129-560: Jessie Mary Grey Street (née Lillingston ; 18 April 1889 – 2 July 1970) was an Australian diplomat, suffragette and campaigner for Indigenous Australian rights, commonly referred to as Mrs Kenneth Street , but later dubbed "Red Jessie" by the media. As Australia's only female delegate to the founding of the United Nations in 1945 , Jessie was Australia's first female delegate to the United Nations , where she ensured
258-549: A first-day cover and postage stamp released by Australia Post in March 1975. The colours have since been adopted by government bodies such as the National Women's Advisory Council and organisations such as Women's Electoral Lobby and other women's services such as domestic violence refuges and are much in evidence each year on International Women's day . The colours of green and heliotrope (purple) were commissioned into
387-511: A 92-hour hunger strike, and for fear of her becoming a martyr, the Home Secretary Herbert Gladstone decided to release her early on medical grounds. Dunlop's strategy was adopted by other suffragettes who were incarcerated. It became common practice for suffragettes to refuse food in protest for not being designated as political prisoners, and as a result they would be released after a few days and could return to
516-456: A WSPU meeting at which Garrud spoke. As suffragettes speaking in public increasingly found themselves the target of violence and attempted assaults, learning jujitsu was a way for women to defend themselves against angry hecklers. Inciting incidents included Black Friday , during which a deputation of 300 suffragettes were physically prevented by police from entering the House of Commons , sparking
645-417: A considerable amount of force. The process was painful, and after the practice was observed and studied by several physicians, it was deemed to cause both short-term damage to the circulatory system , digestive system and nervous system and long-term damage to the physical and mental health of the suffragettes. The first suffragette to be forcibly-fed was Evaline Hilda Burkitt , who, between 1909 and 1914
774-757: A constitutional amendment in 1852 rescinded female voting and put property qualifications on male voting. The seed for the first Woman's Rights Convention in the United States in Seneca Falls , New York, was planted in 1840, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton met Lucretia Mott at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. The conference refused to seat Mott and other women delegates from the U.S. because of their sex. In 1851, Stanton met temperance worker Susan B. Anthony , and shortly
903-558: A designation, suffragettes would be placed in the First Division as opposed to the Second or Third Division of the prison system, and as political prisoners would be granted certain freedoms and liberties not allotted to other prison divisions, such as being allowed frequent visits and being allowed to write books or articles. Because of a lack of consistency between the different courts, suffragettes would not necessarily be placed in
1032-613: A local level. The two groups united became one and called themselves the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Throughout the world, the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which was established in the United States in 1873, campaigned for women's suffrage, in addition to ameliorating the condition of prostitutes. Under the leadership of Frances Willard , "the WCTU became
1161-663: A martyr to the cause. However, recent analysis of the film of the event suggests that she was merely trying to attach a scarf to the horse, and the suicide theory seems unlikely as she was carrying a return train ticket from Epsom and had holiday plans with her sister in the near future. In the early 20th century until the outbreak of World War I , approximately one thousand suffragettes were imprisoned in Britain. Most early incarcerations were for public order offences and failure to pay outstanding fines. While incarcerated, suffragettes lobbied to be considered political prisoners; with such
1290-636: A meeting at her home in Manchester to form a breakaway group, the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). From the outset, the WSPU was determined to move away from the staid campaign methods of NUWSS and instead take more positive action: It was on October 10, 1903 that I invited a number of women to my house in Nelson Street, Manchester, for purposes of organisation. We voted to call our new society
1419-460: A near-riot and allegations of both common and sexual assault. Members of the "Bodyguard" orchestrated the "escapes" of a number of fugitive suffragettes from police surveillance during 1913 and early 1914. They also participated in several violent actions against the police in defence of their leaders, notably including the "Battle of Glasgow" on 9 March 1914, when a group of about 30 Bodyguards brawled with about 50 police constables and detectives on
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#17327722360061548-466: A new coat of arms for Edge Hill University in Lancashire in 2006, symbolising the university's early commitment to the equality of women through its beginnings as a women-only college. During the 1960s, the memory of the suffragettes was kept alive in the public consciousness by portrayals in film, such as the character Mrs Winifred Banks in the 1964 Disney musical film Mary Poppins who sings
1677-486: A new view of what women were capable of. The war also caused a split in the British suffragette movement; the mainstream, represented by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst's WSPU calling a ceasefire in their campaign for the duration of the war, while more radical suffragettes, represented by Sylvia Pankhurst 's Women's Suffrage Federation continued the struggle. Prominent British-Indian suffragette Sophia Duleep Singh ,
1806-620: A niche in the Temple of Fame which will last for all time". In 1929 a portrait of Emmeline Pankhurst was added to the National Portrait Gallery 's collection. In 1987 her former home at 62 Nelson Street, Manchester, the birthplace of the WSPU, and the adjoining Edwardian villa (no. 60) were opened as the Pankhurst Centre , a women-only space and museum dedicated to the suffragette movement. Christabel Pankhurst
1935-408: A place in the voting booth . But the vote was much more than simply a reward for war work; the point was that women's participation in the war helped to dispel the fears that surrounded women's entry into the public arena. Pre-WWI opponents of women's suffrage such as the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League cited women's relative inexperience in military affairs. They claimed that since women were
2064-539: A result. Suffragettes were not recognised as political prisoners , and many of them staged hunger strikes while they were imprisoned. The first woman to refuse food was Marion Wallace Dunlop , a militant suffragette who was sentenced to a month in Holloway for vandalism in July 1909. Without consulting suffragette leaders such as Pankhurst, Dunlop refused food in protest at being denied political prisoner status. After
2193-486: A stomach pump. Force-feeding had previously been practised in Britain but its use had been exclusively for patients in hospitals who were too unwell to eat or swallow food. Despite the practice being deemed safe by medical practitioners for sick patients, it posed health issues for the healthy suffragettes. The process of tube-feeding was strenuous without the consent of the hunger strikers, who were typically strapped down and force-fed via stomach or nostril tube, often with
2322-698: A tax on men who were not married. This suggestion was made in preference to a proposal to introduce a new tax on the total income of married couples. The delegates were Vivienne Newson , Edna Lillian Nelson , Erna Keighley and Street. In 1949, Street was made a charter member of the Australian Peace Council . The Jessie Street Centre, the Jessie Street Trust, the Jessie Street National Women's Library and Jessie Street Gardens exist in her honour. She
2451-477: A term of derision by the journalist Charles E. Hands in the London Daily Mail to describe activists in the movement for women's suffrage , in particular members of the WSPU. But the women he intended to ridicule embraced the term, saying "suffraGETtes" (hardening the 'g'), implying not only that they wanted the vote, but that they intended to 'get' it. The non-militant suffragists found favour in
2580-629: A watch with attachment for explosion, but was clumsily fitted. If it had exploded when the streets were crowded a number of people would probably have been injured. There are reports in the Parliamentary Papers which include lists of the 'incendiary devices', explosions, artwork destruction (including an axe attack upon a painting of The Duke of Wellington in the National Gallery ), arson attacks, window-breaking, postbox burning and telegraph cable cutting, that took place during
2709-472: A women-only movement founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst , which engaged in direct action and civil disobedience . In 1906, a reporter writing in the Daily Mail coined the term suffragette for the WSPU, derived from suffragist (any person advocating for voting rights), in order to belittle the women advocating women's suffrage. The militants embraced the new name, even adopting it for use as
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#17327722360062838-474: Is they who even delegated as first ambassadors to discuss peace." The Iroquois, like many First Nations in North America, had a matrilineal kinship system . Property and descent were passed through the female line. Women elders voted on hereditary male chiefs and could depose them. The first independent country to introduce women's suffrage was arguably Sweden. In Sweden, conditional women's suffrage
2967-547: The Bounty mutineers who lived on Pitcairn Islands could vote from 1838. This right was transferred after they resettled in 1856 to Norfolk Island (now an Australian external territory). The emergence of modern democracy generally began with male citizens obtaining the right to vote in advance of female citizens, except in the Kingdom of Hawai'i , where universal suffrage was introduced in 1840 without mention of sex; however,
3096-663: The Liberia Women's League and the Liberian Women's Social and Political Movement , and in 1946, limited suffrage was finally introduced for women of the privileged Libero-American elite, and expanded to universal women's suffrage in 1951. One of the first occasions when women were able to vote was in the elections of the Nova Scotian settlers at Freetown . In the 1792 elections, all heads of household could vote and one-third were ethnic African women. Women won
3225-471: The Manchester Guardian : Friends of the women suffrage movement are entitled to reckon the great demonstration at Heaton Park yesterday, arranged by the Women's Social and Political Union, as somewhat of a triumph. With fine weather as an ally the women suffragists were able to bring together an immense body of people. These people were not all sympathisers with the object, and much service to
3354-670: The Contemporary Review , in which she said: It surely will not be denied that women have, and ought to have, opinions of their own on subjects of public interest, and on the events which arise as the world wends on its way. But if it be granted that women may, without offence, hold political opinions, on what ground can the right be withheld of giving the same expression or effect to their opinions as that enjoyed by their male neighbours? Two further petitions were presented to parliament in May 1867 and Mill also proposed an amendment to
3483-608: The Convention on the Political Rights of Women , which went into force in 1954, enshrining the equal rights of women to vote, hold office, and access public services as set out by national laws. One of the most recent jurisdictions to acknowledge women's full right to vote was Bhutan in 2008 (its first national elections). Most recently, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia , after both national and international condemnation and activism by feminist groups, granted Saudi women
3612-586: The Grand Duchy of Tuscany , in Italy, was the first European state to have a law that provided for the vote of women, for administrative elections, taking up a tradition that was already informally sometimes present in Italy. The 1853 Constitution of the province of Vélez in the Republic of New Granada , modern day Colombia , allowed for married women, or women older than the age of 21, the right to vote within
3741-541: The Manx women a determination to secure the franchise, and on 31 January 1881, women on the island who owned property in their own right were given the vote. In Manchester, the Women's Suffrage Committee had been formed in 1867 to work with the Independent Labour Party (ILP) to secure votes for women, but, although the local ILP were very supportive, nationally the party were more interested in securing
3870-569: The Sydney Eastern Suburbs seat of Wentworth , and nearly defeated him amid that year's massive Labor landslide. She led the field on the first count, and only the preferences of conservative independent Bill Wentworth allowed Harrison to survive. Her attempt was the closest a Labor candidate has ever come to winning the conservative stronghold of Wentworth . At the San Francisco Conference in 1945, Street
3999-632: The federation of the British colonies in Australia in 1901, the new federal government enacted the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 which allowed female British subjects to vote and stand for election on the same terms as men. However, many indigenous Australians remained excluded from voting federally until 1962. The first place in Europe to introduce women's suffrage was the Grand Duchy of Finland in 1906, and it also became
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4128-560: The "fighting line". After a public backlash regarding the prison status of suffragettes, the rules of the divisions were amended. In March 1910, Rule 243A was introduced by the Home Secretary Winston Churchill , allowing prisoners in the Second and Third Divisions to be allowed certain privileges of the First Division, provided they were not convicted of a serious offence, effectively ending hunger strikes for two years. Hunger strikes began again when Pankhurst
4257-686: The 1792 elections in Sierra Leone , then a new British colony, all heads of household could vote and one-third were ethnic African women. Other early instances of women's suffrage include the Corsican Republic (1755), the Pitcairn Islands (1838), the Isle of Man (1881), and Franceville (1889–1890), but some of these operated only briefly as independent states and others were not clearly independent. The female descendants of
4386-612: The 1867 Reform Act to give women the same political rights as men, but the amendment was treated with derision and defeated by 196 votes to 73. The Manchester Society for Women's suffrage was formed in January 1867, when Jacob Bright , Rev. S. A. Steinthal, Mrs. Gloyne, Max Kyllman and Elizabeth Wolstenholme met at the house of Louis Borchardt . Lydia Becker was made Secretary of the Society in February 1867 and Richard Pankhurst
4515-495: The 20th century, the Colony of New Zealand was the first to acknowledge women's right to vote in 1893, largely due to a movement led by Kate Sheppard . The British protectorate of Cook Islands rendered the same right in 1893 as well. Another British colony, South Australia , followed in 1895, enacting laws which not only extended voting to women, but also made women eligible to stand for election to its parliament. Following
4644-481: The 700-year-old Coronation Chair , only caused minor damage. Places that wealthy people, typically men, frequented were also burnt and destroyed whilst left unattended so that there was little risk to life, including cricket pavilions, horse-racing pavilions, churches, castles and the second homes of the wealthy. They also burnt the slogan "Votes for Women" into the grass of golf courses. Pinfold Manor in Surrey, which
4773-454: The Cat and Mouse Act, the WSPU instituted a secret society of women known as the "Bodyguard" whose role was to physically protect Emmeline Pankhurst and other prominent suffragettes from arrest and assault. Known members included Katherine Willoughby Marshall , Leonora Cohen and Gertrude Harding ; Edith Margaret Garrud was their jujitsu trainer. The origin of the "Bodyguard" can be traced to
4902-472: The Enfranchisement of Women . Becker was inspired to help gather signatures around Manchester and to join the newly formed Manchester committee. Mill presented the petition to Parliament in 1866, by which time the supporters had gathered 1499 signatures, including those of Florence Nightingale , Harriet Martineau , Josephine Butler and Mary Somerville . In March 1867, Becker wrote an article for
5031-524: The Finnish nation in 1917. In the years before World War I , women in Norway also won the right to vote. During WWI, Denmark, Russia, Germany, and Poland also recognized women's right to vote. Canada gave right to vote to some women in 1917; women getting vote on same basis as men in 1920, that is, men and women of certain races or status being excluded from voting until 1960, when universal adult suffrage
5160-404: The First Division and could be placed in the Second or Third Division, which enjoyed fewer liberties. This cause was taken up by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), a large organisation in Britain, that lobbied for women's suffrage led by militant suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst. The WSPU campaigned to get imprisoned suffragettes recognised as political prisoners. However, this campaign
5289-640: The Home Office passed the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act 1913 , or the Cat and Mouse Act as it was commonly known. The act made the hunger strikes legal, in that a suffragette would be temporarily released from prison when their health began to diminish, only to be readmitted when she regained her health to finish her sentence. The act enabled the British Government to be absolved of any blame resulting from death or harm due to
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5418-512: The Kingdom of Hawaii established a House of Representatives, but did not specify who was eligible to participate in the election of it. Some academics have argued that this omission enabled women to vote in the first elections, in which votes were cast by means of signatures on petitions ; but this interpretation remains controversial. The second constitution of 1852 specified that suffrage was restricted to males over twenty years-old. In 1849,
5547-638: The National Woman's Suffrage Association (NWSA) in May 1869. Their goal was to change the 15th Amendment because it did not mention nor include women which is why the NWSA protested against it. Around the same time, there was also another group of women who supported the 15th amendment and they called themselves American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). The American Women Suffrage Association was founded by Lucy Stone , Julia Ward Howe , and Thomas Wentworth Higginson , who were more focused on gaining access at
5676-497: The Pethick-Lawrences were arrested, tried and sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. On their release, the Pethick-Lawrences began to speak out publicly against the window-smashing campaign, arguing that it would lose support for the cause, and eventually they were expelled from the WSPU. Having lost control of Votes for Women the WSPU began to publish their own newspaper under the title The Suffragette . The campaign
5805-664: The Russian Grand Duchy of Finland , women gained equal suffrage, with both the right to vote and to stand as candidates in 1906. National and international organizations formed to coordinate efforts towards women voting, especially the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (founded in 1904 in Berlin , Germany). Most major Western powers extended voting rights to women by the interwar period, including Canada (1917), Germany (1918),
5934-774: The Transkei Legislative Assembly, established in 1963 for the Transkei bantustan , was granted to all adult citizens of the Transkei, including women. Similar provision was made for the Legislative Assemblies created for other bantustans. All adult coloured citizens were eligible to vote for the Coloured Persons Representative Council , which was established in 1968 with limited legislative powers;
6063-583: The United Kingdom ( 1918 for women over 30 who met certain property requirements, 1928 for all women), Austria , the Netherlands (1919) and the United States (1920). Notable exceptions in Europe were France, where women could not vote until 1944, Greece (equal voting rights for women did not exist there until 1952, although, since 1930, literate women were able to vote in local elections), and Switzerland (where, since 1971, women could vote at
6192-625: The WSPU and to raise money for the treatment of her son, Harry, who was gravely ill. By this time the suffragettes' tactics of civil disorder were being used by American militants Alice Paul and Lucy Burns , both of whom had campaigned with the WSPU in London. As in the UK, the suffrage movement in America was divided into two disparate groups, with the National American Woman Suffrage Association representing
6321-591: The WSPU at the other end. The unveiling of this dual memorial was performed on 13 July 1959 by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Kilmuir . The Pankhurst's name and image and those of 58 other women's suffrage supporters are etched on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square , London that was unveiled in 2018. In 1903, the Australian suffragist Vida Goldstein adopted
6450-562: The WSPU colours for her campaign for the Senate in 1910 but got them slightly wrong since she thought that they were purple, green and lavender. Goldstein had visited England in 1911 at the behest of the WSPU. Her speeches around the country drew huge crowds and her tour was touted as "the biggest thing that has happened in the women movement for sometime in England". The correct colours were used for her campaign for Kooyong in 1913 and also for
6579-577: The WSPU grew it became fashionable for women to identify with the cause by wearing the colours, often discreetly in a small piece of jewellery or by carrying a heart-shaped vesta case and in December 1908 the London jewellers, Mappin & Webb , issued a catalogue of suffragette jewellery in time for the Christmas season. Sylvia Pankhurst said at the time: "Many suffragists spend more money on clothes than they can comfortably afford, rather than run
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#17327722360066708-647: The Women , the 2015 graphic novel trilogy Suffrajitsu: Mrs. Pankhurst's Amazons and the 2015 film Suffragette . In recognition of having meetings at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the Suffragettes were inducted into the Hall's Walk of Fame in 2018, making them one of the first eleven recipients of a star on the walk, joining Eric Clapton , Winston Churchill , Muhammad Ali and Albert Einstein , among others who were viewed as "key players" in
6837-422: The Women's Social and Political Union, partly to emphasise its democracy, and partly to define its object as political rather than propagandist. We resolved to limit our membership exclusively to women, to keep ourselves absolutely free from party affiliation, and to be satisfied with nothing but action on our question. 'Deeds, not words' was to be our permanent motto. The term "suffragette" was first used in 1906 as
6966-436: The ballot," argued Adella Hunt Logan of Tuskegee, Alabama, "how much more do black Americans, male and female, need the strong defense of a vote to help secure their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" Scholars have proposed different theories for variations in the timing of women's suffrage across countries. These explanations include the activism of social movements, cultural diffusion and normative change,
7095-565: The birthplace of democracy, only adult male citizens who owned land were permitted to vote. Through subsequent centuries, Europe was ruled by monarchs, though various forms of parliament arose at different times. The high rank ascribed to abbesses within the Catholic Church permitted some women the right to sit and vote at national assemblies – as with various high-ranking abbesses in Medieval Germany, who were ranked among
7224-489: The building's history. In February 2019, female Democrat members of the US Congress dressed predominantly in white when attending President Trump's State of the Union address. The choice of one of the colours associated with the suffragettes was to signify the women's solidarity. Women%27s suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections . Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of,
7353-437: The cause must have been rendered by merely collecting so many people and talking over the subject with them. The organisation, too, was creditable to the promoters...The police were few and inconspicuous. The speakers went by special [tram]car to the Bury Old Road entrance, and were escorted by a few police to several platforms. Here the escorts waited till the speaking was over, and then accompanied their respective charges back to
7482-427: The conference deleted the reference to the vote. In the US, women in the Wyoming Territory were permitted to both vote and stand for office in 1869. Subsequent American suffrage groups often disagreed on tactics, with the National American Woman Suffrage Association arguing for a state-by-state campaign and the National Woman's Party focusing on an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The 1840 constitution of
7611-429: The council was however abolished in 1980. Similarly, all adult Indian citizens were eligible to vote for the South African Indian Council in 1981. In 1984 the Tricameral Parliament was established, and the right to vote for the House of Representatives and House of Delegates was granted to all adult Coloured and Indian citizens, respectively. In 1994 the bantustans and the Tricameral Parliament were abolished and
7740-550: The courtesy of expounding their views without interruption, the audience were outraged, and when the women unfurled a "Votes for Women" banner they were both arrested for a technical assault on a policeman. When Pankhurst and Kenney appeared in court they both refused to pay the fine imposed, preferring to go to prison to gain publicity for their cause. In July 1908 the WSPU hosted a large demonstration in Heaton Park , near Manchester with speakers on 13 separate platforms including Emmeline, Christabel and Adela Pankhurst. According to
7869-481: The electoral calculations of political parties, and the occurrence of major wars. According to Adam Przeworski, women's suffrage tends to be extended in the aftermath of major wars. Scholars have linked women's suffrage to subsequent economic growth, the rise of the welfare state, and less interstate conflict. 1962 (full) Aboriginal men and women were not given the right to vote until 1960; previously, they could only vote if they gave up their treaty status. It
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#17327722360067998-577: The federal level, and between 1959 and 1990, women got the right to vote at the local canton level). The last European jurisdictions to give women the right to vote were Liechtenstein in 1984 and the Swiss canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden at the local level in 1990, with the Vatican City being an absolute elective monarchy (the electorate of the Holy See , the conclave , is composed of male cardinals , rather than Vatican citizens). In some cases of direct democracy , such as Swiss cantons governed by Landsgemeinden , objections to expanding
8127-451: The first action for women's suffrage within the British Isles . The Pacific commune of Franceville (now Port Vila, Vanuatu ), maintained independence from 1889 to 1890, becoming the first self-governing nation to adopt universal suffrage without distinction of sex or color, although only white males were permitted to hold office. For countries that have their origins in self-governing colonies but later became independent nations in
8256-409: The first place in continental Europe to implement racially-equal suffrage for women. As a result of the 1907 parliamentary elections , Finland's voters elected 19 women as the first female members of a representative parliament. This was one of many self-governing actions in the Russian autonomous province that led to conflict with the Russian governor of Finland, ultimately leading to the creation of
8385-405: The first woman to be elected an MP was Constance Markievicz but, in line with Sinn Féin abstentionist policy, she declined to take her seat in the British House of Commons. The first woman to do so was Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor , following a by-election in November 1919. In the autumn of 1913, Emmeline Pankhurst had sailed to the US to embark on a lecture tour to publicise the message of
8514-419: The flag of the Women's Peace Army, which she established during World War I to oppose conscription. During International Women's Year in 1975 the BBC series about the suffragettes, Shoulder to Shoulder , was screened across Australia and Elizabeth Reid , Women's Adviser to Prime Minister Gough Whitlam directed that the WSPU colours be used for the International Women's Year symbol. They were also used for
8643-409: The franchise for working-class men and refused to make women's suffrage a priority. In 1897, the Manchester Women's Suffrage committee had merged with the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) but Emmeline Pankhurst, who was a member of the original Manchester committee, and her eldest daughter Christabel had become impatient with the ILP, and on 10 October 1903, Emmeline Pankhurst held
8772-400: The hunger-strikers. In September 1909, the Home Office became unwilling to release hunger-striking suffragettes before their sentence was served. Suffragettes became a liability because, if they were to die in custody, the prison would be responsible for their death. Prisons began the practice of force-feeding the hunger strikers through a tube, most commonly via a nostril or stomach tube or
8901-463: The inclusion of sex as a non-discrimination clause in the United Nations Charter . She was Lady Street from 1956, with the elevation of her husband Sir Kenneth Whistler Street . Jessie Mary Grey Lillingston was born on 18 April 1889 at Ranchi , Bihar , India. Her father, Charles Alfred Gordon Lillingston, JP (great-grandson of Sir George Grey, 1st Baronet ), was a member of the Imperial Civil Service in India. Her mother Mabel Harriet Ogilvie
9030-475: The independent princes of the empire. Their Protestant successors enjoyed the same privilege almost into modern times. Marie Guyart , a French nun who worked with the First Nations people of Canada during the 17th century, wrote in 1654 regarding the suffrage practices of Iroquois women: "These female chieftains are women of standing amongst the savages, and they have a deciding vote in the councils. They make decisions there like their male counterparts, and it
9159-404: The king 's horse at the 1913 Epsom Derby , made headlines around the world. The WSPU campaign had varying levels of support from within the suffragette movement; breakaway groups formed, and within the WSPU itself not all members supported the direct action. The suffragette campaign was suspended when World War I broke out in 1914. After the war, the Representation of the People Act 1918 gave
9288-549: The largest women's organization of its day and is now the oldest continuing women's organization in the United States." There was also a diversity of views on a "woman's place". Suffragist themes often included the notions that women were naturally kinder and more concerned about children and the elderly. As Kraditor shows, it was often assumed that women voters would have a civilizing effect on politics, opposing domestic violence, liquor, and emphasizing cleanliness and community. An opposing theme, Kraditor argues, held that women had
9417-402: The majority of the population, women should vote in local elections, but due to a lack of experience in military affairs, they asserted that it would be dangerous to allow them to vote in national elections. Extended political campaigns by women and their supporters were necessary to gain legislation or constitutional amendments for women's suffrage. In many countries, limited suffrage for women
9546-595: The methods of the suffragettes harmed the Liberal Party but failed to advance women's suffrage. When the Pankhursts decided to stop their militancy at the start of the war and enthusiastically support the war effort, the movement split and their leadership role ended. Suffrage came four years later, but the feminist movement in Britain permanently abandoned the militant tactics that had made the suffragettes famous. After Emmeline Pankhurst's death in 1928, money
9675-410: The more militant Women's Social and Political Union . Pankhurst would not be satisfied with anything but action on the question of women's enfranchisement, with "deeds, not words" the organization's motto. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott were the first two women in America to organize the women's rights convention in July 1848. Susan B. Anthony later joined the movement and helped form
9804-539: The more militant campaign and the International Women's Suffrage Alliance taking a more cautious and pragmatic approach Although the publicity surrounding Pankhurst's visit and the militant tactics used by her followers gave a welcome boost to the campaign, the majority of women in the US preferred the more respected label of "suffragist" to the title "suffragette" adopted by the militants. Many suffragists at
9933-450: The most militant years, from 1910 to 1914. Both suffragettes and police spoke of a "Reign of Terror"; newspaper headlines referred to "Suffragette Terrorism". One suffragette, Emily Davison , died under the King 's horse, Anmer, at The Derby on 4 June 1913. It is debated whether she was trying to pull down the horse, attach a suffragette scarf or banner to it, or commit suicide to become
10062-479: The most serious outrage yet perpetrated by the Suffragettes": Policemen discovered inside the railings of the Bank of England a bomb timed to explode at midnight. It contained 3oz of powerful explosive, some metal, and a number of hairpins – the last named constituent no doubt to make known the source of the intended sensation. The bomb was similar to that used in the attempt to blow up Oxted Railway Station. It contained
10191-468: The parcel. In 1911 suffragette organisations urged women and supporters of women's enfranchisement to boycott the 1911 census . Some wrote "Votes for Women" or other slogans on their census returns and others evaded the census by hiding overnight. Most famously, Emily Wilding Davison hid in the House of Commons overnight so that she could be enumerated in Parliament. 1912 was a turning point for
10320-458: The path of this right for women in the 1920s. By the time French women were granted the suffrage in July 1944 by Charles de Gaulle 's government in exile, by a vote of 51 for, 16 against, France had been for about a decade the only Western country that did not at least allow women's suffrage at municipal elections. Voting rights for women were introduced into international law by the United Nations' Human Rights Commission, whose elected chair
10449-446: The police, chained themselves to railings, smashed windows, carried out a nationwide bombing and arson campaign , and faced anger and ridicule in the media. When imprisoned they went on hunger strike , not eating for days or even a week, to which the government responded by force-feeding them. The first suffragette to be force fed was Evaline Hilda Burkitt . The death of one suffragette, Emily Wilding Davison , when she ran in front of
10578-473: The press, as they were not hoping to get the franchise through 'violence, crime, arson and open rebellion'. At a political meeting in Manchester in 1905, Christabel Pankhurst and millworker, Annie Kenney , disrupted speeches by prominent Liberals Winston Churchill and Sir Edward Grey , asking where Churchill and Grey stood with regards to women's political rights. At a time when political meetings were only attended by men and speakers were expected to be given
10707-654: The province. However, this law was subsequently annulled by the Supreme Court of the Republic , arguing that the citizens of the province could not have more rights than those already guaranteed to the citizens of the other provinces of the country, thus eliminating female suffrage from this province in 1856. In 1881 the Isle of Man , an internally self-governing dependent territory of the British Crown, enfranchised women property owners. With this it provided
10836-548: The right to vote in Sierra Leone in 1930. The campaign for women's suffrage was conducted largely by the Women's Enfranchisement Association of the Union , which was founded in 1911. The franchise was extended to white women 21 years or older by the Women's Enfranchisement Act, 1930 . The first general election at which women could vote was the 1933 election . At that election Leila Reitz (wife of Deneys Reitz )
10965-548: The right to vote in the Isle of Man in 1881, and in 1893, women in the then self-governing British colony of New Zealand were granted the right to vote. In Australia, the colony of South Australia granted women the right to vote and stand for parliament in 1895 while the Australian Federal Parliament conferred the right to vote and stand for election in 1902 (although it allowed for the exclusion of "aboriginal natives"). Prior to independence, in
11094-533: The right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffrage was in effect during the Age of Liberty (1718–1772), as well as in Revolutionary and early-independence New Jersey (1776–1807) in the US. The first territory to continuously allow women to vote to the present day is the Pitcairn Islands since 1838. The Kingdom of Hawai'i , which originally had universal suffrage in 1840, rescinded this in 1852 and
11223-448: The risk of being considered outré, and doing harm to the cause". In 1909 the WSPU presented specially commissioned pieces of jewellery to leading suffragettes, Emmeline Pankhurst and Louise Eates . The suffragettes also used other methods to publicise and raise money for the cause and from 1909, the " Pank-a-Squith " board game was sold by the WSPU. The name was derived from Pankhurst and the surname of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith , who
11352-581: The same moral standards. They should be equal in every way and that there was no such thing as a woman's "natural role". For Black women in the United States, achieving suffrage was a way to counter the disfranchisement of the men of their race. Despite this discouragement, black suffragists continued to insist on their equal political rights. Starting in the 1890s, African American women began to assert their political rights aggressively from within their own clubs and suffrage societies. "If white American women, with all their natural and acquired advantages, need
11481-525: The same voting rights as men in the Irish Free State constitution, 1922. In 1928, British women won suffrage on the same terms as men, that is, for ages 21 and older. The suffrage of Turkish women was introduced in 1930 for local elections and in 1934 for national elections. As the 19th Amendment passed and fully gave women the right to the vote, there were other contributors that made this happen. One of which being Alice Paul as she helped sealed
11610-542: The self-starvation of the striker and ensured that the suffragettes would be too ill and too weak to participate in demonstrative activities while not in custody. Most women continued hunger striking when they were readmitted to prison following their leave. After the Act was introduced, force-feeding on a large scale was stopped and only women convicted of more serious crimes and considered likely to repeat their offences if released were force-fed. In early 1913 and in response to
11739-602: The society formed a committee to draft a petition and gather signatures, which Mill agreed to present to Parliament once they had gathered 100 signatures. In October 1866, amateur scientist Lydia Becker attended a meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science held in Manchester and heard one of the organisors of the petition, Barbara Bodichon , read a paper entitled Reasons for
11868-572: The song " Sister Suffragette " and Maggie DuBois in the 1965 film The Great Race . In 1974 the BBC TV series Shoulder to Shoulder portraying events in the British militant suffrage movement and concentrating on the lives of members of the Pankhurst family, was shown around the world. And in the 21st century the story of the suffragettes was brought to a new generation in the BBC television series Up
11997-449: The special car. There was little need, apparently, for the escort. Even the opponents of the suffrage claim who made themselves heard were perfectly friendly towards the speakers, and the only crowding about them as they left was that of curiosity on the part of those who wished to have a good look at the missioners in the cause. Stung by the stereotypical image of the strong minded woman in masculine clothes created by newspaper cartoonists,
12126-749: The stage of St Andrew's Hall in Glasgow. The fight was witnessed by an audience of some 4500 people. At the commencement of World War I, the suffragette movement in Britain moved away from suffrage activities and focused on the war effort, and as a result, hunger strikes largely stopped. In August 1914, the British Government released all prisoners who had been incarcerated for suffrage activities on an amnesty, with Pankhurst ending all militant suffrage activities soon after. The suffragettes' focus on war work turned public opinion in favour of their eventual partial enfranchisement in 1918. Women eagerly volunteered to take on many traditional male roles – leading to
12255-404: The states of Colorado and Idaho from 1893 and 1896 respectively. In 1865 John Stuart Mill was elected to Parliament on a platform that included votes for women, and in 1869 he published his essay in favour of equality of the sexes The Subjection of Women . Also in 1865, a women's discussion group, The Kensington Society , was formed. Following discussions on the subject of women's suffrage,
12384-496: The streets. The membership of the militant WSPU and the older NUWSS overlapped and were mutually supportive. However, a system of publicity, Ensor argues, had to continue to escalate to maintain its high visibility in the media. The hunger strikes and force-feeding did that, but the Pankhursts refused any advice and escalated their tactics. They turned to systematic disruption of Liberal Party meetings as well as physical violence in terms of damaging public buildings and arson. Searle says
12513-696: The suffrage claimed that logistical limitations, and the absence of secret ballot , made it impractical as well as unnecessary; others, such as Appenzell Ausserrhoden , instead abolished the system altogether for both women and men. Leslie Hume argues that the First World War changed the popular mood: The women's contribution to the war effort challenged the notion of women's physical and mental inferiority and made it more difficult to maintain that women were, both by constitution and temperament, unfit to vote. If women could work in munitions factories, it seemed both ungrateful and illogical to deny them
12642-525: The suffragettes resolved to present a fashionable, feminine image when appearing in public. In 1908, the co-editor of the WSPU's Votes for Women newspaper, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence , designed the suffragettes' colour scheme of purple for loyalty and dignity, white for purity, and green for hope. Fashionable London shops Selfridges and Liberty sold tricolour-striped ribbon for hats, rosettes, badges and belts, as well as coloured garments, underwear, handbags, shoes, slippers and toilet soap. As membership of
12771-458: The suffragettes, as they turned to using more militant tactics and began a window-smashing campaign. Some members of the WSPU, including Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence and her husband Frederick, disagreed with this strategy but Christabel Pankhurst ignored their objections. In response to this, the Government ordered the arrest of the WSPU leaders and, although Christabel Pankhurst escaped to France,
12900-753: The third daughter of the exiled Sikh Maharajah Duleep Singh , campaigned for support for the British Indian Army and lascars working in the Merchant Navy . She also joined a 10,000-woman protest march against the prohibition of a volunteer female force. Singh volunteered as a British Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse, serving at an auxiliary military hospital in Isleworth from October 1915 to January 1917. The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies , which had always employed "constitutional" methods, continued to lobby during
13029-458: The time, and some historians since, have argued that the actions of the militant suffragettes damaged their cause. Opponents at the time saw evidence that women were too emotional and could not think as logically as men. Historians generally argue that the first stage of the militant suffragette movement under the Pankhursts in 1906 had a dramatic mobilising effect on the suffrage movement. Women were thrilled and supportive of an actual revolt in
13158-537: The title of the newspaper published by the WSPU. Women had won the right to vote in several countries by the end of the 19th century; in 1893, New Zealand became the first self-governing country to grant the vote to all women over the age of 21. When by 1903 women in Britain had not been enfranchised , Pankhurst decided that women had to "do the work ourselves"; the WSPU motto became "deeds, not words". The suffragettes heckled politicians, tried to storm parliament, were attacked and sexually assaulted during battles with
13287-559: The two would be joined in the long struggle to secure the vote for women in the U.S. In 1868 Anthony encouraged working women from the printing and sewing trades in New York, who were excluded from men's trade unions, to form Working Women's Associations. As a delegate to the National Labor Congress in 1868, Anthony persuaded the committee on female labor to call for votes for women and equal pay for equal work. The men at
13416-520: The vote and right to run for office for the first time in the 2015 local elections . The suffrage movement was a broad one, made up of women and men with a wide range of views. In terms of diversity, the greatest achievement of the 20th-century woman suffrage movement was its extremely broad class base. One major division, especially in Britain, was between suffragists, who sought to create change constitutionally, and suffragettes , led by English political activist Emmeline Pankhurst , who in 1903 formed
13545-530: The vote to women over the age of 30 who met certain property qualifications. Ten years later, women gained electoral equality with men when the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 gave all women the right to vote at age 21. Although the Isle of Man (a British Crown dependency) had enfranchised women who owned property to vote in parliamentary ( Tynwald ) elections in 1881, New Zealand
13674-589: The war years and compromises were worked out between the NUWSS and the coalition government. On 6 February, the Representation of the People Act ;1918 was passed, enfranchising all men over 21 years of age and women over the age of 30 who met minimum property qualifications, gaining the right to vote for about 8.4 million women. In November 1918, the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918
13803-637: Was Eleanor Roosevelt . In 1948 the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ; Article 21 stated: "(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures." The United Nations General Assembly adopted
13932-485: Was Australia's only female delegate to the founding of the United Nations , where she played a key role alongside Eleanor Roosevelt in ensuring that sex was included with race and religion as a non-discrimination clause in the United Nations Charter . In 1941 the future prime minister Ben Chifley received a united deputation from a number of women's organisations. They were encouraging him to create
14061-643: Was achieved. The Representation of the People Act 1918 saw British women over 30 gain the vote. Dutch women won the passive vote (allowed to run for parliament) after a revision of the Dutch Constitution in 1917 and the active vote (electing representatives) in 1919, and American women on August 26, 1920, with the passage of the 19th Amendment (the Voting Rights Act of 1965 secured voting rights for racial minorities). Irish women won
14190-538: Was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1936, and after her death in 1958 a permanent memorial was installed next to the statue of her mother. The memorial to Christabel Pankhurst consists of a low stone screen flanking her mother's statue with a bronze medallion plaque depicting her profile at one end of the screen paired with a second plaque depicting the "prison brooch" or "badge" of
14319-570: Was being built for the Chancellor of the Exchequer , David Lloyd George , was targeted with two bombs on 19 February 1913, only one of which exploded, causing significant damage; in her memoirs, Sylvia Pankhurst said that Emily Davison had carried out the attack. There were 250 arson or destruction attacks in a six-month period in 1913 and in April the newspapers reported "What might have been
14448-675: Was elected as the first female MP, representing Parktown for the South African Party . The limited voting rights available to non-white men in the Cape Province and Natal ( Transvaal and the Orange Free State practically denied all non-whites the right to vote, and had also done so to white foreign nationals when independent in the 1800s) were not extended to women, and were themselves progressively eliminated between 1936 and 1968. The right to vote for
14577-442: Was force-fed 292 times. Mary Richardson was recognized as the second suffragette to be force fed while imprisoned, describing her experience as "torture" and an "immoral assault." Some suffragettes who were force-fed developed pleurisy or pneumonia as a result of a misplaced tube. Women who had gone on hunger strike in prison received a Hunger Strike Medal from the WSPU on their release. In April 1913, Reginald McKenna of
14706-514: Was granted before universal suffrage for men; for instance, literate women or property owners were granted suffrage before all men received it. The United Nations encouraged women's suffrage in the years following World War II, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) identifies it as a basic right with 189 countries currently being parties to this convention. In ancient Athens , often cited as
14835-583: Was in effect during the Age of Liberty (1718–1772). In 1756, Lydia Taft became the first legal woman voter in colonial America. This occurred under British rule in the Massachusetts Colony . In a New England town meeting in Uxbridge , Massachusetts, she voted on at least three occasions. Unmarried white women who owned property could vote in New Jersey from 1776 to 1807. In
14964-570: Was knighted in 1976. Their other children were Belinda, Philippa and Roger. Street was a prominent figure in Australian and international political life for over 50 years, from the women's suffrage movement in England to the Aboriginal Australian rights. Street ran in the 1943 Australian federal election as a member of the Australian Labor Party against United Australia Party frontbencher Eric Harrison for
15093-663: Was known as Red Jessie due to her support of the Soviet Union during the Cold War . Suffragette A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom . The term refers in particular to members of the British Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU),
15222-542: Was largely hated by the movement. The board game was set out in a spiral, and players were required to lead their suffragette figure from their home to parliament, past the obstacles faced from Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and the Liberal government. Also in 1909, suffragettes Daisy Solomon and Elspeth McClelland tried an innovative method of potentially obtaining a meeting with Asquith by sending themselves by Royal Mail courier post; however, Downing Street did not accept
15351-605: Was largely unsuccessful. Citing a fear that the suffragettes becoming political prisoners would make for easy martyrdom, and with thoughts from the courts and the Home Office that they were abusing the freedoms of the First Division to further the agenda of the WSPU, suffragettes were placed in the Second Division, and in some cases the Third Division, in prisons, with no special privileges granted to them as
15480-664: Was led by several Egyptian women's rights pioneers in the first half of the 20th century through protest, journalism, and lobbying, through women's organizations, primarily the Egyptian Feminist Union (EFU). President Gamal Abdel-Nasser supported women's suffrage in 1956 after they were denied the vote under the British occupation. In 1920, the women's movement organized in the National Liberian Women's Social and Political Movement , who campaigned without success for women's suffrage, followed by
15609-527: Was not until 1948, when Canada signed the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that it was forced to examine the issue of discrimination against Aboriginal people. 1929 (All provinces, including princely states) The struggle for women's suffrage in Egypt first sparked from the nationalist 1919 Revolution in which women of all classes took to the streets in protest against the British occupation. The struggle
15738-539: Was one of the earliest members of the executive committee. An 1874 speaking event in Manchester organised by Becker, was attended by 14-year-old Emmeline Goulden , who was to become an ardent campaigner for women's rights, and later married Pankhurst becoming known as Emmeline Pankhurst . During the summer of 1880, Becker visited the Isle of Man to address five public meetings on the subject of women's suffrage to audiences mainly composed of women. These speeches instilled in
15867-463: Was passed, allowing women to be elected into parliament. The Representation of the People Act 1928 extended the voting franchise to all women over the age of 21, granting women the vote on the same terms that men had gained ten years earlier. The 1918 general election , the first general election to be held after the Representation of the People Act 1918 , was the first in which some women (property owners older than 30) could vote. At that election,
15996-490: Was raised to commission a statue, and on 6 March 1930 the statue in Victoria Tower Gardens was unveiled. A crowd of radicals, former suffragettes and national dignitaries gathered as former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin presented the memorial to the public. In his address, Baldwin declared: "I say with no fear of contradiction, that whatever view posterity may take, Mrs. Pankhurst has won for herself
16125-495: Was subsequently annexed by the United States in 1898. In the years after 1869, a number of provinces held by the British and Russian empires conferred women's suffrage, and some of these became sovereign nations at a later point, like New Zealand, Australia, and Finland . Several states and territories of the United States, such as Wyoming (1869) and Utah (1870), also granted women the right to vote. Women who owned property gained
16254-649: Was the daughter of Australian politician Edward David Stuart Ogilvie . She was involved with Dorette Margarethe MacCallum and others who were challenging the patriarchy at the University of Sydney where the men were trying to monopolise the sports facilities. In 1911 as a Bachelor of Arts . In 1916, she married Kenneth Whistler Street , who was knighted in 1944. Her father-in-law Sir Philip Whistler Street served as Chief Justice of New South Wales , as did her husband Kenneth and their youngest son, Laurence , who
16383-522: Was the first self-governing country to grant all women the right to vote in 1893, when women over the age of 21 were permitted to vote in all parliamentary elections. Women in South Australia achieved the same right and became the first to obtain the right to stand for parliament in 1895. In the United States, women over the age of 21 were allowed to vote in the western territories of Wyoming from 1869 and Utah from 1870, as well as in
16512-484: Was then escalated, with the suffragettes chaining themselves to railings, setting fire to post box contents, smashing windows and eventually detonating bombs, as part of a wider bombing campaign . Some radical techniques used by the suffragettes were learned from Russian exiles from tsarism who had escaped to England. In 1914, at least seven churches were bombed or set on fire across the United Kingdom, including Westminster Abbey , where an explosion aimed at destroying
16641-412: Was transferred from the Second Division to the First Division, inciting the other suffragettes to demonstrate regarding their prison status. Militant suffragette demonstrations subsequently became more aggressive, and the British Government took action. Unwilling to release all the suffragettes refusing food in prison, in the autumn of 1909, the authorities began to adopt more drastic measures to manage
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