Page 2 | Did the Suffragettes really win women the vote?

IwantToRetire · 2023-02-12T22:15:11+00:00

Is violent disruption the way to go? The answer, 105 years after votes for women were legislated, is not simple. And perhaps there are indeed some present-day parallels. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/did-the-suffragettes-really-win-women-the-vote/ Is this revisionism or closer to the truth?!

Enviromont · 13/02/2023 21:44

You do need groups like ER if you want to accelerate political will to change.
It's just too easy to ignore the often huge peaceful protests or media campaigns.
Generally causes have separate groups so Friends of the Earth educate society, Greenpeace pull off big stunts, client Earth go for the legal route. ER and the ER science group are part of the mix.

Do you think the Tories would have scrapped the poll tax without the 'riot' in London?
The huge peaceful Iraq demo didn't change political will.
The US civil rights movement also had multiple strands.

Any other examples?

JaninaDuszejko · 13/02/2023 22:08

The suffragette violence brought the issue to the front pages and members of suffragist societies massively increased as a result. They did move public opinion.

Interestingly the peaceful suffragists in the US experienced similar police brutality and force feeding in prison and also had their role in the fight for the vote downplayed.

PeanutButterSmoothie · 13/02/2023 22:09

ChateauMargaux · 13/02/2023 11:35

It's a terrible article..

So women should have waited until men decided they were ready to bestow the vote.. change to the status quo does not come about because the oppressor wakes up one day and decides to change. How many times have we heard - yes, I can see your point, but it's not the right time, there are other priorities..

As for criticising the movement for violence that it did not inflict on people but might have done is ridiculous. Men are responsible for far far more violence than women, in all spheres. The very small amount of violence carried out by these women pales into insignificance against the continued violence that women are subjected to at the hands of men, the failure to recognise rape in marriage before 1991 and the continued failure to successfully prosecute rape beyond 1% of those reported.

Women should not have patiently carried on pushing gently on an open door. There were several factors at play, but the brick through the window approach played it's part.

I salute you, women of the suffragettes, you have given us role models to follow. We cannot sit around and wait for men to decide what is right for us and our daughters, we must continue to make our voices heard.

When we talk about violence - let's look at where the real violence is coming from. It is overwhelmingly from men as it always has been. Rare examples do not change that.

This is just whataboutery though. Men being more violent as a species isn't justification for bombing innocent civilians.

Neither is the intent any better if the bomb doesn't detonate (even if the outcome is obv better). If a man tries to rape you but can't get it up would you honestly say it's 'ridiculous to criticise him for violence that he did not inflict on you but might have done'.

PeanutButterSmoothie · 13/02/2023 22:14

Also, nobody worships violent men. The same is not true of the suffragettes.

GhostOrchid · 13/02/2023 22:32

It’s not true that working class women were not welcome in the suffragettes ie the WSPU. It was founded by Minnie Baldock and Annie Kenny, both working class women, from London and Lancashire respectively. It’s incredibly enmeshed with early socialism.

GhostOrchid · 13/02/2023 22:35

Also, Emmeline Pankhurst has a had statue in Westminster for years. Not on Parliament Square, it’s up past Victoria Tower on Millbank.

Original poster

IwantToRetire · 14/02/2023 00:10

I think ER has nothing to do with violent protest or even peaceful campaigning.

It is a self indulgent exercise in ego boosting. Nobody talks about the issues they say they care about. Everybody just talks about what a pain in the neck they are, and an insult to other members of the publice.

That's why I think anyone comparing campaigners for women's rights of which ever grouping with these silly middle class selfie loving individualists is insulting the women who campaigned for the right to vote.

And obviously nothing like the poll tax riots. And because of the Tory back down we now see both the politicians and the media just talk about those who used violence in the protests against the police bill as just rent a mob.

We cant compare how policies are changed in the 21st Century to how that happened last century or why. The shock of the new only happens once.

Inevitably the media whether social or mainstream turns everything into a pastiche of what it is actually meant to be. But only at the point they get bored of it. Which in the instance of trans campaigning hasn't happened yet.

OP posts:

Original poster

IwantToRetire · 14/02/2023 00:12

sorry typo: And because of the Tory back down

should be: And because of that Tory back down

OP posts:

DemiColon · 14/02/2023 00:56

BlueHeelers · 13/02/2023 17:13

Personally, I think their actions are indefensible and anybody whose child/loved one had been killed by one of their bombs would no doubt have agreed - it was luck rather than judgement that the bigger public bombs didn't detonate.

I suggest you read accounts of the forced feeding and look at the strictures of the "Cat & Mouse" Act, before you start calling the suffragettes "indefensible."

Or you could look at the evidence of the sexual assaults on suffragette women, both in prison, and in public protests. Often assaults carried out by police. (Plus ça change).

Or you could just reflect on a world where you were not permitted to vote, take a degree at Oxford, or own property independently of a man.

Or you could reflect on a world where you were not given custody of your children on divorce. Or be safe from being incarcerated in a mental asylum if you were a lesbian.

None of that makes it ok to blow up random people. FFS.

DemiColon · 14/02/2023 00:59

Enviromont · 13/02/2023 21:44

You do need groups like ER if you want to accelerate political will to change.
It's just too easy to ignore the often huge peaceful protests or media campaigns.
Generally causes have separate groups so Friends of the Earth educate society, Greenpeace pull off big stunts, client Earth go for the legal route. ER and the ER science group are part of the mix.

Do you think the Tories would have scrapped the poll tax without the 'riot' in London?
The huge peaceful Iraq demo didn't change political will.
The US civil rights movement also had multiple strands.

Any other examples?

I think it's pretty questionable whether ER will have helped the cause of the environment or hurt it. A heck of a lot of people have been made cynical about environmental lobbying because of it, and it's tended in many places to push towards legal restrictions on protesting.

dapsnotplimsolls · 14/02/2023 10:25

ER are an interesting comparison - is any publicity good publicity? Are they harming the cause more than they're helping it? Both are questions that could be asked of the Suffragettes too.

JusteanBiscuits · 14/02/2023 10:30

Remember only some women got the vote at that point. The rich and middle classes.

BlueHeelers · 14/02/2023 10:47

JusteanBiscuits · 14/02/2023 10:30

Remember only some women got the vote at that point. The rich and middle classes.

Which is why the suffrage movement (both suffragist & suffragette) continued agitation until ALL adult women received the vote in 1928.

I've taught a lot of this material over the years to undergrads & postgrads, and what I find verrry interesting <ahem> is how there is a persistent critique of the women's suffrage movement (both -ist and -ette) as only for white middle or upper class omen.

This is not in accordance with the documented facts in the archive.

When undergrads raise these criticisms of the suffragette movement, as if to dismiss women-centred activism, I always ask them to think about WHO BENEFITS from such an historical narrative?

It's yet another way that women's agency - of ALL political colours - is undermined.

Much like today ...

flabbygoldfish · 14/02/2023 11:33

That won them loads of respect and ultimately made men decide that they deserved the vote.

men realised they were wrong to deny women the vote. Men have no more deserved the right to vote than women, ever, even if that is what they believed.

Enviromont · 14/02/2023 19:25

I'd like to recommend ' Campaigning for Change. Lessons from History' a slim volume produced by a cross section of academics with Friends of the Earth in 2015.

I'm pretty sure it firmly knocked the middle class only myth on the head.

Because we never properly remember the past @IwantToRetire we are doomed to repeat the cycle of suggestion, resistance, implementation that we see time and time again over hundreds of years.

Given a bit of time, chaining yourself to Edwardian railings, Greenham Common fencing or the North Circular is generally seen as taking positive action for the good of society.

If anyone can give us a failed campaign example that would be interesting. Sometimes things like Newbury bypass go ahead but the bigger road building plan falters.

CrossPurposes · 14/02/2023 20:36

Enviromont · 14/02/2023 19:25

I'd like to recommend ' Campaigning for Change. Lessons from History' a slim volume produced by a cross section of academics with Friends of the Earth in 2015.

I'm pretty sure it firmly knocked the middle class only myth on the head.

Because we never properly remember the past @IwantToRetire we are doomed to repeat the cycle of suggestion, resistance, implementation that we see time and time again over hundreds of years.

Given a bit of time, chaining yourself to Edwardian railings, Greenham Common fencing or the North Circular is generally seen as taking positive action for the good of society.

If anyone can give us a failed campaign example that would be interesting. Sometimes things like Newbury bypass go ahead but the bigger road building plan falters.

I was intrigued and I found you can download Campaigning for Change straight from here: www.google.com/url?q=policy.friendsoftheearth.uk/sites/default/files/documents/2019-02/Campaigning_for_change_lessons_from_history.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjRg9Dw7JX9AhXuRkEAHQkaDzUQFnoECAAQAw&usg=AOvVaw1TtCIYhKI_XpCJafQB98qf

Enviromont · 14/02/2023 21:16

Page 81, for a potted five minute read on suffrage. A better use of our time than the Spectator link.

FemaleAndLearning · 14/02/2023 21:25

Thanks for link. If you have Kindle unlimited it is free to borrow.

Apollo441 · 15/02/2023 02:03

Prior to the war the government's position was untenable. Women's suffrage was being granted the world over and there was no moral argument against it. I don't believe they could have held out much longer. After WW1 they had a choice of granting women the vote or a return to protests and they wisely conceded. I don't know why this trend to undermine their achievements.