[Daniela]

Hello

I'm just starting the research for my coursework and I have to, as you probably already know, research the emancipation of women.

As part of this I have to answer this question (amongst many others ) as background research:

Why did the Suffragettes turn to violence?

I have found quite alot of information about what was done, however, details as to why the violent campaigns began is not clear. Could you help me out?

[Mrs Faithorn]

Hello Daniela and Welcome to the Forum.

I am afraid the Exam Board rules only allow us to give very general help, but you should be able (with careful reading) to find the answer to your question by following the links below.

What you really need to do is to think for yourself about how some of the women fighting for emancipation felt about the failure of peaceful methods and the length of time they had waited to achieve their demands. I hope that sets you off in the right direction!

Websites
Votes for Women - part of Mr Clare's excellent site on Modern World History.
The Suffragettes - part of the History Learning Site.
This page about the National Union of Suffrage Societies is helpful for understanding the frustrations some women felt. It's part of a much bigger section on The Emancipation of Women on the Spartacus site.

I hope that helps, but if not then do post again.

PS All the sites I have given should prove very helpful to you as you do your coursework since they all have much more information if you explore them further.

[Mr Higgins]

I wuld echo Mrs Faithorn's remarks about considering why the alternatives to violent methods failed. You might also want to consider the organisation of NUWSS and how this might have frustrated the hopes and ambitions of more radical members.

Another useful website is the one below, with a range of primary source materials that also might help further your research.

http://www.learningc...britain1906-18/

[MrJohnDClare]

Daniela
There is a page on Why did the Suffragettes turn to Violence? on my website, which should give you some ideas.

What you need to do, when you have looked at the list of suggestions, is to:

1. read round the topic and gather what evidence you can for all the different ideas in the list.
2. 'weight' the causes - decide which you feel are most important/ factors/ inconsequential. You do this by weighing the evidence you have found for each.
3. explain the causes - this is the crucial mark-getting part of your essay. The actual reasons are relatively unimportant, compared with the way you explain HOW they led certain women to use violence. Remember that multiple explanations - explanations which describe how a factor worked in a number of ways to trun women to violence - score most highly.
4. finish with a conclusion which links all your ideas together into one argument, which sums up and MAKES A JUDGEMENT about why women turned to violence.

Best of luck.

[Daniela]

Thank you so much for your replies I'm sure that I'll be able to answer this question very well if i use all those links you've given me.

Thank you

[the blonde one!]

hello,
i have looked at many websites. But still i dont really find any good information about the violent campaign that the Suffragetes used. Please can you help me, because i will not be able to answer my questions and complete should i not find the right resources. I just need some websites not any research thank you again!!!

[Mrs Faithorn]

I don't know whether you've seen this similar question and replies about the Suffragettes and Militancy? See here:
http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/studentforu...st=0&#entry5398

Some of the links given there should be helpful.... but you will need to read through the information/use a bit of common sense.

This is for a piece of GCSE coursework, I assume, so there is a limit to the help we can give you. However I am a bit surprised that you have not been able to find information on the Suffragettes' violent campaigns. Look for the activities of the WSPU (whose motto was "Deeds not Words") and things like 'Arson campaign'.


If you search for "Suffragettes +violence" (without the quotes) you get lots of hits and most of the ones at the top of the list should be helpful. See here:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=na...tes+%2Bviolence

Take a look and see if they help with what you want. If not then do post again.

This post has been edited by Mrs Faithorn: 15 July 2004 - 12:50 PM

[the blonde one!]

Thank you very much Mrs Faithhorn, for your post. I think the reason why i couldnt get the information is because, i put into the search engine 'violent campaigns of the suffragettes' and it didnt come up with much information well thank you again!!

[Mrs Faithorn]

Pleased to help. ..... and maybe you have learned a bit about searching the 'net too. Using key words (like I did) is often a better search strategy then using a phrase like you did - especially if you had put the phrase in inverted commas.