Women's Suffrage: A Short History of a Great Movement — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Women's Suffrage: A Short History of a Great Movement
John Stuart Mill · en
With the suffrage work carried on by the societies, other work for
improving the legal status of women, resisting encroachments upon
their constitutional liberties, and improving their means of education
went on with vigour, sobriety, and enthusiasm; these qualities were
combined in a remarkable degree, and were beyond all praise. It has
been remarked that the successful conduct of every great change needs
the combination of the spirit of order with the spirit of audacity.
It was the good fortune of the women's movement in England to secure
both these. The suffrage societies from the first saw the necessity of
keeping to suffrage work only; but the same individuals in a different
capacity were labouring with heroic persistence and untiring zeal to
lift up the conditions of women's lives in other ways; thus to Mrs.
Jacob Bright, Mrs. Wolstenholme Elmy, Mrs. Duncan M'Laren, and Mrs.
Pochin, we owe the first Married Women's Property Act, and also the
Guardianship of Children Act; to Mrs. Bodichon and Miss Davies, Henry
Sidgwick and Russell Gurney, the opening of university education to
women; to Miss Garrett (now Mrs. Anderson), Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell,
and Miss Jex Blake, the opening of the medical profession; to Mrs.
Josephine Butler, and Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon Amos, Sir James Stanfeld,
and Mr. James Stuart, the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts
(passed in 1866 and 1868); to Mrs. William Grey, Miss Sherriff and
Miss Gurney, the creation of good secondary schools for girls. I am
well aware that in this bald recital I have omitted the names of many
noble, conscientious, and self-sacrificing workers for the great causes
to which they had devoted themselves; I cannot even attempt to make
my list exhaustive; I have but selected from a very large number, all
ardent suffragists, a few names that stand out preeminently in my
memory among the glorious company whose efforts laid the foundations on
which we at the present day are still building the superstructure of
equal opportunity and equal justice for women and men.