Nowadays, in the civilised world (I use this term in preference to first world, as women's rights are not determined by wealth, but by culture), we accept that women's rights are a good and equitable thing ... the fight for rights started in the 1870's and, via the 1960's, and some would argue up until now.
Voting Rights, Equal Pay for an equal job (well something like that), The Right to choose their partner, Freedom of travel, The Right to cover or Uncover their hair, The Right to Education etc. The list goes on and on ..... of course in the backward part of the world, these rights are at best grudgingly granted, and often patchily enforced with women denied the rights that their laws in theory offer, and in some cases they are just denied.
What we forget is that in 1890, many of the restrictions that the backward cultures still put on women applied to women in Western Europe as well. Only the independently wealthy woman, could (especially if she remained unmarried), buck these social restrictions, as money has always talked in our culture. I didn't realise, until I researched this post, that women were not explicitly banned from voting in Great Britain until the 1832 Reform Act, and the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act, so its possible that some respected and wealthy women may have voted prior to those dates, but if they did, that fact is lost to history.
So we think of the suffragettes, who fought for the basic right to vote and participate in parliament as largely a peaceful (from the women's side) movement, that some women suffered greatly for in prison with physical abuse and force feeding .... or even lost their lives for. Some of the women resorted not just to throwing bricks at windows, arson on postboxes, or even tragically trying to put a scarf on the Kings horse at the running of the Derby.
However there is another side to the suffragette movement in the UK .... Terrorism! Emmeline Pankhurst the suffragette leader called the women's militancy "continued, destructive guerrilla warfare against the Government". Both the suffragettes and the police called it a "Reign of Terror". Newspaper headlines of the time referred to "Suffragette Terrorism".
In May 1913 alone there were 52 suffragette attacks, including 29 home-made bombs, and 15 arson incidents around the country. Some of these home-made bombs were found in churches, and on packed train carriages, in halls and rail stations, and were intended to hurt people. In the previous year, 1912 in Dublin, Mary Leigh, who had served prison terms and also suffered forced feeding, threw a hatchet at serving Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith, but she hit Irish nationalist leader John Redmond instead, leaving him badly injured.
Another woman was Kitty Marion, a German who came to Britain when she was aged 15 illustrates how they often moved to violence. At first her only aim was to become a music hall actress and in 1889, when just 18 she was cast in a pantomime in Glasgow. But about 1908 she became radicalised and joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), which had been campaigning for women's right to vote since 1903 (there had been other similar organisations before that date, the National Society for Women's Suffrage founded in 1872, and then the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies).
At first she sold the journal 'Votes for Women' in the streets but in 1909 she joined the fledgling Actress' Franchise League ... she was then arrested for the first time, which was quickly followed by arrest number two in Newcastle a few months later, when she threw a stone through the window of a post office, an offence for which she received a month's prison sentence to Holloway where she was force fed after refusing to eat ... she then set fire to her cell. After that there was no stopping her, and her acts became evermore violent.
Further attacks on property such as breaking windows soon escalated to the burning of properties; Levetleigh House in Sussex in Apr 1913, the Grand Stand at Hurst Park racecourse in June 1913, and various houses in Liverpool in Aug 1913 and Manchester in Nov 1913. These offences sometimes resulted in further terms of imprisonment during which force-feeding occurred, followed by releases under the 'Cat and Mouse Act'. She fled to Paris in May 1914 as a wanted person ~ a terrorist by today's standards. Of course she was not alone in these extreme acts, and across the UK other women of the suffragette cause were involved in bombings and arson attacks ....
The suffragette movement was largely suspended for the most part, at the outbreak of war in August 1914, and although there was some question of returning the suffragette prisoners to jail to serve the rest of their terms, it was soon dropped. However as a German by birth and therefore suspect, her career was ruined, this despite her briefly resuming her career on the stage. Eventually as the war lengthened, and heavy losses were reported from the front, she, along with other suspect 'foreigners' were deported. She went to the then neutral America in 1915, where she would spend most of her remaining years until 1944.
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| Bra Binning Freedom Trash 1968 Miss America ... |
Voting Rights, Equal Pay for an equal job (well something like that), The Right to choose their partner, Freedom of travel, The Right to cover or Uncover their hair, The Right to Education etc. The list goes on and on ..... of course in the backward part of the world, these rights are at best grudgingly granted, and often patchily enforced with women denied the rights that their laws in theory offer, and in some cases they are just denied.
What we forget is that in 1890, many of the restrictions that the backward cultures still put on women applied to women in Western Europe as well. Only the independently wealthy woman, could (especially if she remained unmarried), buck these social restrictions, as money has always talked in our culture. I didn't realise, until I researched this post, that women were not explicitly banned from voting in Great Britain until the 1832 Reform Act, and the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act, so its possible that some respected and wealthy women may have voted prior to those dates, but if they did, that fact is lost to history.
 |
| Suffragette Force Feeding Cartoon ... |
So we think of the suffragettes, who fought for the basic right to vote and participate in parliament as largely a peaceful (from the women's side) movement, that some women suffered greatly for in prison with physical abuse and force feeding .... or even lost their lives for. Some of the women resorted not just to throwing bricks at windows, arson on postboxes, or even tragically trying to put a scarf on the Kings horse at the running of the Derby.
 |
| Emily Davison Dies At Derby In 1913 |
However there is another side to the suffragette movement in the UK .... Terrorism! Emmeline Pankhurst the suffragette leader called the women's militancy "continued, destructive guerrilla warfare against the Government". Both the suffragettes and the police called it a "Reign of Terror". Newspaper headlines of the time referred to "Suffragette Terrorism".
In May 1913 alone there were 52 suffragette attacks, including 29 home-made bombs, and 15 arson incidents around the country. Some of these home-made bombs were found in churches, and on packed train carriages, in halls and rail stations, and were intended to hurt people. In the previous year, 1912 in Dublin, Mary Leigh, who had served prison terms and also suffered forced feeding, threw a hatchet at serving Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith, but she hit Irish nationalist leader John Redmond instead, leaving him badly injured.
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| Kitty Marion Early Stage Publicity Picture |
Another woman was Kitty Marion, a German who came to Britain when she was aged 15 illustrates how they often moved to violence. At first her only aim was to become a music hall actress and in 1889, when just 18 she was cast in a pantomime in Glasgow. But about 1908 she became radicalised and joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), which had been campaigning for women's right to vote since 1903 (there had been other similar organisations before that date, the National Society for Women's Suffrage founded in 1872, and then the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies).
At first she sold the journal 'Votes for Women' in the streets but in 1909 she joined the fledgling Actress' Franchise League ... she was then arrested for the first time, which was quickly followed by arrest number two in Newcastle a few months later, when she threw a stone through the window of a post office, an offence for which she received a month's prison sentence to Holloway where she was force fed after refusing to eat ... she then set fire to her cell. After that there was no stopping her, and her acts became evermore violent.
 |
| Kitty Marion (centre) With One Of The Broken Windows |
Further attacks on property such as breaking windows soon escalated to the burning of properties; Levetleigh House in Sussex in Apr 1913, the Grand Stand at Hurst Park racecourse in June 1913, and various houses in Liverpool in Aug 1913 and Manchester in Nov 1913. These offences sometimes resulted in further terms of imprisonment during which force-feeding occurred, followed by releases under the 'Cat and Mouse Act'. She fled to Paris in May 1914 as a wanted person ~ a terrorist by today's standards. Of course she was not alone in these extreme acts, and across the UK other women of the suffragette cause were involved in bombings and arson attacks ....
 |
| Hurst Park Racecourse After An Arson Attack By Kitty Marion and Clara Giveen in 1913 |
The suffragette movement was largely suspended for the most part, at the outbreak of war in August 1914, and although there was some question of returning the suffragette prisoners to jail to serve the rest of their terms, it was soon dropped. However as a German by birth and therefore suspect, her career was ruined, this despite her briefly resuming her career on the stage. Eventually as the war lengthened, and heavy losses were reported from the front, she, along with other suspect 'foreigners' were deported. She went to the then neutral America in 1915, where she would spend most of her remaining years until 1944.
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| Kitty Marion Embraced Birth Control In USA |
While in the USA she became active in the family planning movement and began working for the Birth Control Review published by New York Women's Publishing Company, becoming a street hawker once again, selling the Review in New York for 13 years. This caused her to be arrested several times for violating US obscenity laws, and even imprisoned for 30 days in 1918. Despite this she was granted US citizenship in 1924.
Women over the age of 30 who met minimum property qualifications finally got the vote in Britain in 1918. In 1928, the Conservative government passed the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act, giving the vote to all women over the age of 21 on equal terms with men.
Marion only returned to London once, in 1930 to attend the unveiling of the statue to Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst, and while here she worked in the Birth Control International Centre for a while, but finally she returned to New York, where she worked in Birth Control Review office once more, before retiring to the Margaret Sanger Home in New York State where she died in 1944.
Many suffragette historians today actively deny, or downplay the terrorism aspect of the campaign, even though its easy enough to trawl news reports of the period on the Internet, to find the large number of incidents. There has been a certain whitewashing of suffragette memory over the last 90 years, which means we only get half the history and half the story.
Women over the age of 30 who met minimum property qualifications finally got the vote in Britain in 1918. In 1928, the Conservative government passed the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act, giving the vote to all women over the age of 21 on equal terms with men.
Marion only returned to London once, in 1930 to attend the unveiling of the statue to Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst, and while here she worked in the Birth Control International Centre for a while, but finally she returned to New York, where she worked in Birth Control Review office once more, before retiring to the Margaret Sanger Home in New York State where she died in 1944.
Many suffragette historians today actively deny, or downplay the terrorism aspect of the campaign, even though its easy enough to trawl news reports of the period on the Internet, to find the large number of incidents. There has been a certain whitewashing of suffragette memory over the last 90 years, which means we only get half the history and half the story.
You know what they say. "One man's terrorist, is another woman's freedom fighter."
ReplyDeleteTrue enough, and the victors always write the histories ... I guess Germaine Greer wrote this one. Thanks for the comment.
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