how can i start a history essay on suffragettes?

Question

i know all the information, i listen in class, but im having trouble starting my essay titled 'describe the ways in which the methods of the suffragettes and suffragists were different'
could you offer me any help introducting a topic like this?
english isnt really my subject, but i love history... bit of a problem...

any help appreciated xxx

black dahlia, i said i wanted help wit hteh introduction! thick s**t

Answer 1

Maybe you could mention that some suffragettes were willing to die to get the vote, such as Emily Wilding Davidson who jumped off corridor railings in prison twice but was saved by iron netting. She eventually succeeded by throwing herself under the King's horse at the Derby on June 4th 1913.

Answer 2

You could introduce your topic by using a personal touch. Write that you are having trouble deciding who to vote for in the next election (doesn't matter when or what it is or even if you are eligible) and give a couple of details. Then start your topic by saying that this dilemma is all due to the suffragettes.

Answer 3

It depends on what level you are writing for. A good essay assesses all the facts and then makes a conclusion at the end. Your conclusion is in the first paragraph. I'd personally compare it (briefly) to other countries democratic systems in 1918. This would be because 1918 was vastly different socially. Were we ahead or behind other nations? It needs to be looked at in the context of the time.

Answer 4

I would start my introduction by the definition suffragist like this:
Noun 1. suffragist - an advocate of the extension of voting rights (especially to women)
advocate, advocator, exponent, proponent - a person who pleads for a cause or propounds an idea
suffragette - a woman advocate of women's right to vote (especially a militant advocate in the United Kingdom at the beginning of the 20th century) http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Suffragists
Definition: Member or supporter of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, which used legal/constitutional action to gain the vote for women.
http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/glossary/g/glsuffragist.htm
The term women's suffrage refers to an economic and political reform movement aimed at extending suffrage — the right to vote — to women. The movement's origins are usually traced to the United States in the 1820s. In the following century it spread throughout the European and European-colonised world, generally being adopted in places which had undergone latter colonisation than that in Europe and the eastern United States. Today women's suffrage is considered an uncontroversial right, although a few countries, mainly in the Middle East, continue to deny many women the vote
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragist
suffragist (suf-ruh-jist)

A participant in the women's movement to win voting rights in the United States. The fight for women's suffrage was organized in the middle of the nineteenth century. Wyoming, while not yet a state, granted women's suffrage in 1869, though the struggle for universal suffrage was to last another fifty years. In 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing that no state could deny the right to vote on the basis of sex.

http://www.answers.com/topic/suffragist

So first one needs to define what one plans to write about.
Now take out some of what is written here and you have your introduction.
Women's Suffrage
From Grolier's Encyclopedia Americana

Women's Suffrage, the right of women to vote in political elections. Women's suffrage (long called woman suffrage) represents the first stage in the demand for political equality. It generally comes prior to women running and being elected to national political office and holding major appointive posts.
Individual women demanded Women's Suffrage, the right of women to vote in political elections. Women's suffrage (long called woman suffrage) represents the first stage in the demand for political equality. It generally comes prior to women running and being elected to national political office and holding major appointive posts.

Individual women demanded suffrage for themselves as early as the 1600s. An organized movement on behalf of woman suffrage, led by women but open to men, first emerged in the United States in 1848. Woman suffragists often met hostility and sometimes violence. In 1893 New Zealand became the first country to grant women the right to vote in national elections. Most adult women throughout the world today can vote.

Women's organizations in many countries made the fight for suffrage their most fundamental demand because they saw it as the defining feature of full citizenship. The philosophy underlying women's suffrage was the belief in "natural rights." Woman suffrage claimed for women the right to govern themselves and choose their own representatives. It asserted that women should enjoy individual rights of self-government, rather than relying on indirect civic participation as the mothers, sisters, or daughters of male voters.

Women's enfranchisement took many decades to achieve because women had to persuade a male electorate to grant them the vote. Many men — and some women — believed that women were not suited by circumstance or temperament for the vote. Western political philosophers insisted that a voter had to be independent, unswayed by appeals from employers, landlords, or an educated elite. Women by nature were believed to be dependent on men and subordinate to them. Many thought women could not be trusted to exercise the independence of thought necessary for choosing political leaders responsibly. It was also believed that women's place was in the home, caring for husband and children. Entry of women into political life, it was feared, challenged the assignment of women to the home and might lead to disruption of the family.

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/suffrage/history.htm