Last Tuesday it was 100 years since the Representation of the People Act in 1918 was passed which gave women the right to vote in this country. Well, to be truthful, it gave some women the vote as a woman had to be over 30 to cast a vote and so the act in reality gave the vote to 40% of the adult female population of the time. It was however, a major step in the right direction and along with the vote precious in itself this act also gave women the right to run for public office for the first time.
Whilst there is still work to be done even in a country such as the UK to ensure that everyone is treated with respect, and that people are not discriminated against whether due to gender, race, religion, disability or for any other reason, the actions of the suffragettes and the significance of the passing of the Representation of the People Act cannot be underestimated as a major stepping stone in the fight for women to be allowed to be full citizens of this country. It has been one of the things that I was passionate my children understood that a vote is a precious gift as it means we live in a democracy and whilst we might not like the results of elections or referenda and sometimes think our fellow citizens have not used their vote wisely they have exercised their democratic right to use that vote in the way they wished and felt it was correct to do so. The ability to be able to do this cannot be underestimated. It was therefore a refrain as my daughter reached voting age that she needed to use her vote because “women threw themselves under horses to give you that”. However, it would have been just as disturbing to me if my son had not voted – his vote is also precious – ask a coloured person in South Africa where the first all-race elections were not held until 1994 or a blind person at one of the 75% of polling stations in the UK at the last election which didn’t have any tactile voting devices and who will have had to ask someone else to vote on their behalf removing confidentiality from the procedure.
This weekend however, as we look back to that major milestone in voting rights for women I have got to thinking about the suffragette movement itself which battled for many, many years to reach this milestone. It is very glib to say women threw themselves under horses but it does need to be remembered that on black Friday – November 18th 1910, suffragettes rushed the House of Commons and were brutally pushed back by police and in 1913 Emily Davidson did step out in front of the kings horse and was killed and before and after that there were many other peaceful and not so peaceful protests. The suffragette movement was not limited to the UK but how complicated must it have been to organise so much as a march here. Not only was there no social media or internet but most houses did not have a telephone and no-one had a television. It is difficult to imagine how any event got off the ground but it is clear that the ground swell of opinion and the commitment of the suffragette leaders was enough to summon a crowd. The photos of the day show us that these were not quiet events attended by a few fanatics but well organised and well attended gatherings of passionate and committed people.
I have over the last year or so used this blog to tell you about life at Jacksons, to provide legal updates and to talk about our achievements and plans but today I want to use it to say thank you to those brave, determined women who did so much to set the trains in motion that today we have our second female Prime Minister, that women have or do when merit or circumstances determine hold high office or position in this country and that the likes of my daughter can feel outraged at the result of the Brexit referendum not because she couldn’t influence the decision or cast her vote but because many people in this country both men and women disagreed with her and decided to vote a different way.
