Can people who know nothing about history PLEASE stop repeating this bollocks about "The suffragettes' violence is what 'worked' and is the reason why women got the vote"? Because, no, it was NOT.
qz.com/535662/dont-be-fooled-by-suffragette-violence-alone-did-not-secure-the-womens-vote/
Women got the vote basically because of the efforts of the NUWSS, a completely NON violent group that had between 10 and 20 times the membership of the militant WPU, and which did boring but sensible things slowly and steadily over time, gradually chipping away at prejudice and genuinely changing people's minds.
The WSPU, with all that exciting violence, has grabbed the attention of film producers and the like. But they were basically a fringe movement, short-lived, and the main player (the NUWSS) broke with them before long, precisely becaue they could see that the WSPU's violent tactics were not only wrong, but were alienating people who otherwise might have been sympathetic.
The real-life WSPU attacks dramatized in Suffragette were carried out by a set of about a hundred women, including private agents who were paid to perform the bombings. By comparison, at the same time, the NUWSS had nearly 600 regional societies, totaling more than 50,000 members—about ten or twenty times WSPU membership, and about 500 times the number of dedicated violent militants.
Still, the WSPU was not the group that won women the vote. In fact, its activity stopped well before any bill made it to Parliament’s floor. When World War I broke out, the Pankhursts halted all WSPU action to support the war effort. Their sudden allegiance with the government angered many of their few remaining followers, and what little was left of the WSPU was effectively eviscerated. After the war’s end, Emmeline largely abandoned the suffrage movement in favor of advocating for British imperialism and against Communism.
Meanwhile, the NUWSS continued campaigning for the women’s vote throughout the war, strategically using women’s war work to bolster their arguments for the vote. Parliament finally gave into their demands in 1918, when a voting rights bill designed to accommodate returning soldiers was expanded to include women over 30 who met the property requirements. Women were not granted full equal voting status to men until 1928. If not for the increase in violent protests, the women’s vote might have been achieved in 1912, when the government toyed with introducing a new Franchise Bill.