Women Underpaid - Men Out of Work

Pro-female suffrage propaganda postcard published by the Suffrage Atelier. The postcard highlights the dual issue of poorly paid female workers and male unemployment and claims that the granting of female suffrage will result in higher wages for the working man. The postcard offers a counter-argument to the reluctance of trade unions to support female suffrage. Whilst trade unionists believed women's place was in the home and that men should be paid a 'family wage' so suffragists argued that women undercut men's wages because they did not have the strength of the vote to improve their industrial position. It was therefore in the interests of working-class men to support women' claims to political enfranchisement.

The Suffrage Atelier was founded in London in February 1909. Its aim was: 'to encourage Artists to forward the Women's Movement, and particularly the Enfranchisement of Women, by means of pictorial publications.'
The Atelier artists specialised in hand-made wooden block prints, stencilling and etchings and produced visually powerful posters and postcards to publicise the pro-suffrage campaign.