't like the violet button i haad to wear!!!
I have made my DCs well aware of how privileged they are to be able to vote once they are of age. I was brought up in a Third World country and in my lifetime pi was born in '48] the law changed from the only voters [leave women] had to be over 21 and property owners; then it changed to rate payers, then to those who was literate. My DM was a school teacher and taught many a servant/coloured person to read and write so as to empower them. Finally, just before I was 21 myself [do the maths] universal suffrage was brought in!
I wish we could have a sort of "miss out voting because you CBA and you miss voting the next time too". It might concertrate minds...