Vintage Campaigns

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Women's Suffrage A woman's place is in the polling booth

Women, kindly imagine a time when you were considered an inferior citizen, and barred from having a say in who runs the country. Unfair doesn’t do it justice, I’m sure you’ll agree, but the sorry truth is women have only been allowed to vote in the UK for around 80 years.

Anything men can do we can do better

Understandably, a lot of very clever, capable women weren’t thrilled at being seen as inferior to men and decided to do something about it. These clever, capable women became the women’s suffrage movement.

The fairer sex

Some of these women - the ‘suffragists’ - campaigned in normal, peaceful political ways: lobbying, petitioning, that sort of thing. The ‘suffragettes’ on the other hand, were significantly more militant: they chained themselves to railings, set things on fire and went on hunger strike when they were imprisoned. Emily Davison became a martyr to the cause by lobbing herself in front of the king’s horse at Derby.

If at first you don't succeed

All the blood, sweat and tears – literally – paid off in 1928, when women were finally allowed the vote. After all that effort, it’s shameful to think that nowadays only about half of the people entitled to vote actually bother.