Mei-An as Suffragette (5.6.2018)

Mei-An’s school was hosting a ‘Victorian Era’ (1831-1901) dressing-up day for Year 2. Many went as milkmaids and chimney sweeps, etc, (with some dressing as princesses and the occasional fairy), but we thought that we would choose a politically meaningful period costume. We chose the suffragettes and the ‘Votes for Women’ campaign which was a Socialist Movement which would eventually take inspiration from Lenin’s Revolutionary Russia. The roots of this movement began to sprout in the latter Victorian Era and substantially developed during the Edwardian Era (1901-1910) and beyond. On 6 February 6th, the Representation of the People Act 1918 extended suffrage to all men over 21 years of age, and women over 30 years of age who owned property. This situation was updated by the Representation of the People Act 1928, which extended the voting franchise to all women over the age of 21, granting women the vote on the same terms that men had gained ten years earlier. Never forget that women were arrested, beaten, abused and even killed in their fight for the right to vote, or that this was essentially a ‘Socialist’ Movement, as Karl Marx was the only man in history to state that women should be equal to men in all aspects.