To not want to hear anything about the suffragettes

[BrandNewAndImproved]

How am I meant to support a movement that was disgustingly racist just because I benefit from it being a white female.

The feminist movement is still subtly racist with a lot of white feminists refusing to see white privilege.

The argument of being of its time doesn't wash. Racism is racism and I refuse to support it.

Talk about ignorant, nothing more to say really.

Has anyone on this thread seen the 1974 BBC series Shoulder to Shoulder? It dramatizes the story of the Suffragettes, focusing on the WSPU and the Pankhursts. Sian Phillips played Emmeline. I saw it when it first aired on Public Broadcasting in the States in the mid-70s, but unlike a lot of the BBC series from that time frame, it hasn't been shown much, if at all, since. It is available now on Youtube but the quality of the video is not very good.

Has anyone on this thread seen the 1974 BBC series Shoulder to Shoulder?

Yes, I saw it when it was first shown but never since. Fulton MacKay played Keir Hardie and Judi Parfitt was excellent as Lady Constance Lytton. It was very good all round, if memory serves.

Incidentally, just to show how slippery it can be nailing what people have said in the past. There are three different versions of the 'women in the civil rights position' on this very thread, attributed to three different men.

Since we wouldn't have feminism without the suffragettes I don't see how they're not unrelated

Would you prefer the Suffragette movement had never happened? Like others I'm failing to see the connection between what happened then with whatever complaint you have now with contemporary feminism.

as an amateur historian (not knowing much about that period) not wanting to hear is a bit extreme. Surely it is important to look at the past to ensure we constantly move forward. Following your argument through..... If we didn't want to hear about hitler we couldn't ensure that the atrocities of the war couldn't happen again. we need to look back so we can move forward. I'm sorry OP even if the suffragettes were racist then that needs studying and discussing. So yes you should know about them. We have a lot to learn from them.

Since we wouldn't have feminism without the suffragettes I don't see how they're not unrelated

I don't think this statement is entirely true. Feminism in many forms had existed before the suffragettes and the suffragists (non-militant feminists) also made a valuable contribution. The womens' movement did not begin and end with the suffragettes. Mary Wollestonecraft springs to mind and I would (personally) consider her the first second wave feminist ahead of the nineteenth century feminists.

Op you are one angry woman. My ancestors were serfs and owned by the Lord of the Manor. Should I receive reparation? Put things in context.

AnneEtAramis a very good point, feminism did indeed not begin and end with the suffragettes.

There are criticisms which one might make of the various strands of contemporary feminism. For example a tendency amongst certain feminists to devalue anything traditionally feminine; the praising of daughters for being "tomboys" and the implication from that that other preferences are "lesser" choices.

Another is the insistence one must name oneself as a feminist as actions and words are not enough. Street has recently been criticised for not proclaiming she is a feminist, despite there being no doubt about her position on equality and women's rights.

The myopic obsession that the British Suffragette movement might have been racist is bizarre.

"Street" = Streep