Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

Was your granny a suffragette?

37 replies

ElephantsAndMiasmas · 14/04/2011 10:07

Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 had a rare moment of non-shitness yesterday, discussing the suffragettes and asking for calls from people whose relatives had been involved in the movement.

(Here - fast forward to about 1 hour 10 minutes in)

It was incredibly moving, and so wonderful to hear these brave women being discussed on national radio, with only the faintest of murmurings from the whiny squad.

Being Radio 2, the music is still dreadful though, sorry :o Although I do like the song they featured about the suffragettes. (Over the montage here)

OP posts:
racmac · 15/04/2011 18:26

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

iskra · 15/04/2011 20:21

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.

sethstarkaddersmackerel · 15/04/2011 20:28

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.

WhoKnowsWhereTheChocolateGoes · 15/04/2011 22:13

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

SkinittingFluffyBunnyBonnets · 16/04/2011 00:17

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

Tolalola · 16/04/2011 00:33

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 Shock!) 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.

aliceliddell · 16/04/2011 11:06

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

thomasbodley · 16/04/2011 11:53

Fluffybunny are we related I wonder Grin

Is your middle name Christabel?

reelingintheyears · 16/04/2011 22:52

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.

NorfolkNChance · 17/04/2011 09:47

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!

thefinerthingsinlife · 17/04/2011 18:56

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

PiousPrat · 18/04/2011 14:18

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 Wink ) 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'

New posts on this thread. Refresh page