So what would you think, seeing on the streets of your city a demonstration of … 30,000 women carrying posters with the inscription: "Provo to vote for women" and loudly singing "The battle anthem of the republic" - "Glory, glory, hallelujah!" At least you would be very surprised. But men were also surprised at this on the streets of American and English cities, where exactly the same thing happened exactly 117 years ago.
Suffragettes picketing the White House.
Then, in the struggle of women for their equality with men in the political and economic spheres, everything went: rallies and pickets, distribution of leaflets and chaining themselves to the doors of men's toilets, and when all this was not enough, completely radical means were used: hammers, hidden in elegant ladies' muffs, lace umbrellas and knitting needles and whips. All means, British and American women believed, were good at fighting male power. Women dismantled the pavements and threw boulders at police officers, threw them into shop windows and at politicians, and then even explosives were used!
The suffragette movement was ridiculed in the press. Many cartoons have been drawn on suffragettes. For example, on this one at the top there is an inscription: "And this is the love that will make the world turn upside down?"
It was then, at the beginning of the twentieth century, very resolute-looking ladies in hats with flowers and kid, as well as in suede and coarse woolen gloves (suffragists from the middle class did not shy away from ordinary workers, if only they shared their ideas!) Made street scandals and, disdaining all the norms of education and Christian morality, they desperately hooligans in order to attract attention to themselves, beat the policemen with umbrellas, and in return they did not hesitate to beat the most real ladies with their wooden clubs. They, having ended up in prisons on charges of violating public decency and order, went on hunger strikes and all this for the sake of civil liberties, which women of that time were deprived of. It is difficult to give an unambiguous assessment of their radical activity. But it is indisputable that the movement of suffragettes nevertheless achieved the result, and although today's youth do not even know a word like this, our favorite spring holiday remains in memory of those years, at the origins of which were the indefatigable and obsessed with their ideas suffragettes.
This is how they tried to force-feed the starving suffragettes in prison.
It all began, by the way, with the fact that Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928) could not forget the words of her father, once said over her bed: "What a pity that she is not a boy!" Poor father Emmeline did not even suspect then that his daughter at that moment would think about the fact that if according to the Bible all people are equal, then why then “boys are better than girls” and they are allowed everything that girls are deprived of. Thus, with just one phrase, he changed not only the whole life of his daughter, but the lives of women in America and Europe, no more and no less!
However, turning to the same novels by Jane Austen, we can see that the men themselves were to blame for the development of female emancipation! Let's open the novel “Pride and Prejudice” and read what men demanded from young ladies to be spiritually developed, and for this they knew how to play music, spoke French and German, were well-read, in a word, “developed their minds”. But, starting with this, women did not want to stop, so it turns out that, demanding development from their girlfriends, men already at the beginning of the 19th century sawed off the branch on which they were sitting.
"Saloon for emancipated women"
Well, after receiving primary education, women began to demand equal rights with men. Moreover, in addition to granting suffrage, suffragists also sought the right to property, higher education, the right to divorce, and equal wages with men. Already in the first manifesto of the suffragettes, called the "Declaration of Feelings", it was proclaimed: "All men and women are created equal." Everything, in general, is according to the Bible, isn't it? And in the beginning, women's struggle for civil liberties was decent. But none of the men, as well as the leaders of the government, paid any attention to letters to newspapers and to deputies of parliament and Congress, or campaigning in the streets, debates and speeches by Hyde Park. And then the women realized that only by force can one achieve something from such an “animal like a man” and moved on to active struggle.
A vintage postcard against the suffragette movement, hinting at the then heated discussion of the "lost link" between ape and man, intended to provoke the resentment of men.
Many emancipated women by this time already had a good education. Their minds were developed by reading, so their actions were distinguished by great ingenuity and pronounced shocking. Suffragettes at night dug up golf courses - an exclusively male game, cut paintings with knives (in particular, they were very annoyed by Velasquez's painting "Venus in front of a mirror" and others like it, who, in their opinion, insulted female dignity, and threatened with physical harm to members of the government, well, of course, they regularly organized riots.)
Among the male politicians especially hated by the suffragists, Winston Churchill was in the first place, for whom they had a special dislike. The reason for this was that when one of the suffragettes publicly called him a drunken dork, Churchill said: "I'll sober up tomorrow, but your legs, as they were crooked, will remain." Naturally, all the suffragette ladies considered such an answer an insult to themselves and decided to settle accounts with him. There were threats against Churchill, stones were thrown at him, they tried to beat him with sticks and even a whip. As a result, the whip was taken away from the woman who attempted to assassinate Churchill, and he did not think of anything better how to give it to his wife as a victorious trophy.
Emily Davinson. On the chest is the reward of movement.
Very soon, heroines and martyrs appeared among the suffragettes. The most famous of which was Emily Davison. She was talked about as a notorious radicalist, as she planted a bomb in the house of David Lloyd George. The bomb exploded and severely damaged the new building, but fortunately no one was killed. Even fellow members of the movement did not approve of such "drastic" measures. She was arrested nine times for her actions, went on hunger strikes in prison and was force-fed. Protesting against him, she threw herself down a 10-meter ladder and was seriously injured. Emily Davison died during the English Derby at the Epsom races in 1913, when she ran out into the stadium to meet the stallion named Enmer, which belonged to King George V. under the hooves and died four days later in the hospital from her injuries. At the mass funeral service in London on June 14, many carried posters with the words: "Give me freedom or let me die" and even more radical "Freedom or death." On her tombstone was carved a memorable phrase "Deeds, not words." So the suffragette movement found its martyr, in whose name many women swore, embarking on the thorny path of the struggle for gender equality.
The Martyrdom of Emily Davinson. Unique photo from Epsom.
However, it was not only such terrible actions that the suffragists attracted participation in the problem of emancipation. They very skillfully attracted public attention with very spectacular and truly colorful processions. Women walked the streets in smart white dresses with flower chains, holding flags of the suffrage movement. At the same time, they either sang the "Anthem of the Republic", or walked with a chilling cry-howl to the thunder of drums and the howl of wind instruments. The parades were massive and carefully organized. Naturally, crowds of onlookers gathered to gaze at all this.
However, suffragettes did not shy away from equally well-organized violent actions, the most famous of which in London was the so-called "Kristallnacht". Then the women, carrying stones and hammers in muffs, began to beat shop windows and windows in houses, and when police squads were thrown against them, the police also got hammers! For special achievements in the movement of the suffragettes, special awards were developed and instituted.
Another postcard against suffragettes. The faces are clearly unattractive and even more …
However, the suffragette movement was suppressed in a very cruel way. Women were beaten with truncheons, imprisoned en masse, and even exiled to hard labor.
But … the deal is crowned with the result. The sacrifices made by the women of England and the United States were not in vain in the end, and they achieved their goal. Moreover … now few people are surprised that when in Canada men were allowed to ride the subway with a naked torso in the heat above 35 degrees, women immediately demanded a corresponding permission. “We don’t have to exercise this right,” said one of the leaders of the Canadian movement for gender equality, “but we are in favor of having this right!”
"Women vote and men bathe children."
P. S. The topic of women's emancipation and the changes taking place in society today is devoted to a number of excellently filmed television series, among which should be called "Ladies' Happiness" based on the novel by Emile Zola (1996) and "Downton Abbey" (2010). And, of course, how not to remember the legendary "Great Races" (1965)
