Feminist Movements - 11 Modern History – British first wave feminists – Suffragists & Suffragettes

A PowerPoint for the first lesson of the term – an introduction to feminism and the4 British suffragettes. It begins with a basic definition of feminism for students to add to their glossary + the class word wall. Students know they need to copy down whatever text is underlined in my slides. It is followed by a clip from Horrible Histories (on ClickView) about the Suffragettes. This is followed by an opportunity to discuss what students already know about this topic. Students are assigned a homework research task – due the following week. There is a clip from the 1964 Mary Poppins film showing Mrs Banks – a 1st wave feminist. The 4 waves of feminism are summarised before zooming in on Britain’s first wave. There is a YouTube video from 1913, when militant suffragette Emily Wilding Davison threw herself under King George V’s racehorse at a major public event. She died of her injuries and became a suffragette martyr. An extract from Mary Wollstonecraft’s influential text A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) is presented and students must summarise the key ideas. Another primary source an extract from The Declaration of the Rights of Woman (1791) is provided for comparison. There is information about the hunger strikes which were used as a form of protest & the force feeding methods used by the authorities. There are excerpts of prisoner testimonies. An image of a primary artefact (a hunger strike medal) is displayed. Information about some of the advances women achieved in the early 20th century is provided including information about when British women achieved the vote. The trailer for the 2015 film Suffragette is shown and a synopsis is provided. This lends itself well to a discussion of the personal implications of joining the movement for women at the time. To conclude the lesson, students are encouraged to reflect on their learning and compile their own definition of first wave feminism – with examples.

Resources designed for the new senior Modern History syllabus (implemented in QLD in 2019). Designed as part of a unit entitled Women’s movements since 1893, which has the scope to span from when Women’s suffrage in New Zealand became law to the present. I decided to focus on the Second Wave of Feminism for our assessment (while briefly touching on the other waves of feminism).The other resources are also available in my store - lrigb4. The end of term assessment for this unit was an essay under exam conditions. As the unit was taught in term 4, it was a shorter, 6 week unit.