Suffragettes: The Feminist Heroines Of The First Democracies
In order to understand the present, we must delve into the past and the first movements that began the shift from despotism to a time in which there is much more equality. In the case of gender equality, The first people to promote change were the suffragettes representatives of one of the first forms of feminism.
But… who exactly were the suffragettes and what did they defend?
The suffragettes or “suffragettes” in English were a political-social group that emerged at the end of the 19th century and was consolidated at the beginning of the 20th century. In its beginnings it was headed by the famous Emmeline Pankhurst (1858 – 1928), an atypical figure from the beginning, fleeing from the traditionalist feminine lamination (this is, in part, because she did not receive a “little princess” education, as historians point out, but rather she was raised and educated within a family defending civil rights).
It is therefore about a political and social movement of organized women that during the 19th century they maintained a political struggle with the authorities of male-dominated England, in a context in which women regularly experienced sexual abuse at work by their masters, were denied the right to study and The husband had the power to punish his wife as he saw fit.
Roughly, The suffragettes distance themselves from conventional peaceful demands or from words to action: “Deeds, not words.”
This motto was led by this movement permanently, suggesting acts that would attract the attention of the British authorities. Well, this guideline was taken literally, and therefore the pressure exerted by this political group became impossible to ignore.
Inspiration and political references
Like any great important and influential character in history, Emmeline Pankhurst received a protest education and awareness of social progress from her childhood. These values were noted in the movement that she led.
The suffragettes were motivated by the feminist magazine “Women’s Suffrage Journal,” founded in 1870 by Lydia Becker and Jessie Boucherett. Considered the first activists for women’s rights, Emmeline and her mother Sophia Jane They met Lydia Becker at a meeting about women’s suffrage “I came away from that meeting convinced that I was a committed suffragette,” Pankhurst said.
Another turning point for the suffragette movement was the fact seize the values of the French Revolution with a small nuance: equality. All demands for civil and human rights, protests or other similar demands were intended exclusively for men, the movement denounced.
Modus operandi of the suffragettes
Women’s suffrage rights date back to the beginning of the 19th century, but it was not until the middle of this period that the suffrage movement was established in England (around 1855). Imitating any other type of protest politics, at first the movement was articulated peacefully and democratically, introducing amendments in the English Parliament to extend women’s rights
It was at the end of the 19th century when the Suffragettes decided to take another path. When a petition was rejected in the House of Commons by deputies John Stuart Mill and Henry Fawcett, the famous “Ladies Petition” to change the word “man” to “person” when referring to suffrage, The National Society for Women’s Suffrage was created by the aforementioned Lydia Becker.
After unfulfilled promises, misleading laws and institutional contempt for everything that had been demanded to date, the first public incidents were recorded at the hands of the suffragettes: riot, disruption of order, urban violence, material damage and even the occasional act terrorist attack against the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, in his own mansion.
One of the victims of suffragism, Emily Wilding Davison, was a martyr in 1913 when she assaulted King George V’s horse to show him the flag of her organization and give voice to her discontent. “A tragedy would prevent thousands from coming,” Emily defended until her death.
The legacy of the first feminist struggle
Thanks to the eventful but successful career of the suffragettes,Several of the greatest achievements have been achieved in favor of women’s rights Everything changed in 1928, when the right to women’s suffrage was approved. Later, the admission of students to Universities such as Oxford or Harvard would be accepted, the inclusion of female deputies in European parliaments, prominence in the world of cinema with films that remember the struggle of the suffragettes.
Another of the greatest achievements of the movement is the union it achieved at the class level, thus absorbing another issue worthy of vindication. Women workers in factories, servants of the nobility and women of that same nobility, fought side by side for a common goal: “freedom or death”, as another of the suffrage mottos would say.
