FROM OUR ARCHIVE
The way we were
In our step back in time through the archive, the legendary feminist Millicent Fawcett writes for GH and urges the country’s politicians to remember the new female voters…
POLITICIANS, TAKE NOTICE What eight million women will do with their votes
The General Election is upon us and signs of the coming struggle are everywhere to be seen. The coming election will be on different lines; but 1918 and 1922 have one great feature in common – namely, the immense increase in the electorate, including the enfranchisement of more than eight million women. People forget so quickly that I hope I may be forgiven if I briefly recite the main facts. Before the great Reform Bill of 1918 there were about 8,000,000 voters, all male.
The question present in the minds not only of the Party leaders and Party Whips but of persons of goodwill throughout the country is: What are the women going to do with their votes? Will they use them conscientiously, as they believe to be for the good of the nation, or be swayed by narrow prejudice and ignorance? No simple answer can be given to such tremendous questions. Women are not as like each other as ha’pence are; in fact, they are remarkably like men – some good, some bad, some middling, mostly ignorant perhaps, many very impulsive, but taking them generally and in the mass, sensible and awake to national issues. Let no one approach the women in the constituencies without bearing in mind the fact that they are approaching the very same women who showed such splendid national qualities during the war.
The members of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies are genuinely indignant that a boy can vote when he was 21, but no young women can give a vote until she is over 30. During the Louth election a young married woman said to our workers, ‘If I am fit to have four children, I am fit to have a vote’; and there is much good sense in this point of view. To care for, train, and start in life on right lines a family of children is a much more difficult and important national service than deciding or helping to decide which Party should represent your constituencies in Parliament. But of course, the two duties are complementary, not antagonistic to one another. A good mother or a good father is apt to be a good citizen in national affairs.
It is a tremendous moment in the history of the whole world; great issues are at stake. Women have come into politics at a most thrillingly important moment. What is done now will affect not only our own country, but the trend of the public affairs of the whole world.
We believe that women will approach their electoral duties in the coming struggle in the same spirit, with a desire to do their best for their country and for mankind.