Summary: Cambridge legend in her early campaigning years as a suffragist a year after the outbreak of the First World War – this lecture taking place at what is how Hughes Hall, Cambridge. What follows is Clara’s first lecture.
“Two interesting lectures on “The War and the Women’s Movement” were delivered by Mrs C.D. Rackham at the Suffrage Summer School at the Training College, Wollaston-road. Cambridge on Monday night and Tuesday morning. She dealt with the fundamental questions underlying the movement at the present time and then with practical results of the changes that the war has brought about in the in the position of women. In both lectures Mrs Rackham laid great stress on the enfranchisement of women.
Some of the main questions
“In her first lecture Mrs Rackham said she wanted to set before the audience which in our minds when we considered this subject. Such questions as How far was the settlement of international differences by armed forces hostile to the whole conscription of the woman’s movement—the demand on the part of women make the fullest use of all their faculties, unhampered by prejudice, custom or law; to what extent were the ideals of the suffrage movement and the pacifist movement the same, and was a set-back to one a set-back to the other? And would the realisation of women’s political demands make war less likely in the future?
“These Questions demanded consideration though they could hardly hope to arrive at finite conclusions. People thought war the great divider between men and women. Women could do their share in the work of the world, but when came to fighting they stayed at home; when the strength of a country was estimated for military purposes male alone were counted,
“But they had come realise more and more clearly during the last year that it was not not armies and navies, which consist of men, that were at war with one another, but whole nations which consist of men and women.
The women’s part
“At first the demand was for more men; then it was for more ammunition (and women and girls to take their share the making of ammunition. then it was for safeguarding and preserving the resources of the nation (and here again, women could take as large a part as men).
“The statement in ’’Militarism versus Feminism,” that “women in war time are negligible factor. They just lapse, except for some problems, and in so far as something be found for some them do.” as applied to the chief belligerent nations to-day, was simply untrue.
“It could not said that women had lapsed when the facts were that thousandsof women were working harder than had ever done before and were feeling themselves more integral part of the nation they bad done before. The inclusion of women in the National Register might or might not have any practical result, but was any rate a symbol of the truth that even in war time, women mattered to the nation.
“Some people told them that the present activities on the part women will assuredly have their reward the war is over—that the suffrage would immediately granted. They thankfully echoed the aspiration, but if much of the praise which was bestowed to-day on Suffrage societies they could not help feeling suspicious; many people who were pleased with women wore now devoting themselves by their right work in the world instead of striving after political equality; they did not realise the least how much more valuable women might have been to the country this time if more of the barriers could have been broken down in times of peace; and it looked if after the war much the old work educating public opinion would have begin again.
Militarism and the Women’s Movement
“But apart from the actual time war, what had they to say about militarism and its relations with the woman’s movement? Militarism is the supreme example of the worship of physical force – sheer brute force uncontrolled by consideration of justice. Suffragists had never denied the importance of physical force as an actor in government —properly controlled and directed. The police force acted on behalf of what the general sense of the community had considered to be just, and justice was thereby made to prevail.
“But in war the stronger side wins – and not necessarily the juster side. The more militarism the more completely justice would go to the wall, and with it much on which that the women’s movement had been built. They felt that the contrast between the position of women in America to-day and in Germany was closely connected with the fact that the former was non-militant, while in the latter everything was organised with the view of strengthening the forces of the Crown.
“And yet the statement recently appearing in a war pamphlet that “women have absolutely nothing to gain by war” surely showed the confusion of thought. It was true, course, that women as wives and mothers suffered from the losses of war without sharing in the sense of comradeship with each other and change of perpetual distinction which did something to mitigate the sufferings of war for men.
“But in so far as women were citizens and human beings. they ‘gained’ as much from war as men would be said to do; the women patriots of of Italy rejoiced much as men in the freedom of their country from Austrian domination; and the freedom-loving women the Northern States of America equally with their in the liberation of the slaves which followed the Civil War. Women had a different of values from men: they attached a higher value than men did to human life as compared with the claims of property, but time war life and property together wore ‘sacrificed, sometimes in a good cause and sometimes had one; but generally in interests of a national ideal.
“False national ideals had been a fruitful cause of war; we were all eager to distinguish what was we believed to be true patriotism and what believed to be false: but there was no evidence the women were less sensitive than men to the appeal of patriotism and nationality.
Peace and the women’s movement
“There could be doubt that everything which tended toward the establishment of permanent peace tended also to the progress the women’s movement. To many of them the women’s movement was an integral part of the progress of civilisation. it belonged to that respect for individuals, the care and protection of the young and weak, the full and complete development of each member of the State which civilisation implied.
“War broke down much that civilisation had laboriously built up; much that valued intensely in time of peace had to go to the wall in time of war. But today this was to this imply that a suffrage society was a society.’ If “peace society”. If a “peace society” had any value at all it must not only regard peace as an ultimate ideal, it must also have some kind of programme us to how that ideal be achieved.
“Then came the acute differences of opinion which would quickly wreck any society. whether of men or women. who were bound together solely in belief in the enfranchisement of women, even though they might consider the establishment of permanent peace an important factor in women’s freedom.
“Women might sincerely desire peace in the future and yet might differ profoundly whether it could best be furthered at the present time by an early settlement of war or by a longer war and a complete victory, in the future by diplomats or by democratic control, by the continued presence of the balance of power or by establishing a League of Nations, by national service or the limitation or nationalisation of armaments.
“Most suffragists who cared about peace had their own views on these controversial subjects and could best further them by bringing societies which had been formed for that purpose.
Women’s Suffrage a Factor in Establishing Peace
“And now to come to the last question: Will the realisation of women’s political demands make was how likely in future? The anti-suffragists had been divided on this point. Sometimes they had argued that it was dangerous to give women the franchise because they would use it to plunge a nation into an unnecessary war, knowing that they themselves would not have to take part in the fighting, where some had said that women would be in favour of peace at any price and would expose their country to the unresisted attacks of foreign foes.
“This sort of discussion seemed rather futile in the European War now raging, and most suffragists would feel that the arguments answered themselves even while they were being uttered. No one probably imagined that if the Liberal Government had enfranchised women in 1906 the outbreak of war which took place in August 1914 would have been either hastened or averted. The whole question was bigger and subtler than that. Wo should all wish to think that women’s suffrage would factor in establishing permanent peace: had we any reason for such a belief- She believed that had.
“Any country which took a step forward in reasonableness and found that that step had been success was more inclined to be reasonable another time, and in another direction. If war was to averted in future a great demand would be made on the nation’s capacity for reasonableness—their respect for justice as compared with the arbitration of force, on their power esttimating at their true value human lights, even when combined with physical inferiority. Nations which had enfranchised their women would in virtue of that act more capable such moral and mental achievements.
A Vital Part of Women’s Claim
“And, further, in the opinion of many them, one factor the prevention of war the future will be the more intelligent and informed and universal share which the great body the people will take in foreign affairs. This was not say that the people were always wise and could always trusted not to make mistakes. But the more the people knew and eared and got the control of their own affairs into their own hands the better, and though this consideration applied very much more strongly to some countries than others, yet educated, far-seeing democracy was in the best interests of all.
“And it was only half a democracy which did not include women. Women were the worst sufferers from war when war come into their own country, and this was vital part their claim voice foreign well as domestic affairs. And. lastly, the woman’s movement was an international one. “The organised women of the world” might seem almost too high-sounding, but behind it lay the fact that women had strong bonds of union with the women who all civilised countries the world were facing the same social problems and claiming the freedom as themselves.
“Such bonds—like those that united Socialists and cooperators of different countries—were very severely strained in time of war. But this should , not weaken them in their faith that in the strengthening of international ties lay one great hope for the future: the task of European statesmanship after the war reconcile the just and healthy aspirations of nationalities with those larger aspirations of internationalism which aimed at nothing less than universal peace.
Lost Cambridge 