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Suffragettes


Stive Pesley

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Been a lot in the news about the 100th anniversary of (some) women getting the vote, but I found this story just as interesting

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42704341

Quote

for many thousands of women, it was not a moment of celebration.

Known as the anti-suffrage movement, these women had been working to oppose the suffragettes.

They believed women didn't have the capacity to understand politics, and portrayed the suffragettes as a group of "ugly" women and "spinsters".

The thought that 100 years ago there still existed the same kind of anti-equality whataboutery nonsense as goes on today is kind of comforting. In so much as it proves that you can't halt progress towards a fairer society, and the good will out.

I wonder how many on here would have been calling pandering to the suffragettes "political correctness gone mad" if they'd been around back then :lol:

 

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The Suffrage movement was far more complicated than it's portrayed today.

The Suffragettes (WPSU) seem to get all the publicity, but they were a militant offshoot of the Suffragists (NUWSS) lead by Millicent Garrett Fawcett, who's membership was many times greater than the Suffragettes. The Suffragists campaigned for years before the Pankhursts left and formed their own organisation. Fawcett didn't believe in violent protest and kept to strictly legal means - although she never actually condemned the actions of the Suffragettes. 

It can be argued that the actions of the Suffragettes actually delayed women getting the vote by a decade. When Asquith became Prime Minister in 1908 his two greatest lieutenants, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, had been convinced by Fawcett that women should get the vote and they attempted to convince Asquith to bring such a bill before Parliament. 

At the time there was quite a lot of terrorist activity, Ireland was very volatile and many colonial cities were the subject of violent protests against British rule. Asquith argued that as the Suffrattes were using violence and low level terrorism as their main campaigning weapons, acquiescing to them would spur on the independence movements and make Ireland ungovernable. He also reasoned that women were generally less educated and consequently more easily swayed by simplistic reactionary policies, making them more likely to be impressed by right wing policies and thus more likely to vote Conservative, so it's possible that he would never have given women the vote even without Suffragette activity. 

It's also interesting that the Suffragettes became increasingly concerned with only middle and upper class women. They appeared to believe that the lower classes were incapable of the intellectual reasoning required to vote sensibly. Their campaign was for wealthy women to gain the vote. The Suffragists campaigned for a parity of franchise with men.

 

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6 hours ago, StivePesley said:

Been a lot in the news about the 100th anniversary of (some) women getting the vote, but I found this story just as interesting

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42704341

The thought that 100 years ago there still existed the same kind of anti-equality whataboutery nonsense as goes on today is kind of comforting. In so much as it proves that you can't halt progress towards a fairer society, and the good will out.

I wonder how many on here would have been calling pandering to the suffragettes "political correctness gone mad" if they'd been around back then :lol:

 

Tell any group of people that they are inferior for long enough and inevitably some of them will believe it.  Can you imagine how frustrating it must have been for a suffragette to debate with women who thought they weren't worthy of the vote.? 

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6 hours ago, CornwallRam said:

At the time there was quite a lot of terrorist activity, Ireland was very volatile and many colonial cities were the subject of violent protests against British rule. Asquith argued that as the Suffrattes were using violence and low level terrorism as their main campaigning weapons, acquiescing to them would spur on the independence movements and make Ireland ungovernable. He also reasoned that women were generally less educated and consequently more easily swayed by simplistic reactionary policies, making them more likely to be impressed by right wing policies and thus more likely to vote Conservative, so it's possible that he would never have given women the vote even without Suffragette activity.

Mostly committed by the Empire to be fair, but that's an entirely different discussion.

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3 hours ago, HantsRam said:

The less publicised extension of the vote in the 1918 representation of the people act was to males of "the working class " over 21.

It's often lost in the noise that prior to 1918 you had to be a property owner to have the vote. And there were a small number of women who owned property who voted prior to 1918. 

Now hang on a minute we all know that all men have oppressed women since the dawn of time.

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Everyone knows the story of Emily Davison stepping in front of the kings horse and getting killed but there are 2 aspects to this story which are less well known.

1. Her intention was to step in front of the horse, grab it's reins and bring it to a halt. However she completely misunderstood the pace it would be going at. An early candidate for the Darwin Awards. 

2) Even less well known is the story of her husband, who didn't get his tea that night.

 

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18 minutes ago, sage said:

Everyone knows the story of Emily Davison stepping in front of the kings horse and getting killed but there are 2 aspects to this story which are less well known.

1. Her intention was to step in front of the horse, grab it's reins and bring it to a halt. However she completely misunderstood the pace it would be going at. An early candidate for the Darwin Awards. 

2) Even less well known is the story of her husband, who didn't get his tea that night.

 

Then there was the lady who threw herself under a steamroller... Emeline Pancake.

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All joking aside - it shows how determined the ruling classes have been throughout our history to cling on to power and only drip-feed us poor huddled masses as little as possible to prevent us from rebelling entirely.

I believe from following a bit of history of the period that there was real concern that some of the western "democracies" would go the way of Russia and slide into revolution. Who'd have thought the people of this country might be a tad p***ed at being lined up in huge numbers and told to walk upright, slowly towards massed machine guns and massive heavy artillery wearing little more than a school blazer and a tin hat?

You can see the contempt in which the majority of us were held by comments such as believing that "the less well educated would more easily believe populist politicians".

This applies to all of us - not gender or anything else specific. And I reckon that attitude persists in our politicians today. 

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2 minutes ago, HantsRam said:

All joking aside - it shows how determined the ruling classes have been throughout our history to cling on to power and only drip-feed us poor huddled masses as little as possible to prevent us from rebelling entirely.

I believe from following a bit of history of the period that there was real concern that some of the western "democracies" would go the way of Russia and slide into revolution. Who'd have thought the people of this country might be a tad p***ed at being lined up in huge numbers and told to walk upright, slowly towards massed machine guns and massive heavy artillery wearing little more than a school blazer and a tin hat?

You can see the contempt in which the majority of us were held by comments such as believing that "the less well educated would more easily believe populist politicians".

This applies to all of us - not gender or anything else specific. And I reckon that attitude persists in our politicians today. 

@eddie really is old then eh?

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1 hour ago, HantsRam said:

You can see the contempt in which the majority of us were held by comments such as believing that "the less well educated would more easily believe populist politicians".

My grandmother died recently aged 101. At the time of her birth she would not have been entitled to vote, yet she became a lifelong member of the Conservative Party and always maintained an unquestioned respect for anyone in authority.

Her husband was older; I have his pocket Bible inscribed, on the occasion of your going into service, from your parents, 1916. He was 18 years old. He survived and became a lifelong pacifist and humanitarian. 

That war should have broken the ruling classes, or at least, discredited forever the notion that there is an elite who are born to rule, but still, we lap it up. 

I think it stems from a deepseated need to believe that there is a natural order in the world and all will be well as long as we don’t disrupt it. It’s probably about time we grew up and took responsibility for creating the society we actually want. 

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1 hour ago, Lambchop said:

My grandmother died recently aged 101. At the time of her birth she would not have been entitled to vote, yet she became a lifelong member of the Conservative Party and always maintained an unquestioned respect for anyone in authority.

Her husband was older; I have his pocket Bible inscribed, on the occasion of your going into service, from your parents, 1916. He was 18 years old. He survived and became a lifelong pacifist and humanitarian. 

That war should have broken the ruling classes, or at least, discredited forever the notion that there is an elite who are born to rule, but still, we lap it up. 

I think it stems from a deepseated need to believe that there is a natural order in the world and all will be well as long as we don’t disrupt it. It’s probably about time we grew up and took responsibility for creating the society we actually want. 

Great grandpa hants refused to fight in the Great War. I doubt it was out of any great set of principles. 

He was scared stiff.

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1 hour ago, HantsRam said:

Great grandpa hants refused to fight in the Great War. I doubt it was out of any great set of principles. 

He was scared stiff.

Self preservation is decent principle in my view.  He was right to be scared.

Seeing as his nation wasn't under attack, i think it's a pity that more people didn't share his choice to prioritize not putting himself in harms way above dutifully doing what he was told to do.  An independent thinker, good on him.

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50 minutes ago, Highgate said:

Self preservation is decent principle in my view.  He was right to be scared.

Seeing as his nation wasn't under attack, i think it's a pity that more people didn't share his choice to prioritize not putting himself in harms way above dutifully doing what he was told to do.  An independent thinker, good on him.

Interestingly, many suffragettes busied themselves giving out white feathers to men that didn't serve during WW1.

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