Nine inspiring lessons the suffragettes can teach feminists today

[ismnotwasm]

With the discussions that added up to nothing more than "being liked" vs. being "annoying", (?)

I thought a little historical perspective was in order, and voilà found this article.





Emmeline Pankhurst celebrating with Christabel Pankhurst and others after being released from prison. Photograph: Hulton Getty

On 4 June 1913, Emily Wilding Davison travelled to Epsom Downs to watch the Derby, carrying two suffrage flags – one rolled tight in her hand, the other wrapped around her body, hidden beneath her coat. She waited at Tattenham Corner as the horses streamed past, then squeezed through the railings and made an apparent grab for the reins of the king's horse, Anmer. In the Manchester Guardian the next day, an eyewitness reported: "The horse fell on the woman and kicked out furiously". News footage shows racegoers surging on to the track to find out what had happened.

Davison suffered a fractured skull and internal bleeding, and as hate mail against her poured in to the hospital, she remained unconscious. She died four days later. Thousands of suffragettes turned out on the London streets dressed in white, bearing laurel wreaths for her funeral. They marched four abreast behind purple banners, urging them all to fight on.

There has always been speculation about Davison's intentions. The return train ticket she was carrying, for instance, offered as evidence that she didn't mean to die. But there's no doubt she was prepared to make dangerous sacrifices for women's rights. As Fran Abrams writes in her book Freedom's Cause, Davison had been imprisoned repeatedly for her suffrage work, had gone on hunger strike and been force fed numerous times.

In 1912, when she and a large number of other suffragettes were imprisoned in Holloway, there was what Davison referred to as a siege – the doors of women's cells were broken down by guards – and she determined that one big tragedy might save her sisters. Davison threw herself over a balcony, was caught by some netting, then immediately tried again, launching herself down an iron staircase. This led to two cracked vertebrae, and a thwack to the head, but the authorities were unmoved. She and the other women continued to be force-fed, regularly and brutally.

More:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/29/nine-lessons-suffragettes-feminists?CMP=twt_gu

[iemitsu]

1. Thank you, that was inspiring.

[Squinch]

2. History would like to forget what they had to do in order to just get the door

cracked open for women to be treated like humans.

It is always stunning to me that it was not until my grandparent's generation, only six years before my father was born, that women got the vote.

[DURHAM D]

3. "being liked vs being annoying"

Seems like the old suffragist vs suffragette argument.

My grandmother was a US suffragist and thought suffragette an insult imported from the British press.

[redqueen]

4. This is important and very good to come back to, thanks for posting it!

Here are the high points, and she is spot on.


Find your voice, and use it


Sweetness is overrated


Take strength from the haters


Accept that those haters will include other women


Fortune favours the brave


Publicity is power


Strength through solidarity


Never give up


Accept victory – nothing else

[ismnotwasm]

5. Thanks for that

It's the best part