Scarica Saggio/Essay sulle suffragette e più Guide, Progetti e Ricerche in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! Women Suffrage in the U.K. "The Suffragettes" Women have always lived under a regime governed solely by men, and have been deprived of equal rights. In ancient Greek and Roman societies they were not even considered citizens, they did not have the right to participate in the assembly and were considered without independent thinking. Over time their role was defined, even more, they had the sole task of governing the house and their purpose was to procreate. Even in the most contemporary societies and close to our times they were equally considered inferior and history would not have changed if rebel figures had not distinguished themselves in activism and had fought so that the female figure could rise to the same level as the male one. The Suffragettes were a group of young women that took part in the ‘Votes for Women’ campaign whose aim was to give the right to vote to women in the UK. The leaders of the movement were Emmeline Pankhurst, her daughters Christabel, Sylvia, and Adela Pankhurst. They cooperated to form the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903 and as it grew in number and members it became the Suffragette movement as we know it. Their most peaceful fights were made by art, debate, propaganda, and attack on the property including window smashing and arson to fight for female suffrage. But they were willing to risk their life to obtain their rights: the protests became physical and violent and they chained themselves to buildings and destroyed them, blocking trains and streets. The imprisonment increased and problems with the police were an incredible difficulty. They arrived at a hunger strike where police officers tried to oblige prisoners to eat in their cells but they weren’t able and had a lot of lives on their behalf. It would be a mistake, however, to reduce the women's suffrage movement only to the request for the right to vote: women claimed to be equal to men politically (to be able to participate in political life), legally (to have equal rights and duties but above all equal treatment), socially (being able to have access to jobs previously reserved for men, such as teaching in high school) and economically (underpaid and dependent on their husbands, they wanted to be independent). It was the World War that proved even to the most retrograde of men that women were their equal. With most men fighting at the front, women filled many positions previously reserved for them and so, in 1918, the UK Parliament approved limited voting rights to the wives of household heads over the age of 30. The law of 2 July 1928 was suffrage extended to all women in the United Kingdom over the age of 21. However, even nowadays the consideration of women within political life is not always guaranteed: in some countries, such as Middle Eastern countries, does not allow women to take decisions, as they are considered not able to do it.
