Ethel Snowden - Woman's Suffrage

Woman's Suffrage

After 1906 Snowden became increasingly active in supporting women's suffrage, being one of the national speakers for the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies; she decried the concentration on such things as dresses, jewels and cake recipes and wrote a book called "The Woman Socialist" in 1907 which advocated state control of marriage, joint title by women to the housekeeping money, and a state salary for mothers; she also wanted housekeeping organised collectively in each street and declared that under socialism women would have "no need to paint face and tint hair". Her strong views seemed to influence her husband, although Snowden was always a 'suffragist' and never endorsed the violent tactics of the suffragettes. In 1914 she was speaking at 200 public meetings a year on the subject, and temporarily resigned from the Independent Labour Party in order that her political allegiance did not cause problems with her campaigning on the issue.