Was your granny a suffragette?

My father's mother was too poor to have ideals, as well as being too young to be a suffragette, but I would definitely class her as having been a feminist in her own, quiet way. Between having 8 kids of her own and taking in half the local estate at one point or another as unofficial foster kids, and working she didn't have time to leaflet drop or do marches, but she challenged patriarchy wherever she saw it (especially if it was to her immediate detriment ) and raised all of the kids who passed through her doors to see people as people, defined by their individual merits not what was between their legs. All the kids who lived with her (25 at least, if the turn out at her funeral is anything to go by) were taught to do basic car maintenance, DIY and how to cook and do laundry for themselves, as well as getting a trade. She was very much of the opinion that she would be failing those in her care if she didn't ensure that they were all capable of living comfortably on their own and thought that relying on someone else for income or meals was a personal failing and to be avoided at all costs.

I guess it must have sunk in, because of the grandchildren and foster grandchildren I spoke to at her funeral, there was a wonderful mix of women with doctorates, SAHDs, single parents of both sexes who worked full time and many of whom studied as well and company directors of both sexes as well as more run of the mill shop workers and mechanics (my cousin Jane).

I think that was a fabulous legacy to leave. Her motto was 'the only thing that can hold you back in life is yourself. If something gets in your way, move it'

I found out today that my great gran in law (tedious link I know) was a suffragette, it's made my day

My Bonneke (Flemish for Grandma) was in the Belgian Resistance during WWII. She had to infiltrate a seedy bar at one point and can still shuffle cards in the most amazing ways!

My Granny was born in 1900....

She was too poor to be a suffragette..

She had to work hard all her life and still died young.

She was widowed as a result of the 1st world war (my Grandfather died in 1929 having been gassed in the war and never fully recovered) had three young children to raise alone with no benefits/NHS etc

She was also refused a war widows pension because her Husband lived for too long after the war ended.

All her children are hard working decent people as are her Granchildren and i am proud of what she achieved.

Fluffybunny are we related I wonder

Is your middle name Christabel?

What Iskra recommended. SR's new book about early C20th feminists (Dreamers of a new day?) is also interesting

One of my grandmas was too young to be a suffragette but she was the first person in her family to go to University. She got a scholarship to Cambridge, even though her father was a postman and her mother was brought up in a horrendous Victorian slum (2 adults and 8 kids in 3 rooms !) and was working full time by the time she was 13.

That grandma then caused a stir by cycling (on her own) from Cambridge to Cornwall one holiday, eating at trucker's stops on the way, and subsequently caused a scandal by refusing to give up work when she got married. She has goneon to have a v. exciting and adventurous life. She's lovely and has just had her 95th birthday.

My other grandma otoh swanned about the world in Edwardian floaty clothes, refused to shop anywhere but Harrods, and would only travel by chauffered car, taxi or steamship. I am sure she would have disapproved of all this voting nonsense. Ho hum.

I'm related to Emmeline Pankhurst according to my Late Great Aunt ...have wanted to check that out for ages....think I will!

No, but she drummed into me that I should always vote because women had died for the right to do so.

I'm reading Hidden From History by Sheila Rowbotham which is about the history of women's liberation more generally - Suffragettes are only part of that but then it is quite good that it puts it into a historical context.

I'm sure there are lots of others things around, but I really liked Hannah Mitchell's autobiography "The Hard Way Up" - it's been a while but IIRC she was a working class woman who became a socialist & suffragette.

I also really like "One Hand Tied Behind Us" by Jill Liddington & Jill Norris, which is actually about the suffragists, & the beginning of the suffrage movement in the northern mill towns & as part of that tradition of radicalism.

Can anyone recommend any books on the suffragettes? I find it fascinating and would love to read more

My granny who is now 85 did an electrical engineering degree at night school at university during the 40s. She was the only woman and she met my grandpa on the course. She then gave up work to have her 5 kids but continued to do all the accounts/ strategic decisions for my grandpa's electrical engineering company. Between them they built it up into a business with a turnover of millions and employing over 100 people. She is a very good role model and I am very proud of her.

One grandmother thought Emmeline Pankhurst (who she saw) was unladylike. So, no suffragettes. But my mother was a card-carrying Trotskyite and spent her last days reading Trotsky's works. Her ashes were scattered at Marx's grave in Highgate cemetery.

Grandmothers way too young.

Great-grandmother too busy bringing up 3 children in a cottage without piped water or electricity. And that's the 1930s, not the previous century.

But she put her foot down and insisted that her husband let their daughter take up her grammar school place, despite the uniform costs. She threatened to leave him, which was pretty extreme in those days.

Three generations later, I like to think she'd be pleased to know that her support for education eventually enabled both her granddaughter and great-granddaughter to complete doctorates.

My grandmother was too young to be a suffragette, but my great-grandmother was one of the first women to qualify as a lawyer (in Germany). Her cousin was a communist and a doctor who set up an abortion clinic. Not a great idea in 30s Germany, especially as they were Jewish, so she went to the Soviet Union (and met a sticky end, obviously).

My mum used to buy me Spare Rib. I definitely inherited my feminism.

Both my nanas are too young to have been suffragettes.

I can't help but feel that she suffered for it though, abusive husband who tried to get her committed when the marriage broke down. :(

My gran will have been too young to be a suffragette but she was a nurse in the war and she went travelling abroad on her own which was apparently unheard of.

My grandmother was too poor and too isolated (way up in N Scotland) to be a suffragette.
She is a tough-as-old-boots, live-and-let-live sort of woman and I love her dearly, but I won't forget how she tried to teach me, aged 10, the right way to wring a cloth. Because girls needed to be taught these things.
She ran after her menfolk and that was the way it was.
She lives alone with a mountain of books and her Wii Fit now. I suspect she's come round a bit to feminism, now she's got a taste of the freedom that all the fuss is about!

A few generations back, yes. I'm going to out myself here if I'm not careful, but have close relations who are direct descendants of the Pankhurst sisters.

My paternal grandparents also marched with Gandhi in Gujurat which was absolutely not the done thing for a British family in India in the 1920s.

I'm doing nothing to live up to my ancestors, sadly.

Oh, WOW!!! [vastly impressed emoticon]

My granny was a 50's housewife. She was on her way to studying architecture when she met my Granddad and that was the end of that

My great grandmother was a spy in France during WWII though, she had some amazing stories to tell!

If anyone wants a reminder about militant versus moderate feminists of 100 years ago, look up Millicent Fawcett.