Rebutting the Straw Men/Owning up when "it's a fair cop, guv.

[LurcioAgain]

BertrandRussell has started an interesting thread in Chat asking women who consciously reject the label "feminist" why they do so. One thing that strikes me is a lot of the reasons being given are in fact "straw men", and that maybe a rebutting the straw men thread would be nice.

Aim of the game (of course I can't control the direction the conversation takes, but I hope people will be on board with this) - keep the conversation couched in reasonably accessible terms, keep the posts short enough not to be overwhelming (so probably only one straw man per post!)

And those who do should perhaps be made to sit and a room and watch this over and over until it sinks in.

Even if WW1 was the reason the men gave (because obviously women needed to be seen to be worthy of having a vote ), the suffragettes raised the consciousness level. They never would have given women the vote at the end of WW1 if it hadn't been put on the table originally through their campaigning.

It is such bullshit and erasing women's history, again.

I agree with all of you

When I spoke to ds1 I told him that history is written by the victors

In the case of women in history men have written the vast majority, he then trotted off to check who had written the school text book

Luckily the book had been written by two men and even if it hadn't been it wouldn't have mattered

Eh? WW1 didn't help. Asquith was about to give women the vote in 1912, then changed his mind because he feared they would vote against him. That was entirely off the back of the work of the suffragettes. WW1 slowed things down because the suffragettes decided to suspend activity during the war. Women were eventually given the vote after much arsing about after the war. In no way was the war a cause of that.

It's a bit fucking rich for men to accuse the suffragettes of being violent when the only ever hurt themselves or property. How many people do men kill every year?

The First World War helped

You are funny. And wrong, as Cailin shows.

Odd, don't you think, that the "Suffragettes were terrorists" line gets trotted out so often, and is so well known, whereas the terrorism perpetrated against the women in prison for daring to demonstrate is hardly commented on.

Mary Leigh was force-fed in September, 1909:

"On Saturday afternoon the wardress forced me onto the bed and two doctors came in. While I was held down a nasal tube was inserted. It is two yards long, with a funnel at the end; there is a glass junction in the middle to see if the liquid is passing. The end is put up the right and left nostril on alternative days. The sensation is most painful - the drums of the ears seem to be bursting and there is a horrible pain in the throat and the breast. The tube is pushed down 20 inches. I am on the bed pinned down by wardresses, one doctor holds the funnel end, and the other doctor forces the other end up the nostrils. The one holding the funnel end pours the liquid down - about a pint of milk... egg and milk is sometimes used."

Pictures are of the equipment used to force feed women, and the second is of a woman being force fed (which might be upsetting)

I have to disagree there. It's factually wrong to say "Women were eventually given the vote after much arsing about after the war" when everyone should know that women got the vote in February 1918 (though not on an equal basis to men until 1928).

It's also annoying to see people forgetting that although the Pankhursts suspended their campaign during the war (and handed men white feathers instead) Millicent Fawcett kept up her non-violent pressure all along, and of course many women took up jobs that supported the war. There was also another injustice to deal with, the fact that a lot of men had no vote either, when all men might be conscripted for the war. With one thing and another, it became impossible to deny women political rights by 1918. And besides, everyone's attention was elsewhere. Votes for women wasn't such a gigantic issue any more.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representation_of_the_People_Act_1918

Sylvia Pankhurst was opposed to WW1. She did not hand out white feathers.

You are correct re Sylvia Pankhurst, although Millicent and Christabel were enthusiastic supporters of the war effort. Sylvia put her energy into left-wing causes during most of the war.

But what about the main issue? I say the war helped the cause of women's suffrage, and let it happen with hardly any more struggle after 1914.