This blog is about my feminist
views.
I have started it today to
commemorate 100 years since some women were given the vote in Britain. Here’s a
link to their rousing anthem, written by Dame Ethel Smyth in 1911:
It is also, fittingly, the 66th
anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the British throne, the
longest reigning monarch in its history.
The Women’s Suffrage movement
goes back to the nineteenth century philosopher, John Stuart Mill, his
philosopher wife Harriet and his step-daughter Helen Taylor1. Both
JS Mill and Harriet wrote about women’s suffrage. Helen joined the Kensington
Society, set up in 1865 by a group of women to hold intellectual debates. In
this year, Helen gave a paper, alongside others, addressing the society’s
question of parliamentary reform to include women’s right to vote. This debate
culminated in Helen drafting the 1866 petition which JS Mill used to argue for
an amendment to the 1867 Reform Act. When it was voted down, they, including
Emily Davies, transformed themselves into the London Society for Women’s
Suffrage alongside JS Mill who became its first president. This society spread
to having branches around the country which eventually, together with other
suffrage groups, united under the umbrella name of the National Union of
Women’s Suffrage Societies. Millicent Garrett Fawcett became a president of this
society, having been an active participant in the previous Suffrage Society
after her sister, Elizabeth Garrett, introduced her to JS Mill’s speeches and
the movement for the emancipation of women.
The Suffragettes suffered
horrendously for their cause. It makes for gruesome reading/viewing! So today
we remember everything they went through to give us the vote and lead freer
lives than they were able to do. This must never be taken for granted! So it's wonderful that a statue has been unveiled in Leicester of the suffragette Alice Hawkins. For more on this and her life see:
Nevertheless,
there’s still an awful lot left to do before women have true equality with men,
especially in the present political world climate where women’s rights are,
once again, being threatened. In the words of Alice Hawkins 'Deeds not Words'!
My next blog, and many throughout 2018, will continue this theme.
1 For more on the
Mills see my blog/circle: https://millphilosophycircle.blogspot.co.uk/
Comments
Post a Comment