Peaceful VS Militant The move for women to have the vote really started in 1897 when Millicent Fawcett founded the National Union of Women’s Suffrage. These women were known as the Suffragists. Suffragists: a member of the NUWSS who wished to obtain the vote through peaceful means - led by Millicent Fawcett. Fawcett believed in peaceful protest. She felt that any violence or trouble would persuade men that women could not be trusted to have the right to vote. Her game plan was patience and logical arguments. Fawcett argued that if women could hold responsible posts in society such as sitting on school boards – why could they not be trusted to vote; she argued that if parliament made laws and if women had to obey those laws, then women should …show more content…
She believed they needed to draw attention to the cause through active organization (S7.1). She started a separate society, the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903 and they became known as the Suffragettes. The aim of the NUWSS was to win the parliamentary vote for women on equal terms with men which under existing franchise laws required a property qualification. This goal was also adopted by the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU)(S16). They had the same goal of women enfranchisement but used different forms of civil disobedience in order to make their wishes known while fighting for their cause(S1 p.g 9). The motto of the Suffragettes was deeds not words. At first the movement wasn’t much more radical than the Suffragists but from 1912 onwards they became more militant and violent in their methods of …show more content…
In 1905 after the introduction of a private member’s bill for women suffrage, had been talked out of the House of Commons by anti-suffragists, Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter, Christabel, decided that more radical ‘militant’ methods were needed for the campaign to gain momentum. The aim throughout was never to endanger human life but to force the Liberal Government to act(S16). Such a change in strategy was a response to the stubbornness of the Liberal government of the day that, over a long period of time, had debated women's suffrage bills but never passed them, and then prohibited women from protesting in public arenas(S11). On 13 October 1905, Christabel and Annie Kenney, a working-class recruit to the WSPU, attended a Liberal Party meeting at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester and