AIBU to remind younhat Emily Davidson died on this day

[Believeitornot]

She died so women could vote.

If you're wavering about voting, I don't care who for, at least have a think about Emily

It's a stretch depending on how you define terrorism. An old professor of mine used to joke that terrorists were fighting in a country you'd heard of for a cause you didn't believe in. Freedom fighters were fighting in a country you'd heard of for a cause you did believe in. And guerrillas were fighting in a place you couldn't find on a map for a cause you didn't understand.

Would the IRA not be terrorists if they had only targeted the military targets? And the man who killed poor Lee Rigby? Not a terrorist because it is a military target? Drone strikes by the US in Pakistan? And what they did in Laos, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Southern Africa? Is there anywhere the US haven't done this?

Is it terrorism if the people have no political means of achieving their aims? If they are disenfranchised and therefore have no means of peaceful constitutional change? How do we define violence? Does it include acts of destruction of property? What if the legal system which defines terrorism is predicated upon values which exclude whole groups of society?

The ANC led a campaign of terrorism by violently resisting the apartheid regime.
The marchers at Selma were breaking the law and intimidating law enforcement officers by lining up on a bridge when there was a legal injunction forbidding them to assemble.
People in Jersey sabotaged German installations and defied laws prohibiting the use of radios.

And yet I admire all of those movements. As I admire the WSPU and the Chartists - who also undertook actions which , by a strict legal definition, would be today regarded as terrorism, and yet were instrumental in taking steps towards universal adult suffrage.

I hate the stance that I am more obligated to vote than a man just because I'm female.

As far as I'm concerned, the suffragettes fought to give women an equal right to men re:voting. Which means I'm under no more obligation to vote than dh IMO.

I'm under no more obligation to vote than men, but I am more thankful.

Men were given democracy. Women before me had to fight (and die) for it.

Dowager, men did die for the right to vote, i.e. The peterloo massacre, and the vote was extended to working class men beacause of their sacrifices in the First World War.

You're right - absolutely - just a group, democracy was given to men.

I agree Sleep. Years later the jockey committed suicide , having been haunted by the event.
Fanaticism of any persuasion is deeply troubling in my opinion.

There's a big difference between engagement in conflict and the targeting of innocent civilians.

It's debatable that military suffragette action had anything other than a negative impact. Violence and the distruction of property hardly supports the equality message and gives reason to dismiss those who partake as hysterical (hysteria, a common diagnosis for difficult women of the day, cured by the invention of the vibrator no less)!

There were many factors in the success of the suffragette movement, primarily changing attitudes due to women's war efforts (and the loss of male life in the 1st World War) and persuasive sympathisers in parliament supporting the cause. If you believe nothing says "I'm your equal" better than a brick through your window then I do question your thinking.

Men weren't just given the vote. Whole cities in the North were disenfranchised before 1832.
Anyone heard of the Chartists?

Terrorism is defined as the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians,

What men did then, and still do to women, is also terrorism, only that it (possibly, though not necessarily) lacks political aim.

What Emily Davison and other suffragettes did was self-defense.

I don't think women are under any obligation to vote. In fact, I'd rather that people who think voting is the same as supporting a football team, would not vote at all.

I'm not in the UK, so I'm not specially talking about that. Yes, groups of men have been disenfranchised, and that's unquestionably wrong.

However, historically and internationally, democracy was invented to give men the vote.

I think she was stupid to be honest. Not brave at all, just very silly in her approach to things. I believe she was trying to put her sash on the horse or trying to stop the horse to put the sash on. Either way it was a stupid and not very thought through move.

Omg I'm laughing at "self defence" haha no it wasn't.

The suffragettes only wanted the vote for women who owned property. People forget that part.