The Women's Victory—and After: Personal Reminiscences, 1911-1918
John Stuart Mill · en
At this same council meeting of 1919 changes were adopted in our
method of attacking what had now become our principal work—viz., the
achievement of a real equality of status, liberties, and opportunities
between men and women. We had learned in the last twelve months that
the field thus covered was so vast that success was jeopardized if we
scattered our energies over the whole of it. We therefore resolved
henceforth at our annual council meetings to select a limited number of
subjects deemed ripe for immediate action, and to concentrate on these,
so far as practical work was concerned. The first selection for the
year 1919-1920 was thus indicated:
1. We demand _equal pay for equal work_. And we demand an open
field for women in industrial and professional work.
2. We demand the immediate reform of the _divorce law_ and the
laws dealing with solicitation and prostitution. An _equal
moral standard_ must be established.
3. The Government is in favour of _widows' pensions_ in
principle. By constant pressure we mean to make the
House of Commons turn principle into practice. We demand
_pensions for civilian widows_.
4. Women must speak for themselves as well as vote. We want to
extend the _women's franchise_, and we are determined that
_women candidates_ holding our equality programme shall be
returned to Parliament at the next election.
5. At present women are not legally recognized as the
guardians of their children. We are working to secure
_equal rights of guardianship_ for both parents.
6. Lastly, we are demanding the _opening of the legal
professions to women_. We wish to enable women to become
_solicitors, barristers, and magistrates_.
The walls of our Jericho have not fallen at the first blast of our
trumpet, but we have made great progress in promoting the principle of
equal pay for equal work, and with the familiarizing of the British
public with women as candidates for Parliament. Since the General
Election two or three women have been candidates, and one, Lady Astor,
has been returned by an immense majority.
Another important success in 1919 remains to be chronicled. It is
the inclusion in the Charter of the League of Nations of a clause
rendering women, equally with men, eligible to all appointments in
connection with the League, including the Secretariat. This clause
was inserted during the Paris negotiations after deputations of
suffragists from the Allied Nations and the U.S.A. had waited upon all
the Plenipotentiaries. They were most cordially and sympathetically
received; but the definite success of their efforts was in the main
due to the active and whole-hearted support of President Wilson, Lord
Robert Cecil, and M. Venizelos.