Adam, Ruth. A Woman's Place: 1910 - 1975. London: Persephone Books Ltd, 1975. Print.

"Mothers of the period prayed to have a son rather than a daughter"
1911 census says that there were 1000 girls born to every 1039 males. However, "the boys were not as strong as their sisters, particularly from birth to 3 years old". By the time the girls grew up and were old enough to marry, there were not enough men to court them. This would partially explain why it was so common for a young girl to be married to a much older man.
"The supply was further reduced by the constant drain of men in their prime, to administer to the colonies".
As there were so many more women than men in 1911, they were "kept in fear of ultimate rejection by the male" and a "woman's failure or success in life depended entirely on whether or not she succeeded at getting a husband".

The way the author writes about how it would be a "failure" if a woman could not find a husband, only reinforces the idea that women were raised to aspire to marriage and suggests that their lives were essentially worthless if they did not 'achieve' this.

Around 1877, birth control was starting to be developed. It was not widely accepted initially, but the 1911 census showed "that the people making the most use of it were doctors and their wives". Contraception was initially only available to the well-off and the educated but it eventually found its way to artisans and small tradesman. This reduced general family sizes, spaced out pregnancies so that babies had a better chance and drastically lowered the infant mortality rate.

"The release from continual child-bearing and child-rearing was the starting point of women's emancipation"
- Women had more time, energy and fewer "dead children to mourn than any women before them". This lead to young couples having a higher standard of living. Pre 1914, the bicycle meant that a woman could "roam about on her own" without her husband and at a low cost.

The Suffragettes

• The first women's suffrage was actually set up in 1866.
• Before the Pankhursts came into the picture, Millicent Fawcett was the president of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (there were 16 in total)
• Fawcett's approach was described as "quiet and unintersting" and mostly consisted of piblic meetings and petitions - all of which were widely ignored.
• The Pankhurtsts were the "widow and daughters of a Manchester barrister who had stood as Parliamentary candidate for the Independent Labour Party" - his idealism about equality is what started their campaign and his friends who helped them.
• "The history of women's emancipation is peppered with men of his kind. The suffragette movement had more than it's quota of them, unappreciated, unthanked and their help barely remembered". - This is similar to what Turner said - I was skeptical initially because it was from a mans perspective.
• The Pankhursts started the Women's Social and Political Union in 1903 and agreed/accepted "nuisance value" and "martyrdom" as a natural consequence of what they had been inspired to do.
• In 1905, Christobel and a factory girl, Annie Kenney, were thrown out of the free trade hall in Manchester for asking about women's suffrage at a liberal meeting.As a consequence of their protest meeting outside, they were arrested for causing a "disturbance". Rather than pay a fine, they chose to go to prison, which resulted in the media paying attention to the movement and it soon became "an angry talking point all over the country".
• The Pankhursts used violent demonstrations, hunger strikes and spent time in prison - arguably as a reaction to Mr Asquith (who was known to be anti-suffragist) becoming Prime Minister.
• "Mr Asquith went through the motions of getting a suffrage bill passed, which quietened the women down for a time; until it dawned on them, all over again, that he had no intention of actually letting it get passed.."
• "female suffrage was an embarrassingly unwanted baby on any party's doorstep" - Once again, similar to what Turner said about the issue when discussing the events in the mid 1800s, no-one felt it was ultimately their place to make a decision on women's suffrage.