In 1800 women in British society had a little influence. They weren’t allowed to
become doctors or to go to universities and they couldn’t vote in the elections. Most
men in Parliament believed that women simply did not understand how politics
worked. for this reason they shouldn’t take part in the electoral process.
At the very beginning of their campaign women held large meetings, shouted at
politicians, wrote petitions to the Parliament, but the situation didn’t improve. For this
reason in 1903 the movement of the so called “Suffragettes” started to use more
extreme methods of disobedience to obtain what they wanted. They chained to
railings and to Buckingham Palace, smashed windows, burnt post boxes and buildings
and interrupted party meeting. Some women were arrested and when they were in
prison they went on hunger strike. Eventually they were force-fed and this caused a
public outcry. The government was accused of harming women and it was worried
that they could die in prison therefore it adopted the “mouse and cat act”. It consisted
in arresting the suffragettes, who once in prison, went on hunger strike and when they
were very weak they were set free to avoid their death in prison and when they were
better again they were rearrested.
The leader of the Suffragettes was Emmeline Pankhurst.
When she was only seven years old she had an “unpleasant” event. One night while
she was in her bed her parents came to give her the goodnight, convinced that she
was sleeping, her father told her: ‘'If only you were a male”.
So the little girl understood that women were not important enough in the society,
from that moment she developed the ideals on the right of women to vote.
She was born in Manchester in 1858. Her family had a tradition of radical politics. She
became a passionate campaigner for women's right to vote. She married Richard
Pankhurst, a lawyer, who tried to get the vote for women but wasn’t successful.
EMMELINE
EMMELINE PANKHURST
PANKHURST
AND
AND
THE SUFFRAGETTES
THE SUFFRAGETTES
