Britain’s Suffragettes: five things to know

Feminist activists dressed as the Suffragettes, women who historically demanded the right to vote, protest at Parliament Square for women’s rights and equality in London on October 24, 2012. /AFP/Andrew Cowie/

LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — The Suffragettes were instrumental in securing the vote for British women 100 years ago, at a time when women had few rights and no role in national politics.

The name

Suffragettes was the derogatory name given in 1906 by the Daily Mail newspaper to the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), one of the groups that had been pushing for women’s suffrage for decades.

The organization was formed three years earlier in the northern English city of Manchester by activist Emmeline Pankhurst.

It soon adopted the name Suffragettes as its own.

The slogan

As announced in their famous motto “Deeds not words,” the Suffragettes were a militant alternative to groups pushing for votes for women through peaceful means such as lobbying.

The tactics

Suffragettes smashed shop windows, blew up post boxes and cut electricity wires as part of an unprecedented campaign of radical civil disobedience that shocked Britain.

In one of their most daring acts, they detonated bombs at a house being built for finance minister and future prime minister David Lloyd George in 1913, causing significant damage.

The same year Emily Davison became a martyr to the cause when she was killed throwing herself under the king’s horse at the Derby.

Many activists were arrested and sent to prison, where they went on hunger strike and were force-fed.

The members

Pankhurst and other leaders were accused of being from the middle-class elite but they also drew strength from the working class, embracing women laboring in the harsh northern textiles mills and from London’s gritty East End.

The number of active members is not clear but the group did have much public support.

However, they were also widely criticized by men and even some women, accused of betraying their female and maternal roles.

The legacy

Pankhurst called a halt to the militant campaign at the start of World War I, calling on her supporters to back the war effort instead.

The government gave some women over 30 the right to vote on February 6, 1918, with equal voting rights to men granted 10 years later, after Pankhurst’s death.

The Suffragettes inspired feminists in other countries, including France, whose own movement took the same name and secured the right to vote in 1944 during World War II.

The Manchester house where Pankhurst founded the group is a museum and women’s center. In the 2015 film “Suffragette,” Pankhurst is played by Meryl Streep.