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Women's Militant Suffrage Movement

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The Suffragette: The History of the Women’s Militant Suffrage Movement (1911) was written in terms of the situation of suffragettes at the time, a moment in which the suffragettes and their actions were an issue for British politics. It can be seen as a chronology about the progression that the suffragette movement had from the early days of the organization until 1910. Another characteristic of this book is that it is written by a woman closely related to the organization, who could provide a different point of view for the readers to the one that they could possible had about the suffragettes; besides, this book was meant to show the readers the reason behind why those women fought and which were their motives and ideals. It is known …show more content…

The Police had made more expensive preparations to prevent any meeting being held (Pankhurst, 251).

Considering the previous fragment, it can be appreciated the new posture that the Government took in relation to suffragettes, but also it is noticeable how despite this meeting was meant to be peaceful police was there to prevent that meeting to happen. It can be interpreted that even during the peaceful stage of the suffragette movement the fear towards women getting power was present, otherwise there was no reason to prohibit a peaceful meeting. Another interesting situation during this event is that there were men supporting women, and, even, protecting them, in words of Sylvia Pankhurst:

Some groups of the men stood with linked arms around the women [...] pushed little bands of suffragettes forward against the rows of constables with the cries of “Votes for women”, “we’ll get you to the House of Commons”, and “back up the women and push them through!” (Pankhurst, 1911; …show more content…

On the one hand, this is a clear sign of rebellion towards the one in power, in other words, the Government ruled by men. On the other hand, it can be seen that they actually did not have any other option since their words would not convince the Government to provide them the rights to vote.
To sum up, in this book we are presented different situations that suffragettes had to go through, but if the period of time, and society’s mentality there are several aspects that can be pointed out. First, after the negative of the Government, manifestation organized by suffragettes would have the presence of police forces which were hostile to them; second, in an initial stage suffragettes had people’s support, both men and women; thirdly, it can be seen that the Government was, without any doubt, the main obstacle suffragettes had to deal with, in term of law and trials suffragette were diminished; finally, the rebellious attitude, in terms of the use of violence, that women chose was because their arguments, speeches and peaceful actions were not working: and that was the last option they had to make their voice

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