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Women Across The UK Unite To Celebrate 100 Years Of Voting Rights

Photo: Getty Images.
Tens of thousands of women across the UK have come together to commemorate 100 years of female suffrage.
#PROCESSIONS marches took place this afternoon in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and London, creating a mass artwork celebrating 100 years of some women being granted the right to vote.
Marchers wore scarves of green, white or purple – the colours of the suffragette movement – to produce a poignant and visually striking moving image. Organisers said they wanted to create a "living portrait of women in the 21st century."

Celebrating 100 years of votes for women ??#processions2018

A post shared by Rosalind Morris (@rosalindjade) on

The marches were held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act, which gave women over 30 the right to vote provided they owned property.
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A decade later, the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act granted all women over 21 the right to vote, giving male and female citizens equal voting rights for the first time.
Helen Marriage, director of Artichoke, the group that organised the #PROCESSIONS marches, said ahead of today's well-attended events: "I salute the thousands of women who have embraced the idea of Processions and, following in the footsteps of their Suffragette and Suffragist ancestors, will create an unforgettable image that will commemorate 100 years of women voting in a joyful inclusive occupation of our city streets."
Women who took part in the marches praised the celebratory atmosphere on the streets in all four cities. Check out a selection of their tweets below.
Labour MP Dawn Butler pointed out that the marches were about looking forwards as well as backwards. She tweeted: "Solidarity & love #PROCESSIONS2018 We should never stop marching until we achieve full equality. Equality recognising the intersectionality of women, black, gay, disabled, trans, deaf, et al. The inequality of class in the struggle and fighting for the many not the few. #proud"

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