Originally Posted by
Corporal Clott
Like it or not, the world is changing. I still find it staggering that women were not allowed to vote in this country some 100 years ago. Luckily I am from a different generation that finds this so very strange and deplorable.
As a point of interest, it's worth bearing in mind that it wasn't just women who were unable to vote 100 years ago. We are all aware that it was the Suffragettes who obtained votes for women but we seem to have had male suffrage airbrushed from our minds, many will argue that it's because it has been at odds with an ongoing political narrative. Whatever the reason, its omission from our understanding is inexplicable and unwarranted.
Before 1918, the vote was restricted not only by gender, as we are lead to believe, but also by property qualifications, when only 60% of adult men were entitled to vote. The RotP 1918 Act is, rightly, famous for giving 8,000,000 women the vote; but it also allowed 5,000,000 men returning from The Great War, the ability to vote as long as they were over 21 and, finally, without regard to property or social class. It's such a shame that we don't talk about it more, or that it goes unreported. It is almost a stain on the memory of what we/they were fighting for - namely, modern freedoms for both men
and women.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representation_of_the_People_Act_1918