Women, the vote, and the stories told about it 100 years later

On March 8th I will join friends to celebrate International Women’s Day. It is always fun.

Its great to be celebrating a centenary since British women got the vote. The vote was only for women then, who, like me now, had property – but hold on! 100 years ago my peasant grandmother didn’t get the vote. My middle-class grandmother wouldn’t have been granted a degree. That vote for middle-class women eventually benefited not only me, but all the men and women of Britain. It wasn’t easy or straightforward or done perfectly right. Working-class men at the time felt cheated but change for the better is always a process. Why, I ask, is there still negativity about it today?

Deceptive, defective, but delectable single stories

We do like to keep our history simple so we know who was good and who was bad – who to honour and who to blame. That allows us to criticise the achievements of the suffragists and suffragettes without understanding how difficult it was to change things for the better without making compromises. The film Suffragette has a working class woman, Maud Watts, as its protagonist. The film shows how complicated it was for the men and women of the time. Working class men wanted the vote and feared that women’s rights would threaten their livelihoods. Maud would not get the vote for another 10 years when it was extended to men and women over 21 years of age. It took courage to fight for the right to vote if you were a woman but it was in your interests. It was right for men to support women’s right to vote but fewer men did. Was that because they feared for themselves or because they were misogynist? No doubt there were many reasons. What I find significant is that votes for women and working-class men grew out of the movement to abolish slavery.

Can we ever know all the stories?

An East London Federation of Suffragettes march passes Bow bus station, June 1914. Photograph: Norah Smyth/Institute of Social History

Several stories from Miss World in 1970

Is the story of the fight for women’s rights over? Is it the end?

“The door is open for women,” said one (male) commentator recently.” Why do women have to come in shouting and waving placards?”

Why indeed? Must we enter the room that was once a male preserve and behave as ordered to by its doyens? Must we be quiet, modest, keep our knees together, not demand equal pay for equal work, and not complain about sexual harassment and rape?

What do you think?