Women and Representative Government

Millicent Garrett Fawcett

• Publisher: Read & Co. Great Essays
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781528791229
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Corruption & Misconduct
• Index: Politics & International Relations

First published in 1883, "Women and Representative Government" is an essay by Millicent Garrett Fawcett on the subject of women's social participation and representation in politics. The struggle for women's rights has been a long and hard-fought one, requiring the efforts of innumerable men and women throughout history. One of the most important battlefields in this fight has been that of law, which has acted as both oppressor and liberator of women. In this essay, Fawcett sets out the case for women's suffrage clearly and concisely forty years before women were finally given the vote in the U.K. Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett GBE (1847–1929) was an English writer, political leader, and feminist icon most famous for her contributions to the women's suffrage movement. Concentrating on legislative change, she was the leader of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies between 1897 and 1919. As well as law, Fawcett also helped improve women's rights in Education, co-founding Newnham College, Cambridge, in 1871 and also governing Bedford College, London for a period. Her statue in London's Parliament Square represents the first of its kind dedicated to a women in that location. A powerful piece of history that will appeal to those with an interest in the history of women's rights. Notable works include: "Political Economy for Beginners" (1870), "Essays and Lectures on Social and Political Subjects" (1872), and "Electoral Disabilities of Women: A Lecture" (1872). Read & Co. Great Essays is proud to be republishing this classic essay complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of Millicent Garrett Fawcett.

WOMEN AND
REPRESENTATIVE
GOVERNMENT

Those who have been labouring in behalf of the removal of the electoral disabilities of women, feel that a very critical time in the history of the agitation is now approaching. The question of parliamentary reform, and a further extension of the principle of household suffrage, will probably occupy the attention of the House of Commons during a great part of next session. The old familiar arguments that taxation without representation is tyranny, that those who are subject to the law and fulfil the obligations of citizenship cannot be justly excluded from all share of making the laws, will be heard again and again; and it will moreover be urged that it is alike unjust and inexpedient to place the stigma of political subjection upon whole classes of loyal, peaceable and industrious citizens, by making the qualifications for the franchise such as they cannot fulfil. On one side of the House it will be urged that property ought to be represented; on the other side of the House the words of Mr. Chamberlain at the Cobden Club dinner will be repeated, that 'full confidence in the people is the only sure foundation on which the government of this country can rest.' And what the advocates of a real representation of the people want to make sure of, is to remind the orators who make use of these telling phrases, that the human race consists of women as well as of men. They wish to remind the Radicals and Liberals, who have done so much to get rid of political disabilities, that the disability of sex is as repugnant to true Liberalism as are the disabilities of race and religion. They want to remind the Tory party that if a fair representation of property is what they are aiming at, they will be acting very inconsistently if they support a system which gives no kind of representation to property, however vast, which happens to be owned by a woman.

It is sometimes said by those who do not deny the justice of women's claim to representation, that it is necessary to show what practical good will be done to women and to the community at large by giving women votes. The answer is not far to seek. Exactly the same good that is done to other people by self-government and representative government, as...

Table of contents

• Millicent Garrett Fawcett
• WOMEN AND REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT