By Eddie Woolley, UNISON Steward
The right for women to vote was a long struggle which saw women prepared to be jailed & even killed for what we now take as a basic human right.
The National Union of Women's Suffrage was founded in 1897 & this organisation was engaged in peaceful protest, its main success was to convince some members of the Labour Representation Committee ( which was soon to become the labour party ) to support the right for women to vote. Many Women became angry because progress was so slow & in 1903 a new organisation was founded by Emmeline Pankhurst & her daughters Christabel & Sylvia, this group was called the Women's Social & Political Union. This new organisation became known as the Suffragettes, suffrage meaning 'right to vote'. The main difference between the two organisations was that the Suffragettes were prepared to use direct action to make the men in parliament sit up & take notice.
At the Suffragettes first meeting it was decided that acts of civil disobedience would be far more effective in winning the right to vote than the peaceful campaigning that had resulted in no commitments from the men government. In 1905 at a political meeting involving Winston Churchhill & Sir Edward Gray Christabel Pankhurst & Annie Kennedy were arrested for shouting slogans, they were both jailed for refusing to pay their fines. This caused headline news in all the national newspapers & created a lot of publicity for the cause.
The Suffragettes used different methods of civil disobedience,they used boats to sail past the houses of parliament to hurl abuse at the men inside, they attacked Oxford Street smashing shop windows, chained themselves to Buckingham Palace, vandalised golf courses & even set fire to the prime ministers home. The government responded by jailing many more Suffragettes.
The conditions in jail was brutal & the women's families & supporters campaigned for them to be treated as political prisoners, this would have given them the right to wear their own clothes & prepare their own food. When the government refused the women went on hunger strike, the authorities began to force feed them & this caused a public outrage.
In 1913 the government introduced the Temporary Discharge for Health act, this meant that the hunger strikers were no longer force fed but when they became weak & ill they were allowed home. At home they were nursed back to health then they were rearrested & the process started again, this became known as the 'cat & mouse' act because the government were using the Suffragettes in the same way a cat plays with a mouse. The 'cat & mouse' act made the Suffragettes more determined to win their fight & in June 1913 Emily Davison threw herself in front of the kings horse at the Derby in a bid to unseat the rider & was killed.
In 1914 Britain was at war & the Suffragettes decided to halt its campaign until the end of the war. Many Suffragettes went to work in munitions factories, worked on farms & treated soldiers wounded in battle. They proved they could do the work of men & in 1918 after the war the government finally admitted defeat & the Representation of the People act was made law, this allowed women over the age of 30 the right to vote, within ten years all women had the same voting rights as men. 
Today women are elected into pariament to serve as MP's but the fight for equality goes on & UNISON represents a million women workers who are still treated differently to men, the pressure Unions put onto government will ensure that this will change.
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