What is it? 

Throughout history women faced unequal standards of living and were expected to live happily without suffrage. This began to change in the early 1900s as women started to stand up against this and have a mind of their own.
In 1903 a woman in Britain founded a new organisation, her name was Emmeline Pankhurst, this was the Women’s Social and Political Union. Pankhurst knew that the movement would have to become more radical and militant if they were ever to be noticed and effective. They were given the name Suffragettes by an article in The Daily Mail. These women were often silenced and little media coverage was to be allowed on their movement as many people in politics wanted them to be silenced and not to allow them to gain any sort of following. These women did many protests against the norms that their faced in their society. They simply wanted the right to vote. Throughout campaigns these women were hit down, shamed and also sent to prison. Those who made it home were shamed in the street they lived in by police and their husbands were humiliated. Those who went to prison would often go on hunger strike but were force fed through tubes going down their noses. Women were treated so poorly all because they wanted the right to a simple vote. The suffragettes went through so much and many became martyrs to the cause. Without these women we would not be where we are today with feminism.

More about the story of British Suffragettes:   http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/the-role-of-british-women-in-the-twentieth-century/suffragettes/

“this was the beginning of a campaign the like of which was never known in England, or for that matter in any other country…..we interrupted a great many meetings……and we were violently thrown out and insulted. Often we were painfully bruised and hurt.” – Emmeline Pankhurst

What they did

The Suffragette women were willing to do whatever it took to get noticed by Parliament and demanded the right to vote through violent means of protest. They would throw stones in shop windows, shout down the streets with signs. These women faced police hitting them down and being thrown to the ground all because they had a difference in their views and supposedly these women were breaching the peace. To think of everything that these women had to go through just for the simple right to vote baffles me as it seems to be something that we all have now and that many people ignore and don’t actively use their right to vote. These women faced imprisonment instead of accepting fines as it would have defeated the whole purpose of their movement, they would never give in. When in prison women would go on hunger strike and would refuse to take any sort of food at all. These women were force fed, they were held down against their will and a tube would be shoved up their nose where they would be forcibly given milk and other liquidised foods. The movie Suffragette shows this in a lot of depth and really gives audiences a sense of what it would have been like just as one Suffragette in Britain back in the early 1900s. Suffragettes also faced police brutality being thrown to the ground and hit in attempts to stop them protesting. Somehow this has seeped through history and not a lot of people know about the Suffragette and the fight that women had to go through and are still going through just for the right to vote. Feminism now branches further into issues of equal pay, equality of life and equality of social standards as well as a more equal political state. This fight is nowhere near over and women are still fighting for their rights in 2016. Many Suffragettes died during protests and have since become martyrs to the cause.

What I think | Overview

It is so important that the Suffragettes fought for their rights back in the early 1900s because they gave women of the future a better chance and better opportunities. This was just the start of ridding of our suppression that has been bestowed upon us by men. These women actually lost their lives because they felt so passionately and believed that it was their right to have a simple vote. I am so pleased to live in a time where I don’t have to fight for my right to vote and to be seen as more of a human being rather than a robot that stays at home doing all of the cooking, cleaning and caring for the children. I do think that the movement of the Suffragettes is one of Britain’s untold histories, not many people know what these women went through. We aren’t taught this in school, almost as if it wasn’t real. I feel that many people are ashamed that this actually happened, that women had to fight hard to get the right to vote and that many died in the process. I also think that the brutality of the police really emulates what women went through and how far they would go to suppress these women. Without this movement and without these women I wouldn’t be in school today, I wouldn’t have an education and I probably wouldn’t have any where near as many rights as I do have now. I am so glad that these women saw that something was wrong and stood up for what they believed in as I find nowadays it is so easy to just ignore your feelings and not voice your own opinion in fear of being shamed or laughed at but these women did not care, they simply fought. This was the first step of feminism and now in the third wave of feminism we still haven’t got too much further, there is still so much change that needs to happen and many more fights to be fought and won but without the movement of the Suffragettes we as women wouldn’t be able to voice our opinions. We have so far to go in feminism and it is now becoming a whole lot more accepted in countries like America and Britain but other European countries are still fighting for their rights and some are still fighting for the right to vote.