Women behind camera by Elijah Idowu

“It says that Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women. But for the movie industry now, feminism isn’t taken into consideration”

INTRODUCTION

Before the film industry became a big business, women were involved in nearly every aspect of production. There was no sexism in the early days, anybody on set contributed to whatever task which needs to be done both males and females. Writer Lizzie Francke who is an executive producer and recently credited for various movies such as Shame (2011), Kill list (2012), Hush (2009), Donkey Punch (2009) and the list goes on, she stated that she spent a good deal of time in the cutting room and the movie industry was both controlled by males and females.

Film is such a male-dominated industry. The whole way the business is constructed means there is just men at every level, which makes it really hard for female directors to get into the movie industries. Before I express my own thought and knowledge about women behind camera. I did some research about occupational title by biological sex on directors, writers and producers and I found out the percentage of female directors is 7% which is really low this proves that camerawomen in the film industries are faceless and nameless to people which I find very bad.

With all the new movies being released, I haven’t noticed any female directors being credited. I’m not a feminist; hence I think women should have equal rights as men. From my research about famous movie directors, it has come to my awareness that female directors are well known for their romance and sexual movies while the male movie directors tend to write and film different genre of movies. 

The movie number 9 was produced and co-directed by Elizabeth karlsen who began her career in independent film production in New York, Elizabeth also work with male directors such as Bill, Sherwood, Zbigniew Rybcyznski, Jim jarmusch. Elizabeth was nominated for the Producer’s Guild of America and was awarded a Woman’s Image Network award for her work on the project.

An interesting story from Elizabeth karlsen was she had to present the best feature award at the best eye view festival, and she stated that she panicked because the statistics of film directed by women is 6 percent which shows in the occupational title by biological sex graph. Elizabeth karlsen was the only woman who has won the Oscar for best director due to this situation, female directors would be  scared to come out of there closet and approach the film directing industry.

There was a touching statement which I found on the internet about Susanne Bier’s who is a Danish film director who recently won the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for her 2010 drama In a Better World.


“Collecting the best feature award on Susanne Bier's behalf was her son, Gabriel. He charmed by delivering Suzanne's appreciation for both the award and the festival itself. Susanne has just won the Oscar for best foreign language feature for in a Better World, but she wanted it made clear how important it is that we celebrate and support women filmmakers. Her son also explained that he was the living proof that she had been able both to raise a family and forge a career as a film director.”


For Susanne Biers son stating that he was proud of his mum because she had to raise a family and also carry on with her film directing is really difficult, with this statement I can say it is an obvious reason which most females directors have and also in the world we leave in now, males are more likely to be the boss in all industries and wouldn’t want to take orders from females which I am not in support of because behind every male there is a great woman who gave birth to them and raised them up therefore female directors should be taken into consideration.

Female Hollywood actress Gemma Arterton who featured in big movies (Quantum of Solace and Prince of Persia) and small movies (Tamara Drewe) and she's just 25. Gemma Arterton spoke about the film industry being such a male-dominated industry.  Gemma Arterton stated which I quoted for my essay that “You can be a feminist; it's just difficult because it sometimes comes back at you” and the reason for Gemma Arterton speaking out loud was because at the beginning of her career she felt like everyone took her serious because of the big movie she featured in and she had the feeling that the world had done her a favour and she was in support of feminism which put her in a dilemma on whether to speak out loud which there would be consequence , people could say she’s grown wings due to the fact that she has become famous. Gemma Arterton said she’s a feminist now that she has spoken out and the industry is prejudiced generally.

“Expectations of women, girls, what they should look like, how they should be, what they should say, what they should wear, how their hair should be, what colour their skin should be. It's always going to be like that. It's not so much like that in theatre or independent film, and that's why I'm sort of gravitating towards those now, because otherwise you're fighting a losing battle and never going to win it. You're just going to be known as the mouthy one who gets in trouble for saying what she thinks. I thought to myself, do I say stuff or do I silently be a feminist.” 

In relation to this quote by Gemma Arterton, it could be a deadly statement because her career might be ended because most movie directors are male and might not work with her because male directors might look at it from a different perspective in terms of female being the boss and giving the males orders.

In reference to a book title (who run the show) by Mollie Gregory

By reading this book, I was able to find out that in the 70s, one could count the women who produced film or television on one hand and moving on to the 90s, there were hundreds of female directors but all of it whipped out after that. This book talked about women who ran the show and it was based on more than 125 interviews with women in virtually every segment of the entertainment business – from feature films to television. During the 70,s Hollywood workplace didn’t want any female film directors till the year 2000

In this book seven female directors where interview about them. The following names are listed

this book seven female directors where interview about them. The following names are listed

§  Gale Anne Hurd: After graduating, she joined "New World Pictures" as executive assistant to Roger Corman, the company president. She worked her way up through various administrative positions and eventually became involved in production.

§  Mimi Leder, who is the director of ER and The Peacemaker:  MIMI Leder is the Daughter of the late independent filmmaker Paul Leder, Mimi Leder was the first woman accepted to study cinematography at the American Film Institute.

§  Kathleen Nolan, the first female president of the Screen Actors Guild.

§  Jane Alexander, actress, producer, and head of the National Endowment for the Arts.

§  Polly Platt, producer of Broadcast News.

§  Martha Coolidge, director of Introducing Dorothy Dandridge and first female president of the Directors Guild.

§  Sherry Lansing, chairman of the Motion Picture Group, Paramount Pictures.

Conclusion

By researching about women behind the cameras, I was really shocked about the kind of information I found about in the filming industry. As a second year student going to my third year, I would want to be a film director because I am interested in moving images, in future when I become a famous director I would like to work with female directors because I’m not sexist .I believe from the successful female directors such as Gale Anne Hurd who could produce a brilliant and powerful movie like the terminator and aliens , more female directors should be given the chance to show what they made of and more movies like the terminator would be produced. 

Reference :

Why are women directors such a rare sight? | Film | The Guardian . 2012. Why are women directors such a rare sight? | Film | The Guardian . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2005/mar/07/gender.world. [Accessed 24 March 2012]

Number 9 Films | About | Profiles | Elizabeth Karlsen. 2012. Number 9 Films | About | Profiles | Elizabeth Karlsen. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.number9films.co.uk/about/profiles/elizabeth_karlsen. [Accessed 19 April 2012].

Where are the women film directors? | Kerry Fox | Comment is free | The Observer . 2012. Where are the women film directors? | Kerry Fox | Comment is free | The Observer . [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/20/kerry-fox-women-film-directors. [Accessed 19 April 2012].

Filmmaker Susanne Bier, Seeking 'A Better World' : NPR. 2012. Filmmaker Susanne Bier, Seeking 'A Better World' : NPR. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.npr.org/2011/03/10/134391928/filmmaker-susanne-bier-seeking-a-better-world. [Accessed 21 April 2012].

The Silent Era: Women Behind the Camera: Moving Image Section--Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. 2012. The Silent Era: Women Behind the Camera: Moving Image Section--Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. [ONLINE] Available at:http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awmi10/silent_camera.html. [Accessed 22 April 2012].

Gale Anne Hurd - Biography. 2012. Gale Anne Hurd - Biography. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005036/bio. [Accessed 22 April 2012]

Mimi Leder | Movies and Biography - Yahoo! Movies. 2012. Mimi Leder | Movies and Biography - Yahoo! Movies. [ONLINE] Available at:http://movies.yahoo.com/person/mimi-leder/. [Accessed 22 April 2012].

Beautiful women by Samuel Goitom

Beautiful women
by Samuel Goitom

                                                                        

                                             
                                                                 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (20th Century-Fox, 1953)
                                                          Marilyn Monroe costume worn as Lorelei Lee: signature red sequin dress 
                                                               “Just Two Little Girls from Little Rock” opening musical number,

It's only in the past sixty years that thinness became the standard for beauty, and women were expected to have considerable curves, and if look at pictures of great beauties from the early 1900's, youthful body of the sylph, personified by the model Kate moss. The materialism and power dressing of the affluent, glossy, competitive eighties were discarded in the eco-friendly ‘purity ‘of the early nineties. More recently, GIRL POWER’S brash glamour is paired with laddishess in a period where girls must act like boys to get ahead; evidence of same elements of vitality and variety to the relentless idealisation of the thin body underpinned by the billion dollar FISHION, cosmetic and slimming industries.(Sarah Gamble page 118).

You’ll see some amazing feminine forms. Lilly Langtry One of the most beautiful women of her time, she was world-famous for her beauty at her time. The female body is ordered and perfected into an idealised form, which stands as a symbol of objectified female beauty. One thing I have to say is that talking about beauty leads talking about women. At one time the word ‘beauty’ was used to mean ‘women,’ and even today most of us apply the word ‘beautiful’ to women (and scenery) rather than to men. Many beautiful women in the world. These women are selected from beautiful supermodels, fashion, movies, music and other arenas are filled with exquisite women each unique not only in respect of their talents but also in terms of their looks. The one thing linking them together is their beauty that shines through. Let us know through comments who is the most stunning and breathtaking?

I think most women are motivated to diet in order to fit a particular clothing size. Attain thin bodies by dieting, exercising, and body contouring surgery, encouraging female consumers to believe that they can and should be thin. there is a greater preference for fuller lips in our society.
life is much simpler when clothes fit the person, rather than the other way around. I thank this is because men enjoy, The term ‘patriarchal’ refers to power relations in which women’s interests are subordinated to the interests of man. these power relations take on many forms, from the sexual division of labour and the social organisation of procreation to the internalised norms of femininity by which we live patriarchal power rests on social meaning given to biological sexual difference.(Sarah Gamble, ch 1,page 3, 2001).

Hollywood is producing movies like what Women Want in order to teach a generation of cavemen the new rules.

Like today Hollywood view of the world changed significantly as they became much more aware as then.... Movies culture spread around the world with the advent of Hollywood women. the editors go on, are oppressed within the film industry (they are receptionists ,secretaries, odd jobs girls, prop girl, etc)they are oppressed by being packaged as images ( sex objects, victims or vampires ) and they are oppressed within FILM THEORY, by MALE critics who celebrate directors like Hitchcock or Sirk for their material – often the humble ‘woman’s picture’ or ‘weepie’. The editors own project that we not only interpret representation of the world, like the world itself. (Sarah Gamble, page 93).Today's world is a woman's world and in order for men to succeed they must learn to think like a woman thinks. 21th century to the new rules, right is what women want. Women must be accepted as they are. Before we go any further. This is not an article about how women aren’t equal to men; Women are tougher and stronger, smarter and more intuitive than men in many ways.. I truly believe that men and women are equal. The woman is better than man in many ways. Women are just as strong as men in both physical and emotional. If we weren't then how have we achieved all that we have? for example women never used to work and it certainly wasn't a man that changed that it was a woman, a woman that was very strong willed and determined a woman who although was female was a lot stronger that a hell of a lot of men!! We then managed to get equal pay and that was because we outsmarted the men. Men and women are equal if not women are higher, without women men would be nothing, can you imagine Adam without eve? Men make women sound inferior but that is only because men are fearful of strong independent women because we are so powerful! Women are not more powerful than men and men are not more powerful the women we are both human beings we have amazing things together imagine a world without the opposite sex we need both men and women . And men aren’t scared of the independent women and women not afraid of the independent man. We are both equa in charge of the world for Were equal in every way.

In the movie Mel Gibson discovers that he can hear what women are thinking as a result of an accident. Eventually he loses this "gift," but not before he learns what women want. As a result, with no outside help except for an electrical short in his hair dryer in his bathroom, Mel transforms himself from a chauvinist to a sensitive male.

One of the most underrated actors of our time. This film starts with a very unique, funny idea, and it does not disappoint in terms of how good it can be executed. Well casted, well directed and very funny film.

In same culture have made it clear that many women are nothing more than show they are bodies’ attraction and many women exploit themselves by wearing revealing or tight clothing (especially the most insecure women). I'm not saying that all women should cover, but they should maybe consider what image they are giving off when they wear certain things. Show off as much of it as possible, and is alive simply for the pleasure of men. If they don't want their men looking at other women they should not dress so other men will look at their bodies. Many Cultures Prefer a Fuller Women’s Figure, so it makes me wonder how our world will change over the next few decades.

In ways of seeing (1972), John Berger made the connection between the visual language of ADVERTISING and publicity, with its emphasis on idealised, objectified bodies, and the conventions of Old Master painting. One of the most enduring idealisations of the female body is the high art cultural from of the painted or sculpted nude. (Sarah Gamble, page 119).Images of female bodies are everywhere more than male bodies. Through television, radio, movies, music, the internet, and advertising, many women are portrayed as sex toys. It’s a look at how many women are secretly being manipulated by man, into living lives that are alien to their true inner nature; and how most women are suffering because of it. The pressure to maintain a low bodyweight amongst fashion models in particular leads to a high incidence of Eating disorders , Divorce, overwork, overstress, plastic surgery, depression, suicide ~ something strange is happening to women.Young girls are taught by media that getting drunk, acting aggressively, and having sex with multiple partners. These TV shows have a negative influence on young women and young men, and they have a negative impact on society over time. Add to this the fact that women are made to feel inadequate by the mass media by repeated exposure to printed ads, magazines, television shows, and movies that feature excessively thin, beautiful, young and flawless models. We all know that this blatant in-your-face marketing of such impossible-to-achieve standards of beauty only hurts young women and older women, rather than the ‘good works ‘of a century age.(page 119).

In my world, I love you and care about you so much. Women, God created the first man and woman in His own image. You have been created in the very image of God and have eternal worth. He loves you, and you are His perfect creation. God did not create you to be a toy for men’s passions, but to serve and glorify Him with your lives. Regardless of what the world calls beauty, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL because of who you are in Christ! It is Christ, not the world that makes you beautiful. It is the unconditional love God has for you that makes you special, not how many men lust after you. To make you beautiful.

The power and rights of women: Many educated women in the world assume that women's right. Women are serving at virtually every level of government, e.g., Chancellor Merkel in Germany and Hillary Clinton as the US Secretary of State. Argentine president elected in the twenty-first century, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Australia's first female Prime Minister Australia Prime Minister she said women needed to have a far greater representation in positions of authority.

‘It is clear that globally much more needs to be done," Ms Gillard told The Sunday Time."CHOGM is a great opportunity to inspire the women and girls of the commonwealth to aim high and believe that nothing should stand in the way of achieving their dreams.

Reference

(Book) An introductory guide to cultural theory popular culture, john storey

(Book) THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO Feminism and Post feminism Edited Sarah Gamble

Butler, c (2002) postmodernism: Avery short introduction. Oxford university

Press.

jenainati,v. (2007) introducing feminism. Thriplow :icon

·        From YouTube viewed  by Challenging Media on 4 Oct 2006

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7143sc_HbU

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DG0cVUd0pI&feature=related

        ·     YouTube, konami99 (2007)    the ultimate dress size comes with its own risks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkcPeok6B7Q&feature=player_embedded.

Feminism within the music industry - By Goddard Adali-M

Music is a powerful way of getting a message across, and it is used to gather supporters for all sorts of acts, this can be dangerous baring in mind the youths are easily influenced by music, and some wrong messages sent by false-minded musicians can do damage to young listeners. When a child grows up in a certain surrounding he or she gets used to the influences of their surroundings and usually grows up sticking to the principles he or she learnt from their childhood, a lot of kids are obsessed with celebrity life-styles and have chosen to make superstars their role-models.

My main focus is on female musicians in hip-hop and how their feminist acts and words influence many young girls out there. Feminism can be summed up as woman power, or the fight for equality between women and men. Some feminist women take it to heart and take it so far that they end up sounding sexist, forgetting that the fight was not to discriminate men, but to stop men discriminating women. In music videos women are always used as what I see as 'bait' to attract more viewers, the women tend to be half naked and aspects of their body need to be in a certain shape or form for them to be accepted as beautiful, while the men appear more over-powering and careless. The men sleep with more than one woman and get praised by being called 'playas', where as if a woman was to do the same she would be labelled as a whore and discriminated.

 

There have been a few women putting their foot down in music, such as Mary J Blige, Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliott and many more. The sad side of this is that many of these positive female artists don’t sell much, which would mean people prefer the naked woman talking about sex, more than the well dressed lady talking about power. It’s not just in hip hop that women get degraded; Pop music is mostly based around fantasies, and whose fantasies does not involve a hot naked woman? Whether it’s the woman looking at herself as a flawless model or the man looking at the woman as a sexually attractive character. Madonna put out a song called Human Nature, talking about being censored and given less opportunity all because of her gender, some of the lines in the song are "You wouldn’t let me say the words I longed to say" and "You didn’t want to see life through my eyes", she peaks of the un-fair rules she was bound by and how men did not want to see things through a woman's perspectives and avoided their opinions. Personally I think her songs empower women to realize that they deserve more and need to stand up for their rights, but then an artist like Nikki Minaj, (who has sold millions of records worldwide) steps into the music scene and does everything that destroys the power of women, she’s gotten plastic surgery to look more attractive, she barely wears any clothes and talks about sex all the time. Nikki Minaj would call herself "Barbie" (which clearly means a toy to be played with) or a "Bad Bitch" whereas Madonna would say "I’m not your bitch" she does all the things that angered women to stand up for their rights in the first place, even though she doesn’t have to in an era such as now where women have more rights and power than they used to have.
A lot of girls follow the likes of Nikki Minaj, they dress like her and believe that in order to look attractive you must wear clothes that show-off some cleavage or clothes that expose your thighs. There are other artists like Nikki Minaj that discriminate women even further, for example Lil Kim talks about selling her body to get men to accept her and make her famous, there’s a song where she says "Sucked dick just to get to the top", and later on talk about being an independent woman who doesn’t need the help of a man in her life.

Young girls look up to some of these false minded superstars and feel they can relate to them, but I feel like depending on men to get to a position where you wouldn’t need them anymore isn’t woman power. If a woman has to lower her standards at any point of her life because of her gender then she either does not know her rights or the power of her rights aren’t strong enough.

I was reading a book called 'From Black Power to Hip-hop: Racism, Nationalism, and feminism' and came across a quote by a female rapper 'Queen Latifah' who began her music career in the times when hip-hop was about getting the right message across, she was one of the few good role models who practiced what they preached. The quote is: "I don't act the way society dictates that woman should. I am not a dainty. I do not hold back my opinions. I don't stay behind a man. But I'm not here to live by somebody else's standards. I'm defining what a woman is for myself. Simply put, I'm not interested in subscribing to what society has decided for half of humankind. I am an individual." These are the kind of words that I will expect to hear from a feminist, or a woman who claims to stand for woman power. These days hip hop surrounds the fabulous lifestyle, being rich, driving the finest cars and wearing huge jewellery. The female rappers getting into the game follow the same trend, talking about fashion designer clothes and diamonds that they can afford by just appearing half naked in a music video and talking about sex, instead of them showing girls that you do not have to exploit yourself to be well off. This kind of music tends to degrade a certain type of audience, if a black woman always talks about having “the tightest vagina” or “shooting it out” (Lil Kim) and a white woman talks about “Sippin' gin and juice, layin’ underneath the palm trees” (Katie Perry) it is going to make black women look like the aggressive and violent type who will do anything for money or fame. “Apparently, singing and dancing about Black pain and wearing the latest styles while doing it could generate cold, hard cash.”

The book From Black Power to Hip Hop talks about colour blind racism, the fact that black people in general have to be involved in stereotypical activities in order to be successful,
The artists getting into hip-hop these days seem to have forgotten what hip-hop begun as. Before hip-hop there was the Black Power Movement, it was the voice of many who were tired of the unequal treatment. The female rappers could’ve stepped into the game of hip hop and sold millions based on lyrical content alone. Lyrical content informing the younger girls to focus on education and become doctors, encouraging the young ones that they are beautiful just the way they are and that they do not need botox to be loved or look any better. The songs these artists put out will influence a young girl to act cheap and whore-like, this has already been going on, many girls have no fathers because their mothers embraced the wrong lifestyle and either do not know their daughters father or their daughters father is just another thug minded man locked up. Nikki Minaj is very good with her lyrics and has some good songs apart from her usual sex topics, but still falls back into the act of getting naked and talking about things that degrade women. I think young girls need a role model, and not just one but many, because there are a few artists that try to educate the young black girls out there but they don’t get enough audience attention. There are even YouTube comments calling for good music, a lot of people are seeing the effects of this new hip hop and calling for the old “Real hip hop” back, here are a few YouTube comments on Nikki Minajs music videos:
“That's the dumbest shit I've ever seen.”
Written by: KurtwithKnives
“it's bullshit”
Written by: mizfest
But then there’s a comment that catches my attention, “Her music isn't aimed at young girls, so its not really her fault.”

Written by: MrHimey in reply to EfFaBaRbIElOlZ.

Even though her music is not aimed at young girls, it’s the kind of music young girls will want to listen to because every child wants to act as if they’re grown, so they dress like the grownups, talk like their favourite musicians and try to be like them. They’re young and can be thought anything, yet the false music is what they’re fed and when they grow and have daughters, their daughters are most likely going to act like their mothers. Black female rappers need to change their choice of topic and begin to influence their young black female fans the right way. It will take a lot of work but every step will count.

References:  From Black Power to Hip Hop by Patricia Hill Collins
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmZvOhHF85I

Feminism and Women's rights- by Jonathan Sebbanja

 Introduction

First of all feminism is defined as an organised, political movement for the attainment of such rights for women to be equal to men. The movement started off purely in relation to suffrage giving women the right to vote. During the time both genders felt that women had a specific place in the society for example: home maker, but women felt that this role meant they should be allowed a degree of influence on policy and politics that affected them. From this movement developed feminism as we know it today still continues through the struggle to have complete equality between women and men.

'

A myth invented by men to confine women to their oppressed ‘state. For women it is not a question of asserting themselves as women, but of becoming full-scale human beings''. 

In religion terms this struggle can still be very much ongoing this , despite the United Nations passing the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women.

The Campaign for Equal Rights

The arguments that inspired the French Revolution and justified the right of man did not necessarily lead to the advocacy of the rights of women, since it was quite possible to define women as having a different nature from that of men. Nevertheless, the French school of rationalism was important in the development of feminist ideas and the question attracted a good deal of attention from French philosophers in the eighteenth century (Bouten, 1975, p 52). The three Frenchmen Montesquieu, Diderot and Voltaire were sympathetic to women’s rights although Rousseau was strongly anti-feminist and believed that women should be subordinate men. Moreover, although the French revolution did little to further the emancipation of women in France (Tomalin, 1974, p 13). The ideas behind this revolution were to be important in the development of feminism in England and in America.

Women's Rights: are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and young girls of all ages in many societies. In some places these rights are supported by law, local custom and behaviour. They differ from broader notions of human rights through claims of an inherent historical and traditional bias against the rights by women and girls in favour of men and boys. During the whole of the nineteenth century women had no political rights though there had been some movement in other areas to advance or help the rights of women. In 1839 a law was stated that if a marriage broke down and the parents separated, children under seven years of age should stay with their mother. As the years passed new laws were being made until 1857 where women could now divorce husbands who were cruel to them or who have left them during their relationship.

As soon as it hit 1870 women were allowed to keep their own earned money so they can spend it on how ever they wish for themselves and for their children if a divorce has been confirmed. Finally in 1891 women could also not be forced to live with husbands unless they wished to do so, in other terms having their own way of overcoming a man who can bring a high level of support and love. All these laws were very important towards women which advanced the rights for them. However the laws where powerful to the local public.

 If the woman left their husband it things would get much harder for her and for the children because of the attitude of Victorian Britain, which was that women should look after the husband after a long day at work .

For example I have researched into the area where women faced difficulties after qualifying into a doctor. The UK's population was very little in their books as men would not be treated by women and the remaining with their male GP's as that way it was done. It took a very long time until women could get a decent reputation among Londoners along with hostility among the way. 

During that time the culture also meant that only a few women where naturally skilled doing the obvious jobs such as , teachers, nurse, doctors etc. The view was very much supported by Queen Victoria but how ever she hardly did anything in advance for women. But eventually she had written a statement the country that ''let women be what god intended them to be and do, a helpmate for man, but with totally different duties. In the later years of the 19th century all women wanted one simple right which was the right to vote. This right was known as the right of suffrage for women and the group that fought for it became known as the ''Suffragettes''.


There was an argument that women who had money and employed men as gardeners, cooks etc were in the position of not being able to vote but yet the men who are employed  in the business are able to... personally this indicates a high level of sexism. Also the argument lead to another statement in which those women that worked paid the same level of tax as men who were employed could not vote only men could. Their campaign took them into the 20th century - a century that gave women over 30 years of age the right to vote in 1918 and allowed them to stand for the parliament in the same year. Eventually 10 years later all women were given the same political rights as men.


The Suffragettes


The whole point of the suffragettes were to make a right into women being allowed to vote. This move for women started in 1897 and the founder of the National Union of women's suffrage is Millicent Fawcette, whom had to fight for the women's right of voting. The claim for the political emancipation of women is part of the equal rights tradition of feminism, and the demand for this enfranchisement on the equal terms with men dates from the very beginning of feminism as an ideology. 


Already in Britain a number of articles advocating female suffrage as a general principle had appeared early in the 1830's and the subject was, as we have seen a topic of discussion. In the early 1832 a petition was presented to the parliament asking for the vote for all the unmarried females who possessed the necessary qualifications. The debates that were carried out in 1830 of the male franchise were not to result in any substantial campaign for women's suffrage. Indeed the working class women were not to involve themselves in political activities until almost the end of the century. 


By the end of the 1890's and early 1900's the movement had entered a new phase, this was largely the result of two new factors in the situation: the growth of support for women's suffrage amongst themselves, and the increasing importance of the labour movement in British politics. If we are to understand the dramatic change in the fortunes of the suffrage issue that was to take place in the 20th century it is necessary to look at these circumstances in advance. 


The growing support for women's suffrage within the new profession of charitable work had been mentioned: For these women the vote was seen as a powerful tool for the reformation of the society and they began not only to accept its necessity but in many cases, to join actively in the campaign. 


Finally in my sense I believe that the support for the women's suffrage within the labour movement was to prove as problematic, in practice, as support within the liberal party, and for very similar reasons. Although some labour leaders were firmly and unshakeably feminist, others remained unconvinced. Even so the inclusion of women in the 1917 bill was by no means a forgone conclusion. In the event the act in 1918 introduced adult suffrage for men only. For women, the suffrage was limited to those over 30 who were local government electors, or wive and university graduates. By ristricting women's suffrage mainly by age the government allayed the fear that many still had that the country would be governed by women. 

References 

Faces of Feminism By Olive Banks
The Golden years, 1870-1920 
Votes for women Chapter 8 
The Campaign for Equal Rights 
Bernard, Jessie (1979) 'Women as voters'  
Bernard, Jessie (1971) The status of Women in Modern Patterns of Culture.