Women Against the Vote: Female Anti-Suffragism in Britain
Julia Bush
Abstract
This book provides the first full history of the female campaign against votes for women in late 19th- and early 20th-century Britain. By 1914, the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage was dominated by the self-consciously masculine leadership of Lord Cromer and Lord Curzon, but also heavily dependent upon an impressive cadre of women leaders. An overwhelmingly female membership rivalled the suffrage organizations in numbers, though not in levels of activism. The first half of the book explores the motives and ideals of women against the vote. The provenance of their opposition is analy ... More
This book provides the first full history of the female campaign against votes for women in late 19th- and early 20th-century Britain. By 1914, the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage was dominated by the self-consciously masculine leadership of Lord Cromer and Lord Curzon, but also heavily dependent upon an impressive cadre of women leaders. An overwhelmingly female membership rivalled the suffrage organizations in numbers, though not in levels of activism. The first half of the book explores the motives and ideals of women against the vote. The provenance of their opposition is analyzed through three overlapping groups: maternal reformers, women writers, and imperialist ladies. In the second half of the book, a detailed study of anti-suffrage organizations and their supporters reveals that partnership between the sexes was seldom straightforward, even for a movement dedicated to separate and complementary gender roles. Anti-suffragism was divided by internal conflicts between men and women, and between reformers and ultra-conservatives, as it fuelled the suffrage conflict and wider contemporary debates over the Woman Question. Women pursued their own agendas within organized anti-suffragism, demonstrating their affinity with the mainstream social conservatism of the British women's movement and continuously collaborating with moderate suffragists in non-political social action. The rediscovered history of female anti-suffragism provides new perspectives on campaigns both for and against the vote. It also makes a significant contribution to the wider history of Victorian and Edwardian women's social ideas and public activism.
Keywords:
anti-suffrage,
suffrage,
gender roles,
conservatism,
maternal,
imperialist,
social action,
women writers,
women's movement,
Edwardian women
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2007 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199248773 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2008 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199248773.001.0001 |
