100 years since women were allowed to vote

Today, I’m commemorating 100 years since some women were given the vote in Britain with my Mill Philosophy Circle. Here’s a link to the suffragettes’ rousing anthem, written by Dame Ethel Smyth in 1911: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCtGkCg7trY

JS Mill was a key figure in the Suffragette movement and worked tirelessly for women’s freedom and equality whether it was in raising money or presenting their case  and putting forward amendments to a Reform Bill in the House of Commons which would help give women the vote. He abhorred the power men held over women considering it unhealthy for both sexes but also detrimental to any children a couple may have together. JS Mill was passionate about women’s equality and their freedom to determine their lives as they wished. He strongly believed that this was good for women and for society as a whole. Both JS Mill and his wife Harriet Taylor Mill wrote about women’s suffrage¹. Her daughter, Helen Taylor joined the Kensington Society, set up in 1865 by a group of women to hold intellectual debates. In this year, Helen gave a paper, alongside others, addressing the society’s question of parliamentary reform to include women’s right to vote. This debate culminated in Helen drafting the 1866 petition which JS Mill used to argue for an amendment to the 1867 Reform Act. When it was voted down, they, including Emily Davies, transformed themselves into the London Society for Women’s Suffrage alongside JS Mill who became its first president. This society spread to having branches around the country which eventually, together with other suffrage groups, united under the umbrella name of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. Millicent Garrett Fawcett became a president of this society, having been an active participant in the previous Suffrage Society after her sister, Elizabeth Garrett, introduced her to JS Mill’s speeches and the movement for the emancipation of women.  

The Suffragettes went on to suffer horrendously for their cause. It makes for gruesome reading/viewing! So today we remember everything they went through to give us the vote and lead freer lives than they were able to do. This must never be taken for granted! Nevertheless, there’s still an awful lot left to do before women have true equality with men, especially in the present political world climate where women’s rights are, once again, being threatened. The Mills would be extremely concerned and shocked by the lack of progress and scaling back of women’s rights in the world today! What would please him, however, would be the unveiling of the statue of the suffragette Alice Hawkins in Leicester. He certainly lived by her motto ‘Deeds not Words’.

¹ Open access texts of their writings, including on women’s suffrage, are available to read at:

http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/mill-the-collected-works-of-john-stuart-mill-volume-xxi-essays-on-equality-law-and-education and see appendix C for Harriet’s essay ‘Enfranchisement of Women’