Talk:Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom

Lily Maxwell
Merge tag has been on the above article for some time. I would merge it myself but I don't know enough about the topic to know whether Maxwell was even a significant figure in the context described, so probably one of the committed editors on this article could handle it better? Cheers Jdcooper (talk) 18:16, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

The seeds of political feminism
I intend to edit the first two paragraph of this section as I think it is misleading if not in error on several points.

Here's my analysis

"Although the vast majority of women did not have the vote in 1832 (most regions at this time required some sort of land ownership)"

"most regions" - surely we should be speaking here of constituencies.

I've just checked page 19 and 20 in Michael Brock's "The Great Reform Act" and totalled the number of constituencies in early 1832 as follows:-  113 county constituencies - 261 borough constituencies - and three university seats. (I've done my additions rather hurriedly so they might be out by one or two out.)

The franchise in the counties as far as I'm aware was property based. In England's boroughs (202) only 41 were property based. How the franchise was based in Welsh, Irish and Scottish borough I'm not entirely sure but I'm fairly certain it wasn't property based in each one. The probability therefore is that the franchise was not property based in most constituencies. (In 80 English boroughs the franchise lay with its freemen, in another 29 with members of the corporation, in another 38 scot and lot payers and in 14 potwallopers.)

"The vast majority of woman did not have the vote"

So how many women prior to 1832 did have the vote? I wish who ever makes such statements would come up with an answer. How many women for instance voted in the 1831 election? Was it a hundred? Ten? None?

I've read everything the twenty odd volumes of "The History of Parliament" has to say on fifty six English borough constituencies for the period 1660 - 1790 and there is not one mention of woman voting - although granted old Mrs Tookey in New Romney seemed to control four chap who did: her two sons and two nephews.

I'm only aware of one instance of a woman electing MPs. Elizabeth Copley did so between 1553 - 1555 seemingly on four occasions in the borough of Gatton. Her husband had been basically the borough's only elector (he owned it) and his son was still a minor on his death so his widow voted in his stead

""the Reform Act ....explicitly banned women from participating in local and national elections."

As far as I'm aware the Reform Act said nothing about local elections. It said nothing about women either as far as I'm aware. It did implicitly confirm, however, that women were not to have a role in the electoral system - it would have been astonishing had it not done so. The Act confirmed a number of things and the fact it confirmed that women were excluded from voting I don't think merits much attention.

" After the bill was passed, MP Henry Hunt argued that any woman who was single, a tax payer and had sufficient property should be allowed to vote. One such wealthy woman, Mary Smith, was used in this speech as an example."

The philosopher Jeremy Bentham advocated female suffrage before the Reform Act in 1818. (source page 176 "Parliamentary Reform" by John Cannon) and I have been informed by an authority of the period that there were other male supporters of female suffrage in the 1790s. The 1832 Reform Act did not therefore spark the advocacy of female suffrage

Ned of the Hills

217.155.193.205 (talk) 09:15, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Women voting prior to 1832
It was previously claimed, before my own deletion on the ground it was misleading,that prior to 1832:-

"a very small number of wealthy women were able to vote"

I have been advised that if there is any truth in this claim it is likely to be found in one or all of the following works:-

Elaine Chalus, Elite Women in English Political Life c. 1754-1790 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005)

Judith S. Lewis, Sacred to Female Patriotism: Gender, Class, and Politics in Late Georgian Britain (NY: Routledge, 2003),

Kathryn Gleadle and Sarah Richardson, eds, Women in British Politics, 1760-1860: the power of the petticoat (NY: St Martin's Press, 2000

I live some distance from a good library so it will be some time before I can check these books.

I would be very interested to learn if any of these books can verify that women voted in national elections prior to 1832 - and if so to what extent.

I believe if there were cases of women voting prior to 1832 they occurred very rarely and in exceptional circumstances. There would have to be quite a number of cases before it could be suggested that women were enfranchised prior to 1832. "One swallow does not a summer make."

Ned of the Hills

217.155.193.205 (talk) 08:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Suffragette Bias
This article is strongly biased towards the extremist (and minority) suffragette movement.

For instance the section "Suffrage as a sex war" is entirely about suffragettes, and not about suffrage.

--Gwat123 (talk) 00:12, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The "Suffrage as a sex war" section also reads as very opinionated and completely out of style for Wikipedia. I feel that a shorter paragraph outlining the gist of the existing paragraph would be more appropriate for the Wikipedia format because the current one reads almost like a sort of rant. 86.153.194.110 (talk) 07:28, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

NPOV Tag
I have added a NPOV tag to this article because I feel that the 'Sex War' section of the article reads like an essay on the feminist viewpoint on this area. I don't pretend to be any expert on this area (I got the standard education on the topic) but I feel that the article should simply describe the suffrage movement in the United Kingdom. The section on 'sex war' contains several unsourced statements, in particular:

''"Patriarchal society used the tools of sex-antagonism and sex-humiliation as a means of containment for the spread of the Suffrage movement, even during the early years of the new century."

"Looking to the firsthand accounts of the force-feedings, as evident in June Purvis' work, The Prison Experiences of the Suffragettes, one can easily start to see where this form of response took on a quality of rape."''

The first is entirely un-sourced, while the second appear to be an opinion based on Purvis' work. There are other areas of concern, but I feel those might be the major ones. Could someone with a better knowledge of the topic perhaps re-write the section? --92.236.22.96 (talk) 14:36, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. It reads like a rant, not a factual encyclopaedia article. What happened to the NPOV tag? I don't see it there. This section needs to be totally revised. 86.153.194.110 (talk) 07:29, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

I've added back in an NPOV tag under the sex war section that should link to this part of the talk page. 86.153.194.110 (talk) 07:31, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Timeline of eligible voters
I've recently come across articles that paint women's suffrage in the broader picture of voter eligibility. So, Prior to 1832 only 1 in 10 men could vote. After 1867 4 in 10 men could vote. But this was not a gender issue, only that eligibility was based on land ownership. From 1918 all women over 30 and all men over 21 could vote and finally in 1928 all adults could vote. As the eligibility was changed progressively from land ownership and class to adulthood the wants of both women and men's suffrage was met.

Sources:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/citizenship/struggle_democracy/getting_vote.htm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d25esQeBoU&feature=plcp

I know the Youtube vlog has an agenda, but surely the national archives offer a good reference to correct our perception that suffrage and equality was a singularly female pursuit. 90.193.233.41 (talk) 21:21, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

intro paragraph
I just removed the following sentence, on the grounds of (1) the fact that the claims are unsupported by citation 1, which it directly preceded, and (2) terrible wording.

"However some people at the time would think that the violent acts of militancy, of which the suffragettes strive towards to get them noticed by the public, was the very act of which was diminishing their social status amongst men and the NUWSS at the time."

-- Ty rS  21:28, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

CONTEXT
I would have preferred to have seen more context in this article.

For example, none of the women in my family could vote before 1918 but on the other hand, none of the men could either.

It's interesting, too, that in the era most discussed in the article (1832-1918), it was a woman, Queen Victoria, who wielded the greatest power and influence in the UK.

Finally, there is no mention of changes in women's suffrage that have not been based on sex, for example, the reduction of the voting age to 18. If the article is not to contain germane information such as this then the subject itself should be restricted e.g. "Women's Suffrage in the United Kingdom until 1928"

31.52.100.133 (talk) 10:07, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Martin Pugh appears to be an op ed writer
and not a particular scholar of renown. His work is not NPOV, and this article's heavy reliance on his works as the source of the "militant nature" of the push for suffrage undermines this article.

From a review of his works cited:

"Since the publication of George Dangerfield's influential 1935 text, The Strange Death of Liberal England, there has been a small number of male historians who have written within a similar masculinist framework that seeks to belittle the suffragettes of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), a women-only organisation founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903 to campaign for the parliamentary vote for women on equal terms with men. This book is of that genre.

Nowhere in this text does Martin Pugh make his standpoint explicit, yet it is evident throughout. He claims that accounts of the women's suffrage campaigns seem "unbalanced in many ways", especially in the emphasis given to the WSPU, and that he will offer "a truer perspective". Feminist historians who have reinterpreted the campaign as a "sex war", whereby women wanted to transform gender relations in society, are dismissed for their use of selective quotations to support their dubious case. This is rich coming from a historian who, in my view, relentlessly selects data to fit his viewpoint"

He has also been unconnected with any university since 1999, working as an independent author.

I HIGHLY recommend someone find better sourcing material. comment added by 2605:E000:8498:B200:7C03:C596:9DAD:B601


 * I can recommend Martin Pugh for his numerous solid books, well based on good scholarship. see https://www.amazon.com/Martin-Pugh/e/B001H6O9M6/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1 for a partial list. He has published numerous articles and reviews in leading journals, plus others in a leading popular magazine History Today. All in all, a very impressive output.  As for reputation, the negative statement quoted by anon above comes from a review by Jane Purvis.  Anon seems to have overlooked Brian Harrison's review with its high praise for Pugh. Harrison praises Pugh's book and his "fair-minded determination to see things as contemporaries saw them, without hindsight, wishful thinking, or preaching." Pugh agrees that Pankhurst & her militant/ violent suffragettes succeeded in obtaining a great deal of attention, but most of it was negative and that alienated a great deal of support.  The vote came because of the efforts to support the war by the moderates who disliked Pankhurst.  Purvis says the real issue is not obtaining suffrage but creating a role for militant feminist action.  This is an article about suffrage, however.  In my opinion, Pugh is closer to the mainstream consensus of most historians  on how women got the vote.-- Rjensen (talk) 09:46, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Sex war section
I have removed the "Sex war" section. Several people have expressed concerns about that section in numerous entries on this talk page; the main concerns being:
 * 1) It reads like an essay, rather than an encyclopaedia.
 * 2) It concentrates solely on the militant aspects of the suffragette movement, rather than women's suffrage in the UK more generally.
 * 3) It is partisan in its tone and does not represent a neutral point of view.

I have reservations that a section under such a title can ever be appropriate for an encyclopaedia. I also note that the section made use of weasel words, relied heavily on a single offline source, and much of it was not sourced at all. Discussion should continue here before the section is restored. Basa lisk inspect damage⁄berate 20:06, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
 * "Several people have expressed concerns " == who-- when--where? those are not good reasons. The goal is the entire article should be balanced, not each scholarly interpretation. 1) "essay" has a special meaning in Wikipedia and this is not it. essay = unsourced personal views. this is clearly a summary of sourced scholarship. 2) militant aspects have always dominated the coverage by RS.  The article as a whole covers all aspects.
 * 3) read WP:BIASED = Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context. When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control and a reputation for fact-checking. Editors should also consider whether the bias makes it appropriate to use in-text attribution to the source, as in "Feminist Betty Friedan wrote that...", "According to the Marxist economist Harry Magdoff...," or "Conservative Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater believed that...". Rjensen (talk) 20:24, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not saying that the Kent book is completely unacceptable, but from what I can read of it online (including some of the important referenced sections) it's clearly written by an author with an agenda. Again, that's fine. But I don't think it's a good encyclopaedic principle to base an entire section of the article essentially on one partisan book, especially when we're trying to cover a topic as broad and important as women's suffrage. Many people have expressed concerns on this talk page - see the NPOV Tag section above and the section above that.
 * I do feel that this reads as an essay because it's essentially one author's paraphrasing of a single source. It's more of a commentary on Kent's book and would probably be better off in a wikipedia article about her book, not about suffrage in general. It also seems that large, potentially contentious passages in the section aren't properly or directly referenced to any source. Basa lisk  inspect damage⁄berate 20:35, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
 * 1) An RS has an agenda?? not a problem That is acceptable by Wiki rules: WP:BIASED and is a bad reason for deleting scholarship. 2) Wiki defines a "Personal essays that state your particular feelings about a topic (rather than the opinions of experts). ."  you mis-define it as "essentially one author's paraphrasing of a single source". In fact that's what we do at Wikipedia-- one  editor paraphrases a RS without adding the editor's private opinions.  Rjensen (talk) 20:52, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Ok. I hear what you're saying. I definitely accept that we can use sources which have an agenda, I'm not saying we shouldn't. Indeed, part of maintaining neutrality is to present sources of opposing points of view. But I don't think it improves the quality of any article to have an entire, unopposed section based on one partisan source. It doesn't maintain impartiality in tone. We aim to paraphrase lots of information on wikipedia but never a single point of view or source.
 * You said "...paraphrases a RS without adding the editor's private opinions" but I certainly don't think that's an accurate description of the sex war section. The section contained a lot of statements and content that weren't really corroborated by the cited parts of Kent's book. Even the title is dubious - Kent uses the term "sex war" figuratively and sparingly, and always inside quotation marks.
 * If we're going to talk about Kent's opinion in her book about the roots of the struggle for women's suffrage, I think a sentence in another section (perhaps the Legacy section) saying something simple like "Author Susan Kent commented in her book that she believed the struggle for women's suffrage and male suppression of the female vote was part of a broader "sex war" over the role of the sexes in society". I think that says everything that needs to be said about that one source. Basa lisk  inspect damage⁄berate 12:06, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * we have three issues: 1) erasing scholarly material you dislike but cannot find RS to refute. that is a wiki no-no  2)) the minor one of style and cites (Basa writes: "The section contained a lot of statements and content that weren't really corroborated by the cited parts of Kent's book.") and 3) how important is this "war" topic.  Basa wants "I think a sentence in another section"  Yes it is already there. The important new approach was introduced earlier in the "Pankhursts and suffragettes" section where a leading historian (Smith in 2014) emphasizes the new trends in historiography (based on 21st century feminism). That meets the request for why is i important. ''Historian Harold Smith, citing historian Sandra Holton, has argued that by 1913 WSPU gave priority to militancy rather than obtaining the vote.  Their battle with Liberals have become a, "kind of holy war, so important that it could not be called off even if continuing it prevented suffrage reform.  This preoccupation with the struggle distinguished the WSPU from that by the NUWSS, which remained focused on obtaining women's suffrage." [ref [ref]  Smith concludes: :Although non-historians often assumed the WSPU was primarily responsible for obtaining women's suffrage, historians are much more skeptical about its contribution.  It is generally agreed that the WSPU revitalize the suffrage campaign initially, but that it is escalation of militancy after 1912 impeded reform.  Recent studies have shifted from claiming that the WSPU was responsible for women's suffrage to portraying it as an early form of radical feminism that sought to liberate women from male-centered gender system.[ref =  end ref]Rjensen (talk) 12:59, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Ok, so perhaps we could include a short summary of Kent's contribution in the book in the suffragettes section? Basa lisk  inspect damage⁄berate 13:43, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Why short??--it's a major current topic. Let me note that I did not write the "war" section.  Obviously we have editors who worked hard on it.   The point is that a major current scholarly approach needs attention. Rjensen (talk) 13:46, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes I agree with you that major scholarly approaches require attention but a single book does not constitute an entire academic discipline. Without even considering that, the section as it existed was not an accurate representation of Kent's book.
 * Look, I can see that you're experienced in this area, and I respect you. But a wikipedia article is supposed to be balanced and read like an encyclopaedia. Having an entire section that meanders off and talks about tangent issues sourced from one book written by one author makes this article worse, not better, and regardless of all the other blue links in our discussion our primary objective is to make better articles. I think Kent's important contribution can be aptly summarized in one of the existing sections without bloating the article with an entire new, wordy section with an inflammatory and confusing title. Basa lisk  inspect damage⁄berate 14:10, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * it's not a tangent and the book reflects the viewpoint of an important group of scholars. Kent's book is the major source but it's also supported by cited scholarship by Purvis and Marcus which you also erased without ever reading. and you erased analysis of Davison and Robbins publications. It is FALSE to state the section you erased is all by one person.   Smith himself days so.  "balance" is achieved by INCLUDING all major viewpoints. wp:RS Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered   You twice erased one major viewpoint--perhaps you dislike its conclusions. If you think it's wrong then add in some critical book reviews.  As for your arguments, you have abandoned each one.  Meanwhile you are outnumbered, me and the original authors of the section on one side, and no supporters of your position on the other. you falsely claimed that other editors agreed with you. Rjensen (talk) 16:58, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Have you not read the sections on this talk page written by editors expressing concerns about the section? The only person who has participated in the debate who thinks the section is worth keeping is you. Luckily for you, this isn't just about numbers.
 * I don't have a dog in this race. My only objective is to make the article sound good, read well and accurately represent the available sources. Having that enormous section repeating itself and going into a complex analysis of one book makes the article worse. I don't have anything against including a summary of its viewpoints in a relevant section. But having reams of texts about a "race war" decreases the quality of the article. Basa lisk  inspect damage⁄berate 17:33, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * which editors agree with you?? the problem is that you don't agree with the scholarship and reject the Wiki rule that it has to be represented. Rjensen (talk) 18:01, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Firstly, please don't tell me what I agree and disagree with. That has nothing to do with it. You can make your own opinions; you don't have to worry about mine. Secondly, I have said, in virtually every post here, that I agree the view should be presented in the article, just not in its own section under that particular title. Basa lisk  inspect damage⁄berate 22:12, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Terminology
Why are we using "suffragette" as term that should more properly be "suffragist"? BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 14:52, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
 * In the UK we had suffragists and suffragettes, both terms are used in the article. Which usage of the term suffragette are you objecting to? Richerman    (talk) 00:42, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Suffragettes is often used with a more restricted meaning and in particular to refer to those in Emmeline Pankhurst's organization. Suffragists is broader and included those who worked for an expanded franchise for men as well as women. --Erp (talk) 04:16, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, I know that, so where in the article is the term suffragette used in error? Richerman    (talk) 08:22, 8 November 2017 (UTC)