The women’s suffrage movement is central to any study of gender and political history. Votes for Women provides an innovative and unrivalled re-examination of the movement, presenting new perspectives and dimensions which challenge existing literature on this subject.
This fascinating book charts the history of the movement in Britain from the nineteenth century to the postwar period, assessing important figures such as Emmeline Pankhurst and the militant wing and Millicent Garrett Fawcett, leader of the constitutional wing. The stories of forgotten women, such as Lily Maxwell and Lady Constance Lytton are told as well as Jennie Baines’s link with international suffrage movements. In addition, there are reappraisals of the ideas of British suffragism; of campaigns of women teachers; of the neglected Women’s Freedom League; of interwar activity, and of life away from the metropolis. An illuminating first chapter, which reviews the way that suffrage accounts have been written, illustrates how women’s history remains contested ground. Votes for Women examines the importance of the suffrage movement to women’s general emancipation in the twentieth century, and discusses its role as catalyst to women’s social and political equality.