The Pankhursts understood the English system rather well, “they knew that to make progress they had to arouse public opinion and make people interested in the question.” Heckling politicians and a willingness to go to prison became key tactics in the WSPU campaign to force the Government to give women the vote.
The founder of the WSPU sprang from a long line of male political activists.
She was the granddaughter of a man who had demonstrated at Peterloo, daughter of a radical cotton manufacturer, and wife of a left wing lawyer. As a child she had been
encouraged to think for herself and be different. When she married Dr Richard Pankhurst he gave her just the experience she needed, because he was a politician and lawyer whose life was full of meetings and elections.
Emmeline’s oldest daughter, Christabel was described as Snellgrove states “fluent of speech, quick-witted, and good-humoured.”(p.26) She was a law student who used her knowledge to fight against the country’s laws. When she qualified in law she was able to defend herself most cleverly, and the direction of the WSPU was passed to her. Christabel was the planner of all later violence. Interruption of male political discourse as invented by Christabel Pankhurst, she taught thousands of women of every class and social background, according to Marcus (1987)“the real key to the genius of militant suffrage in giving the women of England a political voice.”(p.9)
Although Sylvia Pankhurst, also Emmeline’s daughter, came to the cause of women’s suffrage through loyalty to her mother and sister, but also combined with a sincere belief in universal adult suffrage. Sylvia was an art student, and like her father, her sympathies were always with oppressed sections of the community. Sylvia, who designed most of the artwork for the WSPU, also organised the workers of the East End in favour of women’s suffrage.
As the WSPU increasingly operating within a hostile political climate, so planning and action assumed greater importance than constitutional democracy. Bartley (1998) “The WSPU became less democratic as its activities became more illegal.”(p.36) The women spent little time discussing policy, in the immortal words of Emmeline Pankhurst, ‘Deeds not words’ were paramount. The question of votes for women, in fact the whole question of women was hard to ignore, and so it aroused opposition.
The Anti-Suffrage movement at the time had ideas, which were more representative of popular opinion than those of the female suffragists. The Anti-Suffrage argument centred on the perceived physical, emotional and intellectual differences between men and women. Marcus (1987) states that the Anti-Suffragist, “ believes that women are of value only because of their sex functions.”(p.233)
It is important to remember that the Anti-Suffrage campaign were not all men, but had a number of eminent women involved such as Mrs Humphrey Ward, Miss Beatrix Potter and Queen Victoria. According to Lloyd (1971) “Queen Victoria herself disapproved of women who wanted the vote and thought they deserved to be whipped.”(p.5) The position of women Anti’s was self defeating, for the more effectively they pressed their contention that women were unsuited to politics, the more competively they campaigned, Rover (1967) believes, “all the more they established the political capacity of women.”(p.177)
Opponents of women’s suffrage believed that a small political elite were destined to and should rule over the mass population. Bartley (1998) “Women, it was alleged, were not capable of full citizenship because they were not available for purposes of defence.”(p.20) Anti’s argued that as Briton’s ruled a vast empire they needed a strong army, and no country with imperial pretensions offered female suffrage, because women could not fight to defend their country. In addition there were fears that women’s enfranchisement would introduce a new era of pacifism, as women would be reluctant to wage wars against foreign enemies. According to Bartley (1998)“As a consequence Britain might face decline and invasion because women favoured peace rather than fighting”. (p.20)
By 1905 the media had lost interest in the struggle for women’s rights. Newspapers rarely reported meetings and usually refused to publish articles and letters written by supporters of women suffrage. The WSPU decided to use different methods to obtain the publicity they thought would be needed in order to obtain the vote.
Christabel Pankhurst and Anne Kenney attempted to disrupt a Liberal Party meeting, the couple deliberately got arrested and then went to prison rather than pay the fine.
The action worked and the WSPU obtained a dramatic increase in its membership,
As suggested by Snellgrove (1964) “Christabel knew she had changed the women’s fight.”(p.27) Journalists realized that suffragettes were news. Mrs Fawcett, the leader of the believers in the old methods, saw this too, for she wrote of some other girls that went to prison, Snellgrove states, “I feel the action of the prisoners has touched the imagination of the country in a manner quieter methods did not succeed in doing.”(p.28)
Whether right or wrong, useful or useless, such tactics made girls join the WSPU. Militancy had made woman suffrage newsworthy and this fact was of real importance. Morgan (1975) states, “The non-militants had never been able to rouse general interest among voters.”(p.65)
While women were in prison serving their sentences, large numbers of women went on hunger strikes as a protest against unfair detention and again to gain publicity. The Government decided to have them forcible fed by a method sometimes used on lunatics. Mrs Pankhurst starved herself but because of her age and weakness she was never forcibly fed.
Marcus (1987) argues,“The depictions of forcible feeding in several suffragette representations may be clearly read as rape scenes.”(p.16) Over a thousand women experienced this violation of their bodies and the violence of tubes thrust down their noses, leaving the health of many women being permanently damaged. Once one hundred and sixteen doctors signed a letter protesting about it and sent it to the Prime Minister, Mr Asquith.
From 1908 the WSPU intensified the political pressure and promoted new and confrontational methods to force M.P’s to give women the vote. Suffragettes argued that militancy was adopted in response to the failure of years of peaceful campaigning to which politicians were seen to have turned a deaf ear. Recently, however historians such as Brian Harrison cited in Bartley (1998) has agreed with the Suffragettes and states, “Militancy was a temporary tactical necessity born of the failure of legal and peaceful methods. (p.54)
As the Government, despite repeated promises, refused to yield on the issues of women’s enfranchisement, the suffragettes became more daring in their exploits.
Cited in votes for women, E.Pankhurst states, “we were willing to break laws, that we might force men to give us the right to make laws”. Addressing a meeting in New York, Mrs Pankhurst stated, cited in Marcus (1987) “You need something dynamic to force legislation through the House of Commons.”(p.54) In the 80’s men got the vote because they were and would be violent, according to Mrs Pankhurst. Therefore she believed it was time since the WSPU methods had failed and the men’s had succeeded, that they should take a leaf out of the men’s political book.
There were a few random arson attacks before 1913, Suffragettes damaged railway stations, houses and other buildings with firebombs. Destroying valuable works of art became suffragette policy also, as a protest against the higher value placed on property than people. Bartley suggests, “The Suffragette answer was to point out that all the trouble could be stopped quite easily by giving them what they demanded.”(p.44)
The whole point about suffrage for the Government was that Liberals were concerned about much that needed reform in the area of franchise qualifications and registration, and could not agree on what share of their concern suffrage should have. Women outnumbered men in the total population, and the men in parliament, in all the parties feared that women would upset traditional voting patterns. However, most of the Liberal party membership agreed with women’s suffrage, whereas the Prime Ministers tended to be opposed.
Gladstone and Asquith were both steadfast opponents of women’s enfranchisement, and both prime ministers repeatedly helped to, as believed by Rosen (1974) “block the progress of women suffrage measures through the various stages of parliamentary approval.”(p.11) In particular, Herbert Asquith was adamant that there was no evidence that women wanted or needed the parliamentary vote. Democracy as he said frequently, had no quarrel with the distinctions created by nature.
Asquith argued that the vast majority of women did not want the vote, and that women were not fit for the franchise. He also strongly believed that women operated by their personal influence and this would upset the natural order of things. He believed according to Snellgrove (1964) “A woman’s place was in the home rather than what he termed the ‘dust and turmoil’ of political life.”(p.68)
Though he made little of it publicly, it is clear that privately, he argued that militancy carried out by the Pankhurst’s, showed not a desire for political participation. It however, did show proof of unfitness to participate and proof too, of a hunger for notoriety on the part of some leaders, which cast doubt upon their sanity. The strenuous opposition of the Government after 1906 helped quicken the mobilisation of women and the process of changing their image of themselves. Asquith’s opposition could then be said to have been not without value to the feminist cause.
Yet one is puzzled by the patriarchal power of ideology to continue to see the suffragettes as violent despite all the pictorial evidence done to them. Radical feminists such as Jane Marcus, (1987) believed, ‘that hunger striking should be seen as a political act performed by committed activists rather than the actions of an unstable person.’
The story of the few militant suffragettes who were willing to sacrifice their friends, family and sometimes their lives to win the vote has argued by Bartley (1998) “gained almost legendary status.”(p.44) Women have concealed themselves for up to thirty-six hours in dangerous positions, such as under the platforms, in the organs, and basically wherever they could get a vantage point. They have waited starving in the cold, sometimes on the roof exposed to a winter’s night, just to get a chance of saying in the course of the Minister’s speech, ‘when is the Liberal Government going to put its promises into practice.’
Emmeline Pankhurst could be superb in moments of crisis, imitating action and taking command, and above everything else it was her fighting spirit, which impressed those who knew her. Often, Emmeline became a target of rough treatment and violence. As in 1908 at Newton Abbot, her and her co-worker were attacked, nevertheless this experience did not deter her the intrepid union leader from rushing to another by-election this time in Leeds. “Sustained by her single-minded devotion to the women’s cause, her defiance, determination and courage won admiration, even from many who considered WSPU tactics ill- conceived.
The combination of the cheap press and the dramatic new tactics of Mrs Pankhurst and her followers meant that, within months of taking office, Liberals found themselves being assailed by the totally unforeseen. Asquith’s prejudice against woman suffrage almost certainly aggravated his short-sightedness on electoral reform, and that, in turn, contributed to the failure of ‘new Liberalism’ and the rise of the labour party. The WSPU did symbolize the recognition of the fact that it would be difficult for liberals thereafter to deal with suffrage matters at all without dealing with woman suffrage.
According to Morgan (1975) “It is clear that the key variable within the suffrage movement was the WSPU.”(p.158) Without its eruption into politics after 1906, the suffrage question would not in Balfour’s words, ‘have secured a place for itself in the swim’. It is still most unlikely that without militancy, suffrage would have been given active cabinet consideration far less cabinet approval.
Their early work helped the cause, for they gained national publicity for an almost forgotten subject. Their activities filled the newspapers at the time and they are remembered today. Morgan (1975) states, “The Pankhursts had exploited the cheap press very successfully.” (p.160)
Snellgrove (1964) argues, “The women’s cause had gained a champion on the day Mrs Pankhurst founded the WSPU.”(P.24) The suffragettes demanding the rights of full citizenship understood the importance of women working together in a woman only organisation, developing supportive friendship networks, and sharing a sense of sisterhood. This feeling of sisterhood united all of the women, and was the backbone of the strength of the movement.
Snellgrove (1964) believes, “Everyone would agree that they were courageous and sincere.”(p.45) The Pankhurst’s activities filled the newspapers at the time, and they are still remembered today. Their courage, bravery and faith, particularly when enduring repeated imprisonment and the torture of forcible feeding, remain an inspiration to us all.