COVE

For most of its history, Great Britain have traditionally leave the women on a secondary place, specially on political matters. Royal families tend to favour male heirs, women were excluded of important (if any) political positions, and their opinions were hardly heard at the moment of taking decisions (at least publicly). Even during the Victorian Era, with a strong and charismatic woman as the leader of the country, Queen Victoria was considered more as an exception than a proof that women could be succesful in politics (Victoria herself, had a similar opinion). It is then not surprising that by the end of Victorian Era and start of the Contemporary Period, women stilln't had the right to vote or be voted on Great Britain.

Yet, it was precisely during the Victorian Era, when the movements in favour of rights of women started to win a lot of strenght and spaces on the public and political debate. The right of women to vote and be voted was one of the main objectives of those movements. It took decades, but it was until 1916 that a first important step was took, when the speaker of the House of Commons, James William Lowther, chaired a first conference on electoral reforms in which a limited women's suffrage was recommended.

Women voted for the first time in modern Britain, on 1918. However this came out of necessity, for a legal issue. The law at the time established that one of the requisites to vote was being a men who had been resident in UK, 12 months prior to the election. That effectively ban large numbers of troops who had been serving overseas during the Great War to vote. With that only 58% of the men were elegible to vote, something that combined with the pressure of the suffrage movement, and inminent general election and the growth of the Labour Party forced politicians to extend the vote to all men and some women.

That led to the drafting and passing of the Representation of the People Act of 1918. This law allowed women over the age of 30 who met a property qualification to vote. The Act also abolished property and other restrictions for men, causing that almost every British men over the age of 21 could vote, and from the age of 19 if they were part of the armed forces.

It was not until 1928, with the Equal Franchise Act, that women over 21 were able to vote, getting with that the same right as men. At the time. the number of women eligible to vote were 15 million.

This case is interesting, since it let us see how resilient could societies be to change the perceived value they have of a specific demographic group. If we look back on this timeline, It was at the end of the 18th century that Mary Wollstonecraft wrote about a bigger recognition for women in society (altough she didn't talk explicitly about the right to vote), yet women couldn't vote in her country until the second decade of 20th century and they didn't get equal right until they were already on the second quarter of that century. However, this case is also an example of the resilience of a group to be appreciated and shows that changes happen even if it took time. Some decades would still had to pass before a women became First Minister and a little longer for the society to be almost equal for men and women, but the right to vote was an important step on the series of events that allowed women to be perceived as equally valuable than men on Great Britain.

Sources:

UK Parliament Living Heritage. (2025). Women get the vote. UK Parliament, website: Women get the vote - UK Parliament

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