Lesson video

Hello everyone, and welcome to Citizenship.

Thank you for joining me again.

My name is Mrs Shortland, it's great to see you all here.

This unit has been looking at the struggle for the vote and considering, well, is it really relevant today? And this is your third lesson all about that struggle.

We're going to move it along a little bit and look at how successful the campaign methods were that women used to get the right to vote.

So what you will need for today is a piece of pen, piece of pen, what you need is not a piece of pen but a pen and a piece of paper and somewhere quiet to study if you can find that.

It's really difficult these days I know, to find somewhere quiet, but if you can that'd be great, and also if you have last week's notes, that'd be really useful to have some key words and key ideas that you could use perhaps today.

But if not, don't worry, I'm going to take you through all the ideas anyway.

So, when you're ready, please pause the video and I will see you in a minute.

Don't forget to take down your title.

See you in a bit.

welcome back, okay, we're ready to get started.

So we've been looking at the concept of political rights and the rights that we all have to vote and to protest and we're going to mix that up today 'cause we're going to have a look at how successful has the campaign for women's political rights been.

And in order to answer that really, really big question, we're going to break it down into four areas.

We're going to have a look at what is equality? Who were the Suffragettes? How successful were their methods? And then we're going to have look at ways that you can do, things that you can do to create change.

Before we start to look at the Suffragettes in a bit more detail, I want you to have to think about the idea of equality in a little bit more of a general sense.

Here's a modern day activist, Caroline Criado-Perez, and she campaigned for two years to have the first statue of a woman inside Parliament Square.

She found that only 2.

7% of the statues in the United Kingdom actually are of women and thought that this was wrong.

So Caroline used lobbying and petitions to get her voice heard.

She won, and now the first and only statue of a woman, Millicent Fawcett, stands proudly.

If you don't know about Millicent Fawcett, that's fine.

We're going to learn an awful lot about her in a bit but not only is that great, that she won her campaign.

It's the first monument ever of a woman in Parliament Square, but it was also created by a female artist, Gillian Wearing, and it was supported by the Prime Minister at the time, Theresa May, who's only the second female Prime Minister in history.

So let's start thinking a little bit more about equality.

There's a definition that you might want to get down.

Equality is every individual has an equal opportunity to make the most of their lives.

No one should have poorer life chances because of who they are.

This is your first exercise.

Let's get thinking about equality and I want you to point to the figure you think is correct.

So I'll read out the three statements and then you just point to whichever number you think is about right.

Might need to be an educated guess at this point, but you might actually also know the answer.

So first one, how many members of parliament or MPs are women? The Equal Pay Act makes unequal pay illegal, but when did the equal pay act become law? How many people do not know that women have the right to equal pay for the same work? Okay, so pause the video, have a think about it and we'll see if you're right in a minute.

Now I've been a bit mean because you're not going to be able to point to three boxes at the same time and highlighted three answers at the same time but let's see how you did anyway, are you ready? How did you do? Okay, so the answers, there's 34% of female MPs in parliament.

So not even 50%, half of all of the MPs are women in parliament.

In 1970, the Equal Pay Act becomes law and 40% of people don't know about the Equal Pay Act or the fact that women can get the same pay for the same type of work as the man.

So clearly, we need to educate everybody a little bit more about that, and you'll be experts at the end of the lesson.

So hopefully, you can go and teach a few more people all about equal pay and I've put the definition of inequality at the bottom of your screen.

If you want to copy that down, just pause the video.

Inequality means not being equal, especially in status, rights and opportunities.

Now we have a better idea about equality, we're going to focus in more on women's equality and it was in 1832 that Mary Smith started lobbying her MP, and she said, you should have a voice in the election of all MPs.

Remember that date, 1832, the same date as the Reform Act, the same sort of time as the Chartists, remember from last lesson? Well, she actually smuggled-in the petition under her skirt because if she'd have been caught, she'd probably have been arrested for harassment of an MP because before 1918, women had so many few rights.

They were still fighting for the right to vote in general elections and they couldn't graduate from the top universities in the country, Oxford and Cambridge, and they couldn't be police officers, lawyers or jurors.

So that's what Mary and other organisations started to campaign against, trying to get their voices heard.

The video that you're going to watch now looks at a movement that came a little time after Mary in 1903.

The Suffragettes, there were still women fighting before the Suffragettes, but the Suffragettes caused a bit of a stir in the methods that they used to campaign.

So watch the video, enjoy it, and I will see you back in a bit.

Hope you enjoyed that video.

It mentioned the key words, suffrage and suffragette.

So I want you to think about the women's movement and just like the chartists, there was a split in the organisation.

Suffragists started the campaign for women's votes and believed in peaceful campaign methods, such as marches and lobbying.

There's a definition of lobbying at the bottom of the screen if you want to copy that down.

In the early 20th century, after the suffragists fail to make significant progress, new activists emerged.

And these women became known as the Suffragettes.

Suffragettes believed in deeds, not words and fought for women's suffrage, which is just means the right to vote in public elections.

Members of the British Women's Social and Political Union, WSPU for short, was founded in 1903 by Emily Pankhurst.

And she engaged in direct action with others and civil disobedience.

They used more violent methods to get themselves heard.

And I guess really, if everything else has failed, sometimes when we get angry about things, then we might start to use methods that we normally wouldn't use.

And the women at this point obviously felt very desperate about their situation and their lack of rights, their inequality in British society.

When we think about the suffragettes, when we read them in textbooks, when we see them on the television, often we get an idea in our mind, a stereotypical view of all suffragettes being white, middle class, quite wealthy women.

And that's far from the truth.

In a minute, you're going to learn about a woman who fought for the suffragettes, who actually was very, very poor.

And from the pictures you can see the range of other individuals involved in the struggle for women's suffrage.

We have women from diverse ethnic backgrounds, Sarah Parker-Redmond and Sophia Duleep Singh.

And we also have a man, John Stuart Mill.

There were lots of men who fought for the Suffragettes and women's rights.

He was the MP that took the petition from Mary Smith.

Do you remember her, we talked about her a little while ago? We've spent a lot of time haven't we, learning new facts? So let's just take a minute to go back over some of the key points.

This is your second exercise.

Look at these statements, which are true and which are false? I'd like you to pause the video, read through the statements and then make two lists.

One list is all the true statements.

And the second list is all the false statements, and then resume the video when you're ready to carry on.

How did you do? Brilliant, okay, well actually, there weren't so many true statements were there.

The only true statement was suffragists were women who believed in peaceful campaigning and the false statements you can see there in pink, women started to campaign for female suffrage in 1918.

They didn't did they.

It was way back with Mary Smith and in 1832 and probably before then.

But she's the one that issued the first petition for the right to vote.

Okay, good job.

Tick them off or correct them if you got one or two of those wrong and we'll move on.

Now we're going to move on to how the Suffragettes campaigned.

The first thing we're going to do is to have another break from my voice.

You'll be glad to hear.

And we're going to have a look at a short, dramatic play.

It's a short clip of the famous Suffragette, Emmeline Pankhurst going on trial.

The Suffragettes suffered many harsh punishments just like the chartists.

They broke the law so they had to face consequences, even though they were doing it for the right reasons.

I'd like you to watch the video and answer the questions that follow.

Why did respectful ladies defy the law? What was Emmeline Pankhurst on trial for? Who made up the jury? Did she get a fair trial? Enjoy the video and we'll go through some answers in a bit.

I am the court reporter.

Since 1674, every trial that's been played out between these walls at London's Old Bailey Court, every single one has been faithfully recorded by a reporter like me.

I sat just here.

I wrote down what was said by who, and now you, some while later, can listen in.

You can press an ear against these walls and hear once again, these voices from the past.

Now here's a case of politics and crime entwined, where respectable ladies are prepared to do the almost unthinkable and defy the law.

It's the year 1912.

At this moment in time, women of this country do not have the right to vote.

Campaigning to change this fact, the Suffragettes.

At the head of the Suffragettes is one Emmeline Pankhurst, on trial here for the charge of inciting others to commit criminal acts.

on trial you could say, a bigger picture.

How far would you go to change the world? Pankhurst, Emily hereby charged with conspiring with others to unlawfully and maliciously damage and incite others to unlawfully and maliciously damage certain property to wit glass windows on 54 counts, the property of the liege subjects of our Lord, the King.

Right now, a critical bill is in the hands of the government.

It's what all the protesting has been for.

But, just the Prime Minister was about to sign on the dotted line, it looks as though the whole enterprise might be derailed and women will be denied the right to vote, denied as they see it, their political freedom.

Gentlemen, let us be clear.

The question of women's suffrage is not at issue here.

Rather, we are to concern ourselves with the question of incitement to criminal activity.

I will show that the defendant gave speeches at public meetings with the explicit intent of inciting those attending to partake in what was described as militancy.

I will also show that written materials were published and distributed with the express intent of recruiting supporters to militancy in general and expressly to the protest on the 4th of March, at which 54 windows were broken.

Now you've watched the video, just going to put the questions up again for you, pause the video and use the sentence starters if you need them.

How did you do, so for question one, women were campaigning to change the democratic system so that they had the right to vote.

They wanted a say in who represented them, with representation, greater equality and rights could be achieved.

Inciting others to commit criminal acts is what Emmeline Pankhurst, remember, she's the leader of the Suffragettes, went on trial for, and it was men that made up the jury.

Women couldn't be jurors.

And therefore, they were unlikely to get a fair trial because they're just not represented are they, there's no women in the jury that would understand what Emmeline was going through at the time.

We'll now go on to a little, fun activity.

Well, I hope it's fun for you.

You can see two images there.

One of peaceful protest, which represents the suffragists, and one of militant action, the Suffragettes.

So you can see all the type of things that the Suffragettes were doing in that image below.

Let's see if you know what these words mean.

I'm going to give you a series of words and you're going to guess, is it Millicent or is it Emmeline? You can see their two pictures.

That's the suffragist, Millicent Fawcett and the Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst been taken away by some police officers.

Okay, so the first question's up for you.

Is it Millicent or Emmeline burning buildings? Three, two, one, and correct.

Militant, Emmeline.

Next one, is it Millicent or Emmeline marching? Three, two, one, good job.

Yep, that's definitely peaceful marching and the suffragist Millicent Fawcett.

Petitioning parliament, three, two, one.

And it's, correct.

It's good old Millicent again.

Peaceful Millicent.

What about chaining bodies to buildings? Three, two, one, it's a Suffragette, good, good job.

I promised you a treat didn't I last lesson.

We're going to listen in a minute to a living relative of, well not quite so well known Suffragette, Alice Hawkins, but still a great Suffragette.

There's her medal, a hunger strike medal and her actual sash that she wore that you can see in the picture.

So was she a suffragist or a Suffragette? Yeah, that's right, she was definitely a Suffragette.

So I'm going to introduce Peter Barrett and he's going to talk about his great granny Alice, and the reasons that she fought for the right of all women to vote.

Enjoy the film.

Yes, well my great granny, Alice, a Suffragette over 100 years ago in our city of Leicester.

Many of you will be learning about the Suffragettes as part of your coursework.

But for me personally, I learnt of Alice nearly 60 years ago, when I was a very young boy, I would go round my grandfather's house in the school holidays.

And my grandfather would tell me stories of his mother Alice.

My grandfather actually went on the Suffragette marches with his mother and would give me firsthand accounts of being there.

Many of you will think that the Suffragettes were fairly well to do ladies, middle-class, time on their hands.

Alice was none of that.

She was born into a very poor family in 1863, one of nine children and left school to work at the age of 13 years of age, went to work in the shoe factories.

Moved to Leicester when she married her husband Alfred.

But from an early age, Alice saw the deep injustice that the women suffered in the shoe factories in Leicester.

When they were lucky to get half the pay that the man would get for doing the same type of work.

The issue of equal pay for women was the driving force politically for Alice, right through her life.

And for many years, she campaigned lawfully, to try to get equal pay for the women where she worked.

In the early 1900's, Alice realised, now in her 40's, that women weren't going to get equal pay unless they took dramatic action.

And Alice did take dramatic action by joining the Suffragettes.

on her very first month as a Suffragette, she went down to London and protested outside parliament with 300 women, campaigning for the right to vote.

The police, fearing the women were trying to break into parliament itself, called in the London mounted police.

And that was Alice's first experience of protesting and the severity of punishment dolled out by the police.

They pulled in the London mounted police, police on horseback, who cavalry charged women down throughout the afternoon, and Alice was arrested.

That afternoon at the age of 43, first time in her life, sent to the police station just across the road from parliament, Cannon road police station, put in the cells.

About 10 o'clock at night, Alice was issued with a bail warrant from the police officer, the Sergeant on the desk, Sergeant Fisher, who bailed Alice to appear the next day at the Westminster police court.

Alice and 28 women were sent from the courthouse the following day to Holloway jail.

Alice went to prison asking for the rights of women.

In 1910 she went to prison after trying to gatecrash a meeting that Winston Churchill was holding in Lester itself, who would be the future prime minister during the second world.

Churchill didn't believe in giving women the vote.

So over the seven years of Alice being a Suffragette, over those seven years, she went to prison five times in total, they were hard times.

Alice was not only a Suffragette, she was still working as a shoe machinist in the factories in Leicester, but she never gave up the fight.

Now for the past 15 years or so, I took up Alice's memories, promoting her legacy.

Why have I done that? Why do I talk into schools, and adult groups and societies? Because I think it's important that we remember what those women fought for and what they achieved for women in society today.

They achieved the vote.

And I think it's important that we must remember what those women went through, and whenever we can, use our vote.

My mom's has passed away now, a few years ago but when she was in better health, I used to ask mom, what do you remember about your granny, Alice mom? And she would think, and she'd always say the same thing to me.

She said, when I was a young girl, my granny Alice said to me, Vera, you must use your vote, we suffered for it.

And that's the message I give to you all today.

So onto your final exercise.

I really hope that you enjoyed listening to Mr. Barrett and his stories of granny Alice.

And here's an exercise all about Alice, of some of the things that he said in the video.

And it's a fill the gaps activity.

At the bottom, you can see all the missing words that you need.

I'm not going to read these out to you because I think you need to practise reading yourself.

I've read all the way through today.

So when you're ready, pause the video and give this exercise a go, I'll see you in a bit.

How did you do, here are all the answers for you.

Spend a minute just correcting and ticking all the ones that you got right.

Into our final, final, final half of the lesson.

You've learned so much today.

I filled your brains with all sorts of ideas.

What do you think? Do you think the methods the Suffragettes used were successful? That's a question that even historians can't answer but let's look at the evidence.

Some people will say, well yes, today we've got political rights.

All women in the UK over 18 can vote and women are infranchised and have greater rights than ever before.

On the other hand, some people would argue no, women still don't have equal rights.

Look at those statistics.

I'm just going to pick out one or two.

Number two, Alice would be absolutely mortified wouldn't she, still a gender pay gap, even though she was fighting for that all those years ago.

And the last one there.

Girls are growing up thinking that they should have jobs in childcare and other stereotypical work because that's what they think that they should be doing.

Lots of inequalities still, lots of things that we can all do to try and address those issues.

But one thing's for sure, we can all do something for equality without even leaving home.

So you can investigate and research campaigns by the Fawcett Society, or check out the 50 50 Parliament campaign, it's called, ask her to stand.

You could explore more about Caroline Criado-Perez.

She did lots more campaigns, so find out a bit more about her.

but the main thing is, be active.

Even talking about inequality helps.

If you wanted, you could have a look at the First News ACTive citizenship award.

And this is a special award which we celebrate the all the positive changes that you make in your community.

So if you do some good action, make sure you have a look at this award so that you can be recognised for the work that you do.

And that's the end of today, brilliant job.

Thank you so much for sticking with me.

I've really enjoyed today's lesson.

I hope you've had some fun as well.

We've looked at all these things, the road to equality, who were the suffragists and the Suffragettes, how successful were their methods and talked very briefly about the sorts of things that you can do to create change.

I'd love to see your work.

So if you'd like to, just ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak, you can put my name in if you'd like as well, Mrs. Shortland, but I look forward to reading all the great stuff you're doing.

That's it, just remember to complete the quiz so that you can prove to yourself how brilliant a job you've done and take care of yourselves, I will see you next time.