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pourquoi sous forme de magazine/ intro: queen victoria

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pourquoi sous forme de magazine/ intro: queen victoria

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♦ Citoyennes. Portraits de femmes engagées pour le bien commun, de Florence Piron

♦ Emission proposée par ARTE : Les Suffragettes, ni paillassons ni prostituées

♦ Alternative Libertaire : 1903, les Suffragettes passent à l’action directe

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timeline

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Map of London (east end) and other locations

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Map of London (east end) and other locations

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Coinciding with the East London Suffragette Festival, Researcher Vicky Stewart & Designer Adam Tuck have collaborated to bring you this map of some key events in the struggle for Women's Suffrage that happened in the East End, centred around W F Arber & Co Ltd where Gary Arber's grandmother Emily Arber was responsible for printing handbills for Sylvia Pankhurst upon the Golding Press in the basement at 459 Roman Rd. Click to enlarge and see the map in the detail
The recent closure of W F Arber & Co Ltd, after one hundred and seventeen years, inspired me to look further at Gary Arber's story of his grandmother, Emily Arber, organising the free printing of handbills and posters for the Suffragette movement. Just what was going on locally, who were involved, and how were these Suffragettes organised?

Nothing prepared me for what I discovered. My knowledge of Suffragette activity was limited to stories of upper middle class ladies marching behind Mrs Pankhurst, waving 'Votes for Women' banners, being imprisoned, getting force-fed, and then eventually securing the vote. In part this was true - Mrs Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel believed middle class women had the education and influence to bring about the necessary change, but Sylvia disagreed and insisted it was only direct action by working class women that could win the vote.

In 1912, Sylvia Pankhurst came to Bow as representative of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) to campaign for local MP George Lansbury, who had resigned his seat in parliament to fight a by-election on the issue of votes for women. Although Lansbury lost the election, he continued to support Sylvia who decided to stay in the East End and do everything in her power to carry on the fight - not only to champion the cause of S uffrage but also to challenge injustice and alleviate suffering wherever she could.

She opened her first WSPU Headquarters in Bow Rd in 1912 but moved to Roman Rd when forming the East London Federation, whose policy was to " combine large-scale public demonstrations with public militancy... [to attract] immediate arrest."

In January 1914, Christabel asked Sylvia to change the name of the ELF and separate from the WSPU, and the organisation became the East London Federation of Suffragettes (ELFS) with new headquarters in Old Ford Rd.

What amazes me about this story is the number of women - often with active support of husbands or sons - who, despite harsh poverty and large families, gave huge support to Sylvia and the campaign. They risked assault and often were beaten by policemen at rallies, on marches and at meetings. They risked being sent to Holloway and subjected to force-feeding. They risked the anger and abuse of those who did not support Women's' Suffrage.

So who were these women and what do we know of them? Below you can read extracts from Sylvia Pankhurst's books, 'The Suffragette Movement' and 'The Home Front', which locate their actions in the East End.
6
Victoria Park "On Sunday, May 25th 1913, was held 'Women's May Day' in East London. The Members of Bow, Bromley, Poplar, and neighbouring districts had prepared for it for many weeks past and had made hundreds of almond branches, which were carried in a great procession with purple, white and green flags, and caps of Liberty flaunting above them from the East India Dock gates by winding ways, to Victoria Park. A vast crowd of people - the biggest ever seen in East London - assembled ..... to hear the speakers from twenty platforms."
12
288 Old Ford Rd was home to Israel Zangwill, political activist and strong supporter of Sylvia and the Suffragette movement.
13
304 Old Ford Rd was home to Mrs Fischer where meetings were held .
7
Old Ford Rd was the route taken by the Suffragettes May Day processions to Victoria Park when they met with violence from the police at the gates and suffered many injuries.
8
400 Old Ford Rd became the third headquarters of the East London Federation of Suffragettes in 1914. A Women's Hall was built on land behind which was used for a cost-price restaurant which provided nutritious meals for a pittance to women suffering from the huge rise in food prices in the early months of the war.

438 Old Ford Rd, The Mother's Arms The ELFS set up another creche and baby clinic on this street, staffed by trained nurses and developed upon Montessori lines. This was housed in a converted pub called The Gunmaker's Arms, whose name was changed to The Mother's Arms.
1
Roman Rd "I decided to take the risk of opening a permanent East End headquarters in Bow ... Miss Emerson and I went down there together one frosty Friday morning in February to hunt for an office. The sun was like a red ball in the misty, whitey-grey sky. Market stalls, covered with cheerful pink and yellow rhubarb, cabbages, oranges and all sorts of other interesting things, lined both sides of the narrow Roman Rd. 'The Roman' , as they call it, was crowded with busy kindly people. I had always liked Bow. That morning my heart warmed to it for ever."

159 Roman Rd, (now 459) Arber & Co Ltd, Printing Works where Suffragette handbills were printed under the supervision of Emily Arber.

152 Roman Rd In 1912, tickets were available from this house, home of Mrs Margaret Mitchell, second-hand clothes dealer, for a demonstration in Bow Palace with Mrs Pankhurst and George Lansbury.
10 & 11
45 Norman Rd (now Norman Grove) A toy factory was opened in October 1914 to provide women with an income whilst their husbands were at War. They were paid a living wage and could put their children into the nursery further down the road.
4
Roman Rd Market The East London Federation of Suffragettes ran a stall in the market, decorated with posters and selling their newspaper, The Women's Dreadnought - a "medium through which working women, however unlettered, might express themselves and find their interests defended."
15
103 St Stephen's Rd was home to George Lansbury and his family.

St Stephen's Rd "On November 5th 1913, on my way to a Meeting to inaugurate the People's Army, I happened to call at Mr Lansbury's house in St Stephen's Rd. The house was immediately surrounded by detectives and policemen and there seemed no possibility of mistake. But the people of Bow, on hearing of the trouble, came flocking out of the Baths where they had assembled. In the confusion that ensued the detectives dragged Miss Daisy Lansbury off in a taxi, and I went free.

When the police authorities realised their mistake, and learnt that I was actually speaking at the Baths, they sent hundreds of men to take me, but though they met the people in the Roman Rd as they came from the Meeting I escaped. Miss Emerson was again struck on the head, this time by a uniformed constable, and fell to the ground unconscious. Many other people were badly hurt. The people replied with spirit. Two mounted policemen were unhorsed and many others were disabled."

19
28 Ford Rd "The members had begged me, if ever I should be imprisoned under the 'Cat and Mouse Act', to come down to them in the East End, in order that they might protect me, they would not let me be taken back to prison without a struggle as the others had been, they assured me.

On the night of my arrest Zelie Emerson had pressed into my hand an address: 'Mr and Mrs Payne, 28 Ford Rd, Bow.' Thither I was now driven in a taxi with two wardresses. As the cab slowed down perforce among the marketing throngs in the Roman Road, friends recognised me, and rushed to the roadway, cheering and waving their hands. Mrs Payne was waiting for me on the doorstep. It was a typical little East End house in a typical little street, the front door opening directly from the pavement, with not an inch of ground to withdraw its windows from the passers-by. I was welcomed by the kindest of kind people, shoemaking home-workers, who carried me in with the utmost tenderness.

They had put their double bed for me in the little front parlour on the ground floor next the street, and had tied up the door knocker. For three days they stopped their work that I might not be disturbed by the noise of their tools. Yet there was no quiet. The detectives, notified of my release, had arrived before me. A hostile crowd collected. A woman flung one of the clogs she wore at the wash-tub at a detectives head. The 'Cats', as a hundred angry voices called them, retired to the nearby public-houses, there were several of these havens within a stone's throw, as there usually are in the East End.

Yet, even though the detectives were out of sight, people were constantly stopping before the house to discuss the Movement and my imprisonment. Children gathered, with prattling treble. If anyone called at the house, or a vehicle stopped before it, detectives at once came hastening forth, a storm of hostile voices. Here indeed was no peace. My hosts carried me upstairs to their own bedroom, at the back of the house, hastily prepared, a small room, longer but scarcely wider than a prison cell - my home when out of prison for many months to come. (...)

In that little room I slept, wrote, interviewed the Press and personalities of all sorts, and presently edited a weekly paper. Its walls were covered with a cheap, drab paper, with an etching of a ship in full sail, and two old fashioned colour prints of a little girl at her morning and evening prayers. From the window by my bed, I could see the steeple of St Stephen's Church and the belfry of its school, a jumble of red-tiled roofs, darkened by smoke and age, the dull brick of the walls and the new whitewash of some of the backyards in the next street.

Our colours were nailed to the wall behind my bed, and a flag of purple, white and green was displayed from an opposite dwelling, where pots of scarlet geraniums hung on the whitewashed wall of the yard below, and a beautiful girl with smooth, dark hair and a white bodice would come out to delight my eyes in helping her mother at the wash-tub. The next yard was a fish curers'. An old lady with a chenille net on her grey hair would be passing in and out of the smoke-house, preparing the sawdust fires. A man with his shirt sleeves rolled up would be splitting herrings, and another hooking them on to rods balanced on boards and packing-cases, till the yard was filled, and gleamed with them like a coat of mail. Close by, tall sunflowers were growing, and garments of many colours hung out to dry. Next door to us they bred pigeons and cocks and hens, which cooed and crowed and clucked in the early hours. Two doors away a woman supported a paralysed husband and a number of young children by making shirts at 8d a dozen. Opposite, on the other side of Ford St, was a poor widow with a family of little ones. The detectives endeavoured to hire a room from her, that they might watch me unobserved. "It will be a small fortune to you while it lasts!" they told her. Bravely she refused with disdain, "Money wouldn't do me any good if I was to hurt that young woman!" The same proposal was made and rejected at every house in Ford Rd.

Flowers and presents of all kinds were showered on me by kindly neighbours. One woman wrote to say that she did not see why I should ever go back to prison when every woman could buy a rolling pin for a penny."
2
321 Roman Rd, Second Headquarters of the East London Federation "We decided to take a shop and house at 321 Roman Rd at a weekly rental of 14s 6d a week. It was the only shop to let in the road. The shop window was broken right across, and was only held together by putty. The landlord would not put in new glass, nor would he repair the many holes in the shop and passage flooring because he thought we would only stay a short time. But all such things have since been done.

Plenty of friends at once rallied round us. Women .... came in and scrubbed the floors and cleaned the windows. Mrs Wise, who kept the sweetshop next door, lent us a trestle table for a counter and helped us to put up purple, white and green flags. Her little boy took down the shutters for us every morning, and put them up each night, and her little girls often came in to sweep."
20
Bow Rd - Sylvia described it as 'dingy Bow Rd.'
25
The George Lansbury Memorial - Elected to parliament in 1910, he resigned his seat in 1912 to campaign for women's suffrage, and was briefly imprisoned after publicly supporting militant action.

George Lansbury
26
The Minnie Lansbury Clock is at the Bow Rd near the junction with Alfred St. Minnie Lansbury was the daughter-in-law of George Lansbury, and very actively supported the campaign and was in Holloway. She died at the age of thirty-two.

Minnie Lansbury is congratulated on her way to be arrested at Poplar Town Hall
14
Bow Rd Police Station The police were horrifyingly brutal towards Suffragettes when on demonstrations and then, once arrested and tried, they would often receive excessively harsh prison sentences. Hunger striking was in protest against the government's failure to treat them as political prisoners.

Mrs Parsons told Asquith - "We do protest when we go along in processions that suddenly without a word of warning we are pounced upon by detectives and bludgeoned and women are called names by cowardly detectives, when nobody is about. There was one old lady of seventy who was with us the other day, who was knocked to the ground and kicked. She is a shirtmaker and is forced to work on a machine and she has been in the most awful agony. These men are not fit to help rule the country while we have no say in the matter." ( From the Woman's Dreadnought.)

Under the 'Cat and Mouse Act' hunger strikers were released when their lives was in danger so as to recuperate before returning to finish their sentences. They told tales of dreadful brutality during force-feeding in Holloway.

13 Tomlin's Grove "When the procession turned out of Bow Rd into Tomlin's Grove they found that the street lamps were not lighted and that a strong force of police were waiting in the dark before the house of Councillor Le Manquais. Just as the people at the head of the procession reached the house, the policemen closed around them and arrested Miss Emerson, Miss Godfrey and seven men, two of whom were not in the procession, but were going home to tea in the opposite direction.

At the same moment twenty mounted police came riding down upon the people from the far end of Tomlin's Grove, and twenty more from the Bow Rd. The people were all unarmed. ... There were cries and shrieks and people ran panic-stricken into the little front gardens of the houses in the Grove.

But wherever the people stopped the police hunted them away. I was told that an old woman who saw the police beating the people in her garden was so much upset that she fell down in a fit and died without regaining consciousness. A boy of eighteen was so brutally kicked and trampled on that he had to be carried to the infirmary for treatment. A publican who was passing was knocked down and kicked and one of his ribs was broken. Even the bandsmen were not spared. The police threw their instruments over the garden walls. The big drummer was knocked down and so badly used that he is still on the list for sick insurance benefit. Mr Atkinson, a labourer, was severely handled and was then arrested. In the charge room Inspector Potter was said to have blacked his eye."
21
198 Bow Rd was the first Headquarters of the First Headquarters of the East London Federation, 1912. When Sylvia first arrived in Bow she rented an empty baker's shop at 198 Bow Rd. She used a platform to paint "VOTES FOR WOMEN" in gold across the frontage and addressed the crowds from here.
22
The Obelisk, Bromley High St "On the following Monday, February 17th (1913) we held a meeting at the Obelisk, a mean-looking monument in a dreary, almost unlighted open space near Bow Church.

Our platform, a high, uncovered cart, was pitched against the dark wall of a dismal council school in the teeth of a bitter wind. Already a little knot of people had gathered; women holding their dark garments closely about them, shivering and talking of the cold, four or five police constables and a couple of Inspectors. We climbed into the cart and watched the crowd growing, the men and women turning from the footpaths to join the mass. ... I said I knew it to be a hard thing for men and women to risk imprisonment in such a neighbourhood, where most of them were labouring under the steepest economic pressure, yet I pleaded for some of the women of Bow to join us in showing themselves prepared to make a sacrifice to secure enfranchisement ...

... After it was over Mrs Watkins, Mrs Moore, Miss Annie Lansbury, and I broke an undertaker's window. Willie Lansbury, George Lansbury's eldest son, who had promised his wife to go to prison instead of her because she had tubercular tendencies and could not leave their little daughter only two years old, broke a window in the Bromley Public Hall.

I was seized by two policemen, three other women were seized. We were dragged, resisting, along the Bow Rd, the crowd cheering and running with us. We were sent to prison without an option of fine.

There were four others inside with me: Annie Lansbury and her brother Will, pale, delicate Mrs. Watkins, a widow struggling to maintain herself by sweated sewing-machine work, and young Mrs. Moore. A moment later little Zelie Emerson was bundled in, flushed and triumphant - she had broken the window of the Liberal Club.

That was the beginning of Militancy in East London. Miss Emerson, Mrs Watkins and I decided to do the hunger-strike, and hoped that we should soon be out to work again. But although Mrs Watkins was released after ten days, Miss Emerson and I were forcibly fed, and she was kept in for seven weeks although she had developed appendicitis, and I for five. When we were once free we found that we were too ill to do anything at all for some weeks.

But we need not have feared that the work would slacken without us. A tremendous flame of enthusiasm had burst forth in the East End. Great meetings were held, and during our imprisonment long processions marched eight times the six miles to cheer us in Holloway, and several times also to Brixton goal, where Mr Will Lansbury was imprisoned. The people of East London, with Miss Dalgleish to help them, certainly kept the purple, white and green flag flying ..."

23
Bromley Public Hall, Bow Rd "On February 14th [1913] ... we held a meeting in the Bromley Public Hall, Bow Road, and from it led a procession round the district. ...To make sure of imprisonment, I broke a window in the police station ... Daisy Lansbury was accused of catching a policeman by the belt, but the charge was dismissed. Zelie Emerson and I went to prison ... .and began the hunger and thirst strike ... On release we rushed back to the shop, found Mrs Lake scrubbing the table, and it crowded with members arranging to march to Holloway Prison to cheer us next day."

24
Bow Palace, 156 Bow Rd was built at the rear of the Three Cups public house and had a capacity of two thousand.

"One Sunday afternoon I spoke in Bow Palace and marched openly with the people of Bow Rd. When I spoke from the window afterwards, a veritable forest of sticks was waved by the crowd. ...

While I was in prison after my arrest in Shoreditch .... a Meeting .... was held in Bow Palace on Sunday afternoon, December 14th. After the Meeting it was arranged to go in procession around the district and to hoot outside the houses of hostile Borough Councillors."

Sylvia Pankhurst - Women over the age of twenty-one were eventually enfranchised in 1928

Maps reproduced courtesy of Bishopsgate Institute

Postcard reproduced courtesy of Libby Hall Collection at Bishopsgate Institute

Photograph of Suffragette in Holloway courtesy of LSE Women's Library

Copy of The Women's Dreadnought courtesy of Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives
East London Suffragette Festival runs until 10th August East London Suffragettes by Sarah Jackson & Rosemary Taylor is published by The History Press You may also like to read about Last Days at W F Arber & Co Ltd Kate Parry Frye's Suffrage Diary

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Coinciding with the East London Suffragette Festival, Researcher Vicky Stewart & Designer Adam Tuck have collaborated to bring you this map of some key events in the struggle for Women's Suffrage that happened in the East End, centred around W F Arber & Co Ltd where Gary Arber's grandmother Emily Arber was responsible for printing handbills for Sylvia Pankhurst upon the Golding Press in the basement at 459 Roman Rd.

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http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/unesco/

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A Home in north Manchester which was once the birthplace of the Suffragette movement is now providing support for women fleeing violence.

The property in Nelson Street, Manchester, that saw the first ever meeting of the Women's Social and Political Union - the militant organisation calling for votes for women.

Now known as the Pankhurst Centre, it was previously the home of Emmeline Pankhurst and on October  10, 1903, a group of women gathered there and decided they could no longer just wait patiently for women's suffrage.

The women, including Emmeline's daughters Sylvia, Christabel and Adela, would become known as suffragettes. Their motto: "Deeds not words".

"It is where they decided to take decisive action," says Helen Pankhurst, Emmeline's great-granddaughter and granddaughter of Sylvia.

"They felt they had no choice."

The suffragettes are the subject of a new film out this week starring Carey Mulligan, Anne-Marie Duff, Helena Bonham Carter and Ben Whishaw. Helen's great-grandmother Emmeline is played by Meryl Streep.

I wondered how hard it was for Helen to watch the force-feeding scene in the film - where a suffragette on hunger strike is held down as liquid is forced into her using a steel gag and rubber tubes. Helen's grandmother Sylvia - then just aged 26 - was the most force-fed of all the suffragettes.

"The force-feeding scene is difficult and then you think how many times it happened, just relentlessly, over and over," Helen says. "There are lines in Sylvia's writing where she describes hearing them going into each cell and the screams, one by one, listening to what's happening to your friends. The more you struggled, the more damage you'd do to your throat and your lungs."

But she says the worst violence in the film is the day-to-day violence faced by working-class women in their ordinary lives. "I like it that it doesn't tell the story of the leadership, it tells the story of an ordinary person, Maud Watts, who we can all identify with," she says.

Streep, as Emmeline, features only in cameo scenes as an inspirational and mysterious figure. Instead, the film reveals the powerlessness of women forced into dangerous, backbreaking work in the laundries of London's East End and left at the mercy of bad employers. It shows why they so desperately needed the vote.

Suffragette is set in London, where the Pankhurst family moved in 1908 to agitate closer to Parliament. But in 1903, the first meetings were in the politically radical city of Manchester, where Emmeline was born. Then, the family home was on a street of villas, surrounded by paddocks and orchards. Now, it is almost swallowed up by the Manchester Royal Infirmary.

For decades the house fell in to disrepair and in the Seventies was saved only by the efforts of campaigners.

Today, the building is not just a museum but also a living legacy - a women's centre serving Manchester Women's Aid and other organisations. Emmeline Pankhurst would have approved of the foodbank run from the basement, where volunteers still lead with deeds, not words.

In a side room at the Pankhurst Centre, I meet three women whose lives have been saved and changed there. All three have fled domestic violence at the hands of their husband or partner.

"Being here, we all help each other," one woman says. "It's really built my confidence. It's also helped me understand what the children have been through."

The other women nod.

"Seven years I put up with it," another says. "Taking all those beatings. I didn't know any support was out there. It's just someone that hits you and that's your life and you have to live with it.

"I left with my new baby and without this place would have had nowhere to go. Now, my kids say, Daddy used to hit my mummy, but Mummy isn't crying any more."

Premieres for Suffragette have benefited Manchester Women's Aid and humanitarian charity CARE.

Helen, whose grandmother Sylvia Pankhurst was made an "honorary Ethiopian" by emperor Haile Selassie, was born in Addis Ababa and works for CARE.

The charity makes the link between Helen's history and women in developing countries with the annual Walk In Her Shoes march through the streets of London every March 6.

Gail Heath, CEO of the Pankhurst Trust, says earlier this year, Manchester Women's Aid was facing 40 per cent cuts.

"We nearly had to close two refuges," she says.

Last week, the premiere of Suffragette film at the British Film Institute in London was the scene of a protest by Sisters Uncut. Inspired into direct action by the suffragettes themselves, they say they wanted to bring attention to cuts to domestic violence services.

Helena Bonham Carter - whose great-grandfather Herbert Asquith was the Prime Minister who refused the suffragettes' demands and whose grandmother Violet despised their actions - called it the "perfect" response to the film.

In Manchester, before the women at the Pankhurst Centre left for their new lives, we went to stand at the room where the suffragette movement was born.

"I've been to this building so many times and not known this room was here," one of the women now safe from domestic violence says.

"You don't realise how linked our lives are to them. How we're all still fighting. You can feel their strength as you stand here."

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Birthplace of the Suffragette movement is continuing the struggle by supporting Manchester women fleeing violence

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A Home in north Manchester which was once the birthplace of the Suffragette movement is now providing support for women fleeing violence. The property in Nelson Street, Manchester, that saw the first ever meeting of the Women's Social and Political Union - the militant ­organisation calling for votes for women.

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issy:
-force feeding
-punishment
-plan de londres avec lieux marquants

gab:
-biographies
-contexte
-hommes suffragistes

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https://www.buzzfeed.com/alanwhite/28-powerful-pictures-of-women-fighting-for-their-right-to-vo?utm_term=.ekG8m1jJX#.igKMaP24x

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Le corps des suffragettes
La spectacularisation de la lutte
Le dress code militant
Le corps sacrifié
La violence assumée
Un corps féminin pour un féminisme féminocentré
« Une non-violence très agressive »

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pankhurst : mère, filles
millicent garret fawcett

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Un documentaire sur les suffragettes qui parle de 5 militantes

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Un documentaire sur les suffragettes qui parle de 5 militantes

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKHXinujWoM

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http://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/suffragettes/

http://www.liberation.fr/planete/2015/10/05/quand-les-suffragettes-reclamaient-le-droit-de-vote-a-coup-de-prises-de-jiu-jitsu_1397684    (les suffragettes utilisent le ju-jitsu)

http://information.tv5monde.com/terriennes/les-suffragettes-le-combat-des-femmes-pour-leur-droit-de-vote-sur-grand-ecran-68146

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http://8mars.info/les-suffragettes-1903-1918

http://plume-dhistoire.fr/suffragistes-et-suffragettes-le-combat-des-femmes-en-angleterre/

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?1903-Les-suffragettes-passent-a-l

https://www.herodote.net/21_juin_1908-evenement-19080621.php

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qques citations, des arguments des femmes

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qques citations, des arguments des femmes

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Tant que les femmes consentiront à être injustement gouvernées, elles le seront. Emmeline Pankhurst (1858 - 1928)

Dans l'Empire britannique de la seconde moitié du XIXème siècle, c'est Pourtant, les femmes sont considérées comme des " la Reine Victoria qui gouverne l'Angleterre depuis des décennies. citoyens de seconde classe ".

Qu'elles soient riches ou pauvres, paysannes ou bourgeoises, ouvrières ou nobles, elles n'ont pas davantage de droits qu'un criminel, qu'un enfant ou même qu'un malade mental. A métier équivalent, elles gagnent le tiers de ce que gagne un homme et n'ont pas accès à l'éducation. La femme mariée ? Elle ne s'appartient plus, " son identité est subordonnée à celle de son mari ".

Cette conception rétrograde de la femme, certaines vont tenter, à n'importe quel prix, de la faire évoluer. Elles sont alors persuadées que cette amélioration des conditions de vie des femmes passe par le droit de vote. " Les Suffragettes ", film actuellement en salles, retrace le combat de ces Anglaises qui permirent au Royaume-Uni d'accéder enfin au suffrage universel. C'était il y a un siècle.

Les Suffragistes : premières engagées

Seuls les hommes blancs aisés et propriétaires ont le droit de vote dans cette monarchie constitutionnelle qu'est alors l'Angleterre. Même nobles, les femmes n'ont le droit que de vivre dans l'ombre de leur mari.

Elle sont suffisamment riches mais comme elles sont femmes, elles sont exclues.

A partir de 1884, les choses évoluent. Une loi leur accorde le droit... de posséder leur propre corps ! Les femmes deviennent donc des individus, et à partir de ce moment là, elles peuvent légalement prétendre à tous les autres droits.

Voilà qui arrange les affaires d'une certaine Millicent Garrett Fawcett. Née en 1847 dans une famille plutôt libérale, elle milite dès les années 1870 pour l'obtention du droit de vote pour les femmes. Veuve cette même année 1884, elle se consacre alors pleinement à la politique.

Persuadée qu'en faisant pression sur les députés, elles parviendront à les convaincre qu'elles sont aptes à faire partie du système politique, Millicent sensibilise les femmes à la question du droit de vote : ces groupes de femmes militantes deviennent " les Suffragistes ". En posant des questions telles que " Qui définit les lois ? ", " Qui décide qui est citoyen et qui ne l'est pas ? ", " Selon quels critères ? ", les Suffragistes ébranlent tout le système de l'Angleterre victorienne.

Un militantisme modéré

Les oppositions sont immédiates. Cette " révolution apparaît comme une réelle menace. Le rôle des femmes est différent de celui des hommes : elles sont avant tout des épouses destinées à faire des enfants et à s'occuper de leur foyer. Si les femmes s'occupent de politique, qui s'occupera du foyer ? Celles qui osent s'exprimer en public sont qualifiées d'hystériques.

Il est inconcevable pour beaucoup d'hommes et de femmes de la fin du XIXème siècle, que les femmes passent de la sphère privée à la sphère publique.

En 1897, Millicent Garrett prend la tête d'une toute nouvelle organisation qui réunit toutes les sociétés suffragistes du pays : la " National Union of Women's Suffrage ". Sous son impulsion, la NUWS, qui compte des sympathisants féminins comme masculins, devient le principal mouvement suffragiste du monde.

Rassemblées sous une campagne unique pour plus d'efficacité, les Suffragistes multiplient les actions militantes, toujours dans la légalité. Selina Cooper , femme emblématique dans le monde de l'industrie textile, tente de mobiliser les ouvrières en faveur du droit de vote pour les femmes et rejoint le mouvement suffragiste.

En 1900, 29 859 signatures sont présentées aux députés de Londres. Pour autant, pas d'embellie sous le ciel de la politique. Cela fait maintenant 30 ans que Millicent Garrett Fawcett milite pour le droit de vote des femmes...

Les Suffragettes : " des actions, pas des mots "

D'autres femmes n'ont pas l'intention d'attendre 30 années de plus. Le 10 octobre 1903, Emmeline Pankhurst fonde, avec ses filles Christabel, et , la " Women's Social and Political Union " (WSPU).

Membre du Parti travailliste indépendant, femme de caractère autoritaire et fortement engagée, Emmeline Pankhurst souhaite que la WSPU se concentre sur des actions concrètes, d'où leur slogan : " des actions, pas des mots ".

Mais sa fille Christabel souhaite aller plus loin. Comme beaucoup de femmes de sa génération, elle est frustrée par les méthodes légalistes de Millicent Garrett et de ses pairs qui, selon elle, n'ont abouti à rien.

En 1905, Christabel et une amie se font éjecter d'un meeting politique pour avoir posé la question du droit de vote des femmes en haussant le ton car personne ne daignait leur répondre. Christabel crache sur un policier. Ce manque de respect est immédiatement transformé en infraction : les jeunes femmes sont arrêtées et emprisonnées, 7 jours pour Christa, 5 jours pour son amie. Toute la presse en parle.

Prenant conscience du pouvoir des manifestations et actions d'éclat, Emmeline Pankhurst se range à l'avis de sa fille, et opte pour une stratégie de confrontation.

Celles que l'on nomme péjorativement " les Suffragettes " vont désormais attirer l'attention du public sur leur cause en cherchant à faire parler d'elles à n'importe quel prix, en bien ou en mal.

Thérésa Billington Greig , une ancienne institutrice de 28 ans qui travaille à plein temps pour l'organisation depuis sa création, explique que c'est presque un devoir moral pour les femmes que d'enfreindre les lois, puisqu' " elles ont été faites sans elles et contre elles. "

Activisme violent VS. Militantisme légal

Les Suffragettes multiplient les manifestations interdites, les prises de parole intempestives, les interruptions de réunions publiques, s'enchainent aux grilles du Parlement ou aux lampadaires des rues : comportements profondément choquants, mais il est désormais impossible pour le Gouvernement d'ignorer le mouvement.

Millicent Garret, leader des Suffragistes, n'approuve pas et ne collabore pas avec Emmeline Pankhurst, leader des Suffragettes. Même si elle reconnaît que les Suffragettes vont avancer la cause des femmes de façon fulgurante, Millicent continue de croire en ses méthodes pondérées et légales, constitutionalistes. Le 7 février 1907, les Suffragistes organisent une grande manifestation : 5 000 femmes de toutes origines sociales et de tout âge traversent Londres, dans le froid et sous la pluie.

En 1906, le parti libéral prend le pouvoir après 11 ans de règne conservateur. Enfin ! Mais les nouveaux espoirs sont vite déçus : ce gouvernement est certes réformateur, mais pas pour les femmes, bien au contraire. Le Premier Ministre, , est anti Suffragistes et Suffragettes. Il joue sur le fait que les femmes ne veulent pas de ce droit de vote. Si elles ne se mobilisent pas en nombre suffisant, c'est qu'elles ne sont pas intéressées !

Les Suffragettes décident de relever le défi. Le 21 juin 1908 a lieu à Hyde Park une manifestation gigantesque sous un soleil radieux. 50 000 femmes en robe blanche défilent, 200 000 personnes sont présentes. Mais le Gouvernement reste sourd, personne ne souhaite s'engager en faveur du droit des femmes. Même le Parti travailliste hésite entre batailler pour le droit des ouvriers, ou y intégrer les ouvrières. Après des années de lutte, la déception est lourde. Les Suffragettes perdent des militantes, qui se révoltent contre les manières violentes employées par la WSPU, et la personnalité trop despotique de sa fondatrice Emmeline Pankhurst.

Thérésa Billington Greig fait sécession et crée la " Woman Freedom League " : par des actions plus calmes, ses membres militent de façon passive en refusant de participer au recensement de la population ou de payer leurs impôts.

Guerre d'usure entre Suffragettes et force de l'ordre

Mais ces femmes, qu'elles soient militantes activistes comme Emmeline Pankhurst et ses filles, légalistes comme Millicent Garret et Selina Cooper, ou civiques comme Thérésa Billington Greig, multiplient les actions... et la police les arrestations.

Pour leurs actions illégales, les Suffragettes sont régulièrement arrêtées. Emmeline, Christabel et Sylvia Pankhusrt en personne font plusieurs séjours en prison. Mais le jugement au tribunal offre à ces femmes une plateforme d'expression idéale.

Les Suffragettes savent en effet très bien utiliser la publicité entourant les procès pour défendre le droit de vote. Les journaux étant très lus en Grande-Bretagne, la presse devient un moyen efficace de diffuser leurs idées.

En 1909, une Suffragette arrêtée et emprisonnée réclame le traitement d'une prisonnière politique et entame une grève de la faim. Elle reçoit une avalanche de soutiens de toute l'Europe. Bientôt, toutes les Suffragettes emprisonnées l'imitent.

Le gouvernement prend alors une mesure radicale en décidant de nourrir les Suffragettes de force, par la bouche ou par le nez : exercice particulièrement douloureux pour les femmes, qui ressortent le visage tuméfié. L'opinion publique est horrifiée... 116 médecins envoient une protestation au Premier Ministre, des militants libéraux quittent le parti.

Toujours grâce aux journaux, la population est de mieux en mieux informée. Les points de vue féministes commencent à être entendus. En 1910, recensent 290 000 supporters.

Une violence accrue

Des projets de lois font naître une grande espérance au sein du parti d'Emmeline Pankhurst. La déception n'en est que plus grande lorsque le Gouvernement ne donne pas suite !

La violence reprend de plus belle. Le 18 novembre 1910, Emmeline Pankhurst, suivie de 300 Suffragettes, manifeste devant le Parlement contre l'abandon des projets de lois.

La répression policière est d'une extrême brutalité. Sous les ordres du nouveau Ministre de l'Intérieur Winston Churchil, 200 femmes sont arrêtées. Les forces de l'ordre ferment en revanche les yeux quand des badauds s'en prennent aux militantes, à celles ont osé franchir " le code de la femme respectable ".

La propre sœur d'Emmeline Pankhurst, brutalisée par la police, meurt de ses blessures à Noël. Plus de 130 femmes déposent plainte contre des policiers pour agression. Ce jour restera dans l'histoire sous le nom de " Black Friday " : vendredi noir. Les Suffragettes prennent même des cours d'arts martiaux pour pouvoir se défendre si elles sont agressées !

Le 1er mars 1912, des Suffragettes appartenant à la classe moyenne descendent dans la rue, chacune un petit marteau caché dans son manchon. Elles brisent toutes les vitrines de l'ouest londonien. Les Suffragettes ont définitivement abandonné le militantisme pacifique. Plus de 200 d'entre elles sont arrêtées quelques semaines plus tard, alors qu'elles s'en prennent cette-fois à des bâtiments officiels.

Les Suffragistes commencent à considérer les Suffragettes comme des illuminées qui ne comprennent rien au militantisme, qui retardent simplement leur cause.

est tellement radicalisée dans la violence qu'elle se brouille avec sa mère et ses deux soeurs. Fin mars 1912, le quartier général des Suffragettes est investi par la police. Christabel est obligée de s'enfuir en France, alors que , arrêtée alors qu'elle cherchait à remettre une pétition au Roi. Depuis Paris, le mouvement devient clandestin, subversif.

Le 4 juin 1913 a lieu le Derby royal d'Ebson. Lors de la 3 ème course, la Suffragette Emily Davison se jette sous les sabots du cheval qui court pour le Roi. Elle meurt 4 jours plus tard, sans avoir jamais repris conscience. Elle devient martyre du mouvement et les Suffragettes organisent pour elle des .

Les Suffragettes participent à l'effort de guerre et remportent " leur guerre "

En 1914, alors que Christabel Pankhurst et sa mère sont de nouveau réunies, la Première Guerre Mondiale stoppe toute action en faveur du droit de vote pour les femmes.

Tandis que les arrestations continuent, Emmeline Pankhurst opte pour une nouvelle stratégie : en échange de la libération de toutes les Suffragettes, elles cessent toute action violente et participent à l'effort de guerre en travaillant dans les usines. Marché conclu.

Dès 1916, certains soldats commencent à revenir du front. Des ouvriers pour la plupart, qui demandent le droit de vote. Après ce qu'ils ont vécu, le Gouvernement reconnaît qu'on ne peut le leur refuser.

Millicent Garret et Emmeline Pankhurst, parlant cette fois-ci d'une seule voix, exercent une pression constante sur les députés : les femmes aussi ont beaucoup contribué à l'effort de guerre ! Elles aussi ont beaucoup perdu. Le Gouvernement, qui croyait avoir enfin muselé les revendications des Suffragistes et des Suffragettes, ne peut plus se dérober. Il ne peut pas refuser aux femmes ce qu'il accorde aux hommes pour le même motif. Ce temps est révolu.

En 1918, le Parlement vote le Representation of the People Act : tous les hommes de plus de 21 ans, et femmes de plus de 31 ans qui sont mariées à un homme inscrit sur les lites électorales et propriétaires, ont désormais le droit de vote. Ce qui signifie 2 millions d'hommes supplémentaires et 6 millions de femmes ! Après 50 ans de combats pour changer la perception des femmes dans l'opinion, c'est un succès considérable.

C'est en juillet 1928 qu'une nouvelle loi instaure la parfaite égalité du droit de vote entre les hommes et les femmes. Tout individu de plus de 21 ans peut à présent voter... La lutte aura été rude.

Sources

♦ Citoyennes. Portraits de femmes engagées pour le bien commun , de Florence Piron

♦ Emission proposée par ARTE : Les Suffragettes, ni paillassons ni prostituées

♦ Alternative Libertaire : 1903, les Suffragettes passent à l'action directe

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Citation: C N Trueman "Suffragettes"
historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, . .

The Suffragettes wanted the right for women to vote.

The move for women to have the vote had really started in 1897 when Millicent Fawcett founded the National Union of Women's Suffrage. "Suffrage" means the right to vote and that is what women wanted - hence its inclusion in Fawcett's title.

Millicent Fawcett believed in peaceful protest. She felt that any violence or trouble would persuade men that women could not be trusted to have the right to vote. Her game plan was patience and logical arguments. Fawcett argued that women could hold responsible posts in society such as sitting on school boards - but could not be trusted to vote; she argued that if parliament made laws and if women had to obey those laws, then women should be part of the process of making those laws; she argued that as women had to pay taxes as men, they should have the same rights as men and one of her most powerful arguments was that wealthy mistresses of large manors and estates employed gardeners, workmen and labourers who could vote........but the women could not regardless of their wealth.....

However, Fawcett's progress was very slow. She converted some of the members of the Labour Representation Committee (soon to be the Labour Party) but most men in Parliament believed that women simply would not understand how Parliament worked and therefore should not take part in the electoral process. This left many women angry and in 1903 the Women's Social and Political Union was founded by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia. They wanted women to have the right to vote and they were not prepared to wait. The Union became better known as the Suffragettes. Members of the Suffragettes were prepared to use violence to get what they wanted.

In fact, the Suffragettes started off relatively peacefully. It was only in 1905 that the organisation created a stir when Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney interrupted a political meeting in Manchester to ask two Liberal politicians (Winston Churchill and Sir Edward Grey) if they believed women should have the right to vote. Neither man replied. As a result, the two women got out a banner which had on it "Votes for Women" and shouted at the two politicians to answer their questions. Such actions were all but unheard of then when public speakers were usually heard in silence and listened to courteously even if you did not agree with them. Pankhurst and Kenney were thrown out of the meeting and arrested for causing an obstruction and a technical assault on a police officer.

Both women refused to pay a fine preferring to go to prison to highlight the injustice of the system as it was then. Emmeline Pankhurst later wrote in her autobiography that:

The Suffragettes refused to bow to violence. They burned down churches as the Church of England was against what they wanted; they vandalised Oxford Street, apparently breaking all the windows in this famous street; they chained themselves to Buckingham Palace as the Royal Family were seen to be against women having the right to vote; they hired out boats, sailed up the Thames and shouted abuse through loud hailers at Parliament as it sat; others refused to pay their tax. Politicians were attacked as they went to work. Their homes were fire bombed. Golf courses were vandalised. The first decade of Britain in the twentieth century was proving to be violent in the extreme.

Suffragettes were quite happy to go to prison. Here they refused to eat and went on a hunger strike. The government was very concerned that they might die in prison thus giving the movement martyrs. Prison governors were ordered to force feed Suffragettes but this caused a public outcry as forced feeding was traditionally used to feed lunatics as opposed to what were mostly educated women.

The government of Asquith responded with the Cat and Mouse Act. When a Suffragette was sent to prison, it was assumed that she would go on hunger strike as this caused the authorities maximum discomfort. The Cat and Mouse Act allowed the Suffragettes to go on a hunger strike and let them get weaker and weaker. Force feeding was not used. When the Suffragettes were very weak..........they were released from prison. If they died out of prison, this was of no embarrassment to the government. However, they did not die but those who were released were so weak that they could take no part in violent Suffragette struggles. When those who had been arrested and released had regained their strength, they were re-arrested for the most trivial of reason and the whole process started again. This, from the government's point of view, was a very simple but effective weapon against the Suffragettes.

As a result, the Suffragettes became more extreme. The most famous act associated with the Suffragettes was at the June 1913 Derby when Emily Wilding Davison threw herself under the King's horse, Anmer, as it rounded Tattenham Corner. She was killed and the Suffragettes had their first martyr. However, her actions probably did more harm than good to the cause as she was a highly educated woman. Many men asked the simple question - if this is what an educated woman does, what might a lesser educated woman do? How can they possibly be given the right to vote?

It is possible that the Suffragettes would have become more violent. They had, after all, in February 1913 blown up part of David Lloyd George's house - he was probably Britain's most famous politician at this time and he was thought to be a supporter of the right for women to have the vote!

However, Britain and Europe was plunged into was to be vital for Britain's war effort. In 1918, the World War One in August 1914. In a display of patriotism, Representation of the People Act was passed by Parliament. Emmeline Pankhurst instructed the Suffragettes to stop their campaign of violence and support in every way the government and its war effort. The work done by women in the First World War

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Women's right to vote - Suffragettes - History Learning Site

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Citation: C N Trueman "Suffragettes"historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, . . The Suffragettes wanted the right for women to vote. The move for women to have the vote had really started in 1897 when Millicent Fawcett founded the National Union of Women's Suffrage.