LETTER : War work on votes for women
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.From Dr Andrew Rosen
Sir: In his article of 8 February, Andrew Marr wrote that "women got the vote because of the violence and courage of the suffragettes".
In granting the vote in 1918, politicians were in no danger of appearing to give in to violence. If suffragette militancy had continued during the war years, it probably would have been politically impossible to grant women the vote in 1918.
During the 1917 suffrage debate, MPs gave various reasons for granting the vote, above all women's war work (701,000 women were by then employed in munitions and shipbuilding alone), and the pressing need to revise electoral registers so that home-coming soldiers and sailors could vote, a step which would emphasise the unfairness of not giving similar recognition to women's enormous war effort.
There may well turn out to be some degree of analogy between early-20th century politicians' response to suffragette violence and present-day politicians' responses to IRA violence in that those who, for excellent reasons, cannot appear to give in to violence today may eventually agree, after violence has ceased, to some form of compromise.
Yours faithfully,
Andrew Rosen
Oxford
14 February
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments