Talk:Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom

message: 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)
thread_title: [[Lily Maxwell]]

message: 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)
thread_title:  The seeds of political feminism 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Women voting prior to 1832 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Suffragette Bias 

message: 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)
thread_title:  NPOV Tag 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Timeline of eligible voters 

message: 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."
--TyrS 21:28, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  intro paragraph 

message: 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)
thread_title:  CONTEXT 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Martin Pugh appears to be an op ed writer 

message: Why are we using "suffragette" as term that should more properly be "suffragist"? BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 14:52, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: Yes, I know that, so where in the article is the term suffragette used in error? Richerman   (talk) 08:22, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Terminology