3 Chapter 3: The Voice of Women, Calling for Greater Rights

Throughout most of human history, the voice of women has been absent from the historical record. When it is present, it is often filtered through the words and perspectives of men. Men have told us what women were thinking, what women wanted, and what roles women should occupy, while women’s own experiences and perspectives often remained unspoken. As a result, the history of women is frequently a history of women as seen through the eyes of others rather than women speaking for themselves.

The Enlightenment offers an important starting point for examining this silence. As Europeans increasingly questioned traditional authority and proclaimed ideas of reason, liberty, equality, and natural rights, women began to ask whether these principles applied to them as well. The sources in this chapter trace the emergence of women’s voices from the Enlightenment forward, revealing how women challenged the assumptions that defined their lives and increasingly claimed the authority to speak about themselves, their experiences, and their place in society.

As you read these sources, pay attention to how these women are calling for more rights, not just that they are. The first source, that of Olympe de Gouges comes from the time of the French Revolution and is a product of the Enlightenment, as is the writings of Mary Woolstonecraft. The third and fourth sources come from the Twentieth Century. Pay attention to the political leanings of Lena Morrow Lewis as well as the dual approaches of Emmeline Pankhurst.

3.1 Olympe de Gouges: Declaration of the Rights of Women (1791)

Olympe de Gouges (1748–1793) was a French writer and political activist who became an outspoken participant in the French Revolution. She embraced the Revolution’s language of liberty and equality but criticized its failure to extend these principles to women. In a society undergoing profound political change, de Gouges argued that women were not simply subjects of the Revolution but citizens entitled to participate in shaping the new political order.

In 1791, de Gouges published the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, directly challenging the male-centered Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789. Reworking the language of the revolutionary declaration, she asserted that women possessed the same natural and political rights as men and demanded equality before the law, access to political participation, and recognition as full citizens. Her declaration exposed a fundamental contradiction within the French Revolution: a movement proclaiming universal rights while excluding half the population from those rights.

The following is copied in its entirety from “Olympe de Gouges, ‘Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Female Citizen,”‘ in Darline Gav Levy, H. Applewhite, and M. Johnson, eds., Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1785­-1795 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1979), pp. 92­-96.

Woman, wake up; the tocsin of reason is being heard throughout the whole universe; discover your rights. The powerful empire of nature is no longer surrounded by prejudice, fanaticism, superstition, and lies. The flame of truth has dispersed all the clouds of folly and usurpation. Enslaved man has multiplied his strength and needs recourse to yours to break his chains. Having become free, he has become unjust to his companion. Oh, women, women! When will you cease to be blind? What advantage have you received from the Revolution? A more pronounced scorn, a more marked disdain. In the centuries of corruption you ruled only over the weakness of men. The reclamation of your patrimony, based on the wise decrees of nature-what have you to dread from such a fine undertaking? The bon mot of the legislator of the marriage of Cana? Do you fear that our French legislators, correctors of that morality, long ensnared by political practices now out of date, will only say again to you: women, what is there in common between you and us? Everything, you will have to answer. If they persist in their weakness in putting this non sequitur in contradiction to their principles, courageously oppose the force of reason to the empty pretensions of superiority; unite yourselves beneath the standards of philosophy; deploy all the energy of your character, and you will soon see these haughty men, not groveling at your feet as servile adorers, but proud to share with you the treasures of the Supreme Being. Regardless of what barriers confront you, it is in your power to free yourselves; you have only to want to….

Marriage is the tomb of trust and love. The married woman can with impunity give bastards to her husband, and also give them the wealth which does not belong to them. The woman who is unmarried has only one feeble right; ancient and inhuman laws refuse to her for her children the right to the name and the wealth of their father; no new laws have been made in this matter. If it is considered a paradox and an impossibility on my part to try to give my sex an honorable and just consistency, I leave it to men to attain glory for dealing with this matter; but while we wait, the way can be prepared through national education, the restoration of morals, and conjugal conventions.

Form for a Social Contract Between Man and Woman

We, _____ and ______, moved by our own will, unite ourselves for the duration of our lives, and for the duration of our mutual inclinations, under the following conditions: We intend and wish to make our wealth communal, meanwhile reserving to ourselves the right to divide it in favor of our children and of those toward whom we might have a particular inclination, mutually recognizing that our property belongs directly to our children, from whatever bed they come, and that all of them without distinction have the right to bear the name of the fathers and mothers who have acknowledged them, and we are charged to subscribe to the law which punishes the renunciation of one’s own blood. We likewise obligate ourselves, in case of separation, to divide our wealth and to set aside in advance the portion the law indicates for our children, and in the event of a perfect union, the one who dies will divest himself of half his property in his children’s favor, and if one dies childless, the survivor will inherit by right, unless the dying person has disposed of half the common property in favor of one whom he judged deserving.

That is approximately the formula for the marriage act I propose for execution. Upon reading this strange document, I see rising up against me the hypocrites, the prudes, the clergy, and the whole infernal sequence. But how it [my proposal] offers to the wise the moral means of achieving the perfection of a happy government! . . .

Moreover, I would like a law which would assist widows and young girls deceived by the false promises of a man to whom they were attached; I would like, I say, this law to force an inconstant man to hold to his obligations or at least [to pay] an indemnity equal to his wealth. Again, I would like this law to be rigorous against women, at least those who have the effrontery to have reCourse to a law which they themselves had violated by their misconduct, if proof of that were given. At the same time, as I showed in Le Bonheur primitit de l’homme, in 1788, that prostitutes should be placed in designated quarters. It is not prostitutes who contribute the most to the depravity of morals, it is the women of’ society. In regenerating the latter, the former are changed. This link of fraternal union will first bring disorder, but in consequence it will produce at the end a perfect harmony.

I offer a foolproof way to elevate the soul of women; it is to join them to all the activities of man; if man persists in finding this way impractical, let him share his fortune with woman, not at his caprice, but by the wisdom of laws. Prejudice falls, morals are purified, and nature regains all her rights. Add to this the marriage of priests and the strengthening of the king on his throne, and the French government cannot fail.

From “Olympe de Gouges, ‘Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Female Citizen,”‘ in Darline Gav Levy, H. Applewhite, and M. Johnson, eds., Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1785­1795 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1979), pp. 92­96.

This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history. Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use. (c)Paul Halsall Aug 1997

3.2 Mary Woolstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) was an English writer, philosopher, and early advocate for women’s rights. She was born in London into a financially unstable family, and her difficult childhood shaped much of her later thinking about women’s dependence on men. Her father was often abusive and irresponsible with money, and Wollstonecraft became determined at an early age to establish herself as economically and intellectually independent. Her personal life was unconventional by the standards of her time. Rather than accepting the limited occupations available to women, she worked as a teacher, governess, and writer. She had a daughter, Fanny, outside of marriage, and later married the philosopher William Godwin. Wollstonecraft died in 1797, shortly after giving birth to her second daughter, the future novelist Mary Shelley. Although her reputation was damaged for decades by attacks on her personal life, Wollstonecraft was eventually recognized as an important Enlightenment thinker and a foundational figure in the history of women’s rights.

In 1787, she published Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, beginning her lifelong engagement with the education and status of women. This was followed by A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Published in 1792, which challenged the prevailing assumption that women were naturally inferior to men. Wollstonecraft argued that women appeared less rational largely because they were denied the same educational opportunities as men. The work was both a critique of women’s limited social roles and a broader argument for the Enlightenment principles of reason, education, and individual liberty. Wollstonecraft maintained that women should be educated as rational and independent human beings rather than trained primarily to please men or fulfill domestic roles. Her work became one of the foundational texts of modern arguments for the equality and education of women.

The following is from Mary Woolstonecraft’s introduction to A Vindication of the Rights of Women as found in the Everyman’s Library edition, originally published in 1929, reprinted 1992.

After considering the historic page, and viewing the living world with anxious solicitude, the most melancholy emotions of sorrowful indignation have depressed my spirits, and I have sighed when obliged to confess that either Nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the civilisation which has hitherto taken place in the world has been very partial. I have turned over various books written on the subject of education, and patiently observed the conduct of parents and the management of schools; but what has been the result?–a profound conviction that the neglected education of my fellow-creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore, and that women, in particular, are rendered weak and wretched by a variety of concurring causes, originating from one hasty conclusion. The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are not in a healthy state; for, like the flowers which are planted in too rich a soil, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity. One cause of this barren blooming I attribute to a false system of education, gathered from the books written on this subject by men who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers; and the understanding of the sex has been so bubbled by this specious homage, that the civilised women of the present century, with a few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and virtues exact respect.

In a treatise, therefore, on female rights and manners, the works which have been particularly written for their improvement must not be overlooked, especially when it is asserted, in direct terms, that the minds of women are enfeebled by false refinement; that the books of instruction, written by men of genius, have had the same tendency as more frivolous productions; and that, in the true style of Mahometanism, they are treated as a kind of subordinate beings, and not as a part of the human species, when improvable reason is allowed to be the dignified distinction which raises men above the brute creation, and puts a natural sceptre in a feeble hand.

Yet, because I am a woman, I would not lead my readers to suppose that I mean violently to agitate the contested question respecting the quality or inferiority of the sex; but as the subject lies in my way, and I cannot pass it over without subjecting the main tendency of my reasoning to misconstruction, I shall stop a moment to deliver, in a few words, my opinion. In the government of the physical world it is observable that the female in point of strength is, in general, inferior to the male. This is the law of Nature; and it does not appear to be suspended or abrogated in favour of woman. A degree of physical superiority cannot, therefore, be denied, and it is a noble prerogative! But not content with this natural preeminence, men endeavour to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring objects for a moment; and women, intoxicated by the adoration which men, under the influence of their senses, pay them, do not seek to obtain a durable interest in their hearts, or to become the friends of the fellow-creatures who find amusement in their society.

I am aware of an obvious inference. From every quarter have I heard exclamations against masculine women, but where are they to be found? If by this appellation men mean to inveigh against, their ardour in hunting, shooting, and gaming, I shall most cordially join in the cry; but if it be against the imitation of manly virtues, or, more properly speaking, the attainment of those talents and virtues, the exercise of which ennobles the human character, and which raises females in the scale of animal being, when they are comprehensively termed mankind, all those who view them with a philosophic eye must, I should think, wish with me, that they may every day grow more and more masculine.

This discussion naturally divides the subject. I shall first consider women in the gland light of human creatures, who in common with men, are placed on this earth to unfold their faculties; and afterwards I shall more particularly point out their peculiar designation.

I wish also to steer clear of an error which many respectable writers have fallen into; for the instruction which has hitherto been addressed to women, has rather been applicable to ladies, if the little indirect advice that is scattered through “Sandford and Merton” be excepted; but, addressing my sex in a firmer tone, I pay particular attention to those in the middle class, because they appear to be in the most natural state. Perhaps the seeds of false refinement, immorality, and vanity, have ever been shed by the great. Weak, artificial beings, raised above the common wants and affections of their race, in a premature unnatural manner, undermine the very foundation of virtue, and spread corruption through the whole mass of society! As a class of mankind they have the strongest claim to pity; the education of the rich tends to render them vain and helpless, and the unfolding mind is not strengthened by the practice of those duties which dignify the human character. They only live to amuse themselves, and by the same law which in Nature invariably produces certain effects, they soon only afford barren amusement.

But as I purpose taking a separate view of the different ranks of society, and of the moral character of women in each, this hint is for the present sufficient; and I have only alluded to the subject because it appears to me to be the very essence of an introduction to give a cursory account of the contents of the work it introduces.

My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone. I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists. I wish to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are only the objects of pity, and that kind of love which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.

Dismissing, then, those pretty feminine phrases, which the men condescendingly use to soften our slavish dependence, and despising that weak elegancy of mind, exquisite sensibility, and sweet docility of manners, supposed to be the sexual characteristics of the weaker vessel, I wish to show that elegance is inferior to virtue, that the first object of laudable ambition is to obtain a character as a hurnan being, regardless of the distinction of sex, and that secondary views should be brought to this simple touchstone.

This is a rough sketch of my plan; and should I express my conviction with the energetic emotions that I feel whenever I think of the subject, the dictates of experience and reflection will be felt by some of my readers. Animated by this important object, I shall disdain to cull my phrases or polish my style. I aim at being useful, and sincerity will render me unaffected; for, wishing rather to persuade by the force of my arguments than dazzle by the elegance of my language, I shall not waste my time in rounding periods, or in fabricating the turgid bombast of artificial feelings, which, coming from the head, never reach the heart. I shall be employed about things, not words! and, anxious to render my sex more respectable members of society, I shall try to avoid that flowery diction which has slided from essays into novels, and from novels into familiar letters and conversation.

These pretty superlatives, dropping glibly from the tongue, vitiate the taste, and create a kind of sickly delicacy that turns away from simple unadorned truth; and a deluge of false sentiments and overstretched feelings, stifling the natural emotions of the heart, render the domestic pleasures insipid, that ought to sweeten the exercise of those severe duties, which educate a rational and immortal being for a nobler field of action.

The education of women has of late been more attended to than formerly; yet they are still reckoned a frivolous sex, and ridiculed or pitied by the writers who endeavour by satire or instruction to improve them. It is acknowledged that they spend many of the first years of their lives in acquiring a smattering of accomplishments; meanwhile strength of body and mind are sacrificed to libertine notions of beauty, to the desire of establishing themselves–the only way women can nse in the world–by marriage. And this desire making mere animals of them, when they marry they act as such children may be expected to act,–they dress, they paint, and nickname God’s creatures. Surely these weak beings are only fit for a seraglio! Can they be expected to govern a family with judgment, or take care of the poor babes whom they bring into the world?

If, then, it can be fairly deduced from the present conduct of the sex, from the prevalent fondness for pleasure which takes place of ambition and those nobler passions that open and enlarge the soul, that the instruction which women have hitherto received has only tended, with the constitution of civil society, to render them insignificant objects of desire -mere propagators of fools! -if it can be proved that in aiming to accomplish them, without cultivating their understandings, they are taken out of their sphere of duties, and made ridiculous and useless when the short-lived bloom of beauty is over,[1] I presume that rational men will excuse me for endeavouring to persuade them to become more masculine and respectable.

Indeed the word masculine is only a bugbear; there is little reason to fear that women will acquire too much courage or fortitude, for their apparent inferiority with respect to bodily strength must render them in some degree dependent on men in the various relations of life; but why should it be increased by prejudices that give a sex to virtue, and confound simple truths with sensual reveries?

Women are, in fact, so much degraded by mistaken notions of female excellence, that I do not mean to add a paradox when I assert that this artificial weakness produces a propensity to tyrannise, and gives birth to cunning, the natural opponent of strength, which leads them to play off those contemptible infantile airs that undermine esteem even whilst they excite desire. Let men become more chaste and modest, and if women do not grow wiser in the same ratio, it will be clear that they have weaker understandings. It seems scarcely necessary to say that I now speak of the sex in general. Many individuals have more sense than their male relatives; and, as nothing preponderates where there is a constant struggle for an equilibrium without it has naturally more gravity, some women govern their husbands without degrading themselves, because intellect will always govern.

Source: Mary Woolstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792. From the Everyman’s Library edition, originally published in 1929, reprinted 1992.

This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history. Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use. (c)Paul Halsall Aug 1997

3.3 Lena Morrow Lewis: The Sex and Woman Questions (1911)

Lena Morrow Lewis (1868–1950) was a prominent figure in the American women’s suffrage movement, arguing that women’s inequality was not simply a matter of individual discrimination but was connected to broader social, economic, and political structures. She was particularly interested in the relationship between women’s rights, work, and economic independence.

In The Sex and Woman Questions (1911), Lewis addressed contemporary debates over the status and role of women, challenging assumptions about women’s supposed natural limitations. Writing during the Progressive Era, she connected the struggle for women’s equality to the larger movement for social and political reform.

Copied in its entirety from Lena Morrow Lewis, The Sex and Woman Questions in The Masses, December, 1911.

THE tendency of some people to confound the woman question with the sex question evidences a lack of a scientific knowledge and appreciation of the fundamental principles of the two problems.

There may be a relation between the two, but they are by no means synonymous. Sex is a characteristic of the man as well as the woman and a discussion of it involves both male and female. If the theory of Prof. Lester F. Ward, a sociologist of international reputation be correct, the term THE SEX more properly belongs to man than to woman.

The theory of Prof. Ward is, that the female, principle is the basis, the stock of the race, and that the female, the woman is THE RACE. The male is simply an evolution in the course of nature for the purpose of differentiation, and in the strict biological sense, MAN is the SEX.

But in the world of social and human activities, the position and relation of man and woman is just the reverse. Nor can we credit the difference between the biological position and the popular and general view of woman’s place in society to the vagaries of the human mind. An idea or opinion, a viewpoint so thoroughly established as this one must have some justification for its existence, some reason for being or it never could have endured so long. Biological facts cannot be overthrown, but mental viewpoints are largely affected and determined by the economic processes in life, and if we probe deep enough we will find a material basis or ground for all social and mental concepts.

From whence then arises this persistent tendency to confound the woman question with the sex question?

The introduction and establishment of the institution of private property completely changed the status of woman in society. The right of private property carries with it the opportunity to acquire wealth and the desire to transmit the same to future generations. This new economic regime very materially changed the family relation, the father became the head of the household. In order that man may know absolutely who were his own heirs, monogamy became necessary, at least for the woman. The control of the sex power of woman, the disposition on the part of society to regulate the maternal functions, had its origin in the instinctive desire to preserve the institution of private property.

From the position as head of the family or tribe, with the full right to live the life of a human being, woman passed to a limited sphere determined largely by her maternal functions. MARRIAGE BECAME THE ALL-IMPORTANT OBJECT IN WOMAN’S LIFE. Our language evidences this when we use the expression “Man and wife.” The word wife only implies a specific relation with one man and is the measure of the woman’s existence. No one ever thinks of speaking of a married couple as “Husband and Woman.” Woman’s position or social status is largely determined by her sex and the importance of controlling said function arose as a necessity for safeguarding and preserving the institution of private property. This disposition to control the sex of woman was further evidenced in the attitude of society toward woman when she attempts to step out into new lines of activity. When the pioneer woman suffrage workers began their work for equal rights the most popular argument brought against them was that they were “immoral women.” Only a short time ago we celebrated the centennial anniversary of the birth of the man who first admitted women as clerks in his store in the State of Maine. This man was boycotted and the women employed by him were considered by “respectable” people of that day as “bad” women. Every effort on the part of women to break away from the narrow life determined by her sex or maternal functions is met by bitter opposition.

If the control or regulation of the sex relations of woman grows out of the demands of the institution of private property then it logically follows that the passing of the said institution will remove this necessity and the new order of society enables woman to live the life of a complete human being. Whatever regulation or control of the sex relations society may inaugurate or establish in the system that follows capitalism, will be determined by the economic and social demands of the people at that time. The new economic system toward which we are rapidly passing will develop such social relations as will make for the preservation and progress of society. The ethics of capitalism will disappear with the passing of the institution of private property.

The Co-operative Commonwealth will give us a new and a higher standard of morality.

Source: Lena Morrow Lewis, The Sex and Woman Questions in The Masses, December, 1911. At marxists.org here.

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3.4 Emmeline Pankhurst: My Own Story (1914)

Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928) was a British political activist and one of the most prominent leaders of the women’s suffrage movement in Britain. In 1903, she founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), which adopted increasingly militant tactics to demand women’s right to vote. Pankhurst believed that traditional political methods had failed and that direct action was necessary to force the government to address women’s political inequality. During World War I the movement was suspended, however in 1918 due to the efforts of Pankhurst and others, Britain became the first Western democracy to permit some women the right to vote. Emmeline Pankhurst herself would stand as a Conservative candidate for Parliament, for Whitechapel and St George’s in 1927, however she fell ill and died in 1928 before the election took place.

Published in 1914, My Own Story is Pankhurst’s autobiographical account of her life and her involvement in the struggle for women’s suffrage. The work provides a firsthand perspective on the organization, motivations, and tactics of the militant suffrage movement. It also reveals how Pankhurst understood the relationship between political activism, sacrifice, imprisonment, and the broader fight for women’s rights.

The following is an excerpt from Emmeline Pankhurst, My Own Story (N.Y.: Hearst International Library, 1914, Kraus Reprints, 1971), pp. 3-9, 270-283.

CHAPTER I

Manchester is a city which has witnessed a great many stirring episodes, especially of a political character. Generally speaking, its citizens have been liberal in their sentiments, defenders of free speech and liberty of opinion. But in the late sixties there occurred in Manchester one of those dreadful events that prove an exception to the rule. This was in connection with the Fenian Revolt in Ireland. There was a Fenian riot, and the police arrested the leaders. These men were being taken to the jail in a prison van. On the way the van was stopped and an attempt was made to rescue the prisoners. A man fired a pistol, endeavouring to break the lock of the van door. A policeman fell, mortally wounded, and several men were arrested and were charged with murder. I distinctly remember the riot, which I did not witness, but which I heard vividly described by my older brother. I had been spending the afternoon with a young playmate, and my brother had come after tea to escort me home. As we walked through the deepening November twilight he talked excitedly of the riot, the fatal pistol shot, and the slain policeman. I could almost see the man bleeding on the ground, while the crowd swayed and groaned around him.

The rest of the story reveals one of those ghastly blunders which justice not infrequently makes. Although the shooting was done without any intent to kill, the men were tried for murder and three of them were found guilty and hanged. Their execution, which greatly excited the citizens of Manchester, was almost the last, if not the last, public execution permitted to take place in the city. At the time I was a boarding pupil in a school near Manchester, and I spent my week-ends at home. A certain Saturday afternoon stands out in my memory, as on my way home from school I passed the prison where I knew the men had been confined. I saw that a part of the prison wall had been torn away, and in the great gap that remained were evidences of a gallows recently removed. I was transfixed with horror, and over me there swept the sudden conviction that that hanging was a mistake worse, a crime. It was my awakening to one of the most terrible facts of life-that justice and judgment lie often a world apart.

I relate this incident of my formative years to illustrate the fact that the impressions of childhood often have more to do with character and future conduct than heredity or education. I tell it also to show that my development into an advocate of militancy was largely a sympathetic process. I have not personally suffered from the deprivations, the bitterness and sorrow which bring so many men and women to a realisation of social injustice. My childhood was protected by love and a comfortable home. Yet, while still a very young child, I began instinctively to feel that there was something lacking, even in my own home, some false conception of family relations, some incomplete ideal.

This vague feeling of mine began to shape itself into conviction about the time my brothers and I were sent to school. The education of the English boy, then as now, was considered a much more serious matter than the education of the English boy’s sister. My parents, especially my father, discussed the question of my brothers’ education as a matter of real importance. My education and that of my sister were scarcely discussed at all. Of course we went to a carefully selected girls’ school, but beyond the facts that the head mistress was a gentlewoman and that all the pupils were girls of my own class, nobody seemed concerned. A girl’s education at that time seemed to have for its prime object the art of “making home attractive”-presumably to migratory male relatives. It used to puzzle me to understand why I was under such a particular obligation to make home attractive to my brothers. We were on excellent terms of friendship, but it was never suggested to them as a duty that they make home attractive to me. Why not.? Nobody seemed to know.

The answer to these puzzling questions came to me unexpectedly one night when I lay in my little bed waiting for sleep to overtake me. It was a custom of my father and mother to make the round of our bedrooms every night before going themselves to bed. When they entered my room that night I was still awake, but for some reason I chose to feign slumber. My father bent over me, shielding the candle flame with his big hand. I cannot know exactly what thought was in his mind as he gazed down at me, but I heard him say, somewhat sadly, “What a pity she wasn’t born a lad.”

My first hot impulse was to sit up in bed and protest that I didn’t want to be a boy, but I lay still and heard my parents’ footsteps pass on toward the next child’s bed. I thought about my father’s remark for many days afterward, but I think I never decided that I regretted my sex. However, it was made quite clear that men considered themselves superior to women, and that women apparently acquiesced in that belief.

I found this view of things difficult to reconcile with the fact that both my father and my mother were advocates of equal suffrage. I was very young when the Reform Act of 1866 was passed, but I very well remember the agitation caused by certain circumstances attending it. This Reform Act, known as the Household Franchise Bill, marked the first popular extension of the ballot in England since 1832. Under its terms, householders paying a minimum of ten pounds a year rental were given the Parliamentary vote. While it was still under discussion in the House of Commons, John Stuart Mill moved an amendment to the bill to include women householders as well as men. The amendment was defeated, but in the act as passed the word “man,” instead of the usual “male person,” was used. Now, under another act of Parliament it had been decided that the word “man” always included “woman” unless otherwise specifically stated. For example, in certain acts containing rate-paying clauses, the masculine noun and pronoun are used throughout, but the provisions apply to women rate-payers as well as to men. So when the Reform Bill with the word “man” in it became law many women believed that the right of suffrage had actually been bestowed upon them. A tremendous amount of discussion ensued, and the matter was finally tested by a large number of women seeking to have their names placed upon the register as voters. In my city of Manchester 3,924 women, out of a total of 4,215 possible women voters, claimed their votes and their claim was defended in the law courts by eminent lawyers, including my future husband, Dr. Pankhurst. Of course the women’s claim was settled adversely in the courts, but the agitation resulted in a strengthening of the woman-suffrage agitation all over the country.

I was too young to understand the precise nature of the affair, but I shared in the general excitement. From reading newspapers aloud to my father I had developed a genuine interest in politics, and the Reform Bill presented itself to my young intelligence as something that was going to do the most wonderful good to the country. The first election after the bill became law was naturally a memorable occasion. It is chiefly memorable to me because it was the first one in which I ever participated. My sister and I had just been presented with new winter frocks, green in colour, and made alike, after the custom of proper British families. Every girl child in those days wore a red flannel petticoat, and when we first put on our new frocks I was struck with the fact that we were wearing red and green-the colours of the Liberal party. Since our father was a Liberal, of course the Liberal party ought to carry the election, and I conceived a brilliant scheme for helping its progress. With my small sister trotting after me, I walked the better part of a mile to the nearest polling-booth. It happened to be in a rather rough factory district, but we did not notice that. Arrived there, we two children picked up our green skirts to show our scarlet petticoats, and brimful of importance, walked up and down before the assembled crowds to encourage the Liberal vote. From this eminence we were shortly snatched by outraged authority in the form of a nursery-maid. I believe we were sent to bed into the bargain, but I am not entirely clear on this point.

I was fourteen years old when I went to my first suffrage meeting. Returning from school one day, I met my mother just setting out for the meeting, and I begged her to let me go along. She consented, and without stopping to lay my books down I scampered away in my mother’s wake. The speeches interested and excited me, especially the address of the great Miss Lydia Becker, who was the Susan B. Anthony of the English movement, a splendid character and a truly eloquent speaker. She was the secretary of the Manchester committee, and I had learned to admire her as the editor of the Women’s Suffrage Journal, which came to my mother every week. I left the meeting a conscious and confirmed suffragist.

I suppose I had always been an unconscious suffragist. With my temperament and my surroundings I could scarcely have been otherwise..

CHAPTER IV

I HAD called upon women to join me in striking at the Government through the only thing that governments are really very much concerned about-property-and the response was immediate. Within a few days the newspapers rang with the story of the attack made on letter boxes in London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, and half a dozen other cities. In some cases the boxes, when opened by postmen, mysteriously burst into flame; in others the letters were destroyed by corrosive chemicals; in still others the addresses were rendered illegible by black fluids. Altogether it was estimated that over 5,000 letters were completely destroyed and many thousands more were delayed in transit.

It was with a deep sense of their gravity that these letter-buming protests were undertaken, but we felt that something drastic must be done in order to destroy the apathy of the men of England who view with indifference the suffering of women oppressed by unjust laws. As we pointed out, letters, precious though they may be, are less precious than human bodies and souls. This fact was universally realised at the sinking of the Titanic. Letters and valuables disappeared forever, but their loss was forgotten in the far more terrible loss of the multitude of human lives. And so, in order to call attention to greater crimes against human beings, our letter bumings continued.

In only a few cases were the offenders apprehended, and one of the few women arrested was a helpless cripple, a woman who could move about only in a wheeled chair. She received a sentence of eight months in the first division, and, resolutely hunger striking, was forcibly fed with unusual brutality, the prison doctor deliberately breaking one of her teeth in order to insert a gag. In spite of her disabilities and her weakness the crippled girl persisted in her hunger strike and her resistance to prison rules, and within a short time had to be released. The excessive sentences of the other pillar box destroyers resolved themselves into very short terms because of the resistance of the prisoners, every one of whom adopted the hunger strike.

Having shown the Government that we were in deadly earnest when we declared that we would adopt guerrilla warfare, and also that we would not remain in prison, we announced a truce in order that the Government might have full opportunity to fulfil their pledge in regard to a woman suffrage amendment to the Franchise Bill. We did not, for one moment, believe that Mr. Asquith would willingly keep his word. We knew that he would break it if he could, but there was a bare chance that he would not find this possible. However, our principal reason for declaring the truce was that we believed that the Prime Minister would find a way of evading his promise, and we were determined that the blame should be placed, not on militancy, but on the shoulders of the real traitor…

We had arranged for huge meetings to be held every day during the debates, and on the day before they were to open we sent a deputation of working women, led by Mrs. Drummond and Miss AnnieKenney, to interview Mr. Lloyd-George and Sir Edward Grey. We had asked Mr. Asquith to receive the deputation, but, as usual, he refused. The deputation consisted of the two leaders, four cotton mill operatives from Lancashire, four workers in sweated trades of London, two pit brow lassies, two teachers, two trained nurses, one shop assistant, one laundress, one boot and shoe worker and one domestic worker twenty in all, the exact number specified by Mr Lloyd-George. Some hundreds of working women escorted the deputation to the official residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and waited anxiously in the street to hear the result of the audience.

The result was, of course, barren…

The House met on the following afternoon to debate Sir Edward Grey’s permissive amendment, but no sooner had the discussion opened than a veritable bombshell was cast into the situation. Mr. Bonar Law arose and asked for a ruling on the constitutionality of a woman’s suffrage amendment to the bill as framed. The Speaker, who, besides acting as the presiding officer of the House, is its official parliamentarian, replied that, in his opinion, such an amendment would make a huge difference in the bill, and that he would be obliged, at a later stage of the debates, to consider carefully whether, if carried, any woman suffrage amendment would not so materially alter the bill that it would have to be withdrawn. In spite of this sinister pronouncement, the House continued to debate the Grey amendment, which was ably supported by Lord Hugh Cecil, Sir John Rolleaton, and others.

…

The Prime Minister then announced the intentions of the Cabinet, which were to withdraw the Franchise Bill and to refrain from introducing, during that session, a plural voting bill. Mr. Asquith blandly admitted that his pledge in regard to women’s suffrage had been rendered incapable of fulfilment, and he said that he felt constrained to give a new pledge to take its place. There were only two that could be given. The first was that the Government should bring in a bill to enfranchise women, and this the Government would not do. The second was that the Government agree to give full facilities as to time, during the next session of Parliament, to a private member’s bill, so drafted as to be capable of free amendment. This was the course that the Government had decided to adopt. Mr. Asquith had the effrontery to say in conclusion that he thought that the House would agree that he had striven and had succeeded in giving effect, both in letter and in spirit, to every undertaking which the Government had given.

Two members only, Mr. Henderson and Mr. Keir Hardie had the courage to stand up on the floor of the House and denounce the Government’s treachery, for treachery it unquestionably was…

When the second Conciliation Bill, of 1911, was under discussion, Lord Lytton had said: “If this bill does not go through, the woman suffrage movement will not be stopped, but the spirit of conciliation of which this bill is an expression will be destroyed, and there will be war throughout the country, raging, tearing, fierce, bitter strife, though nobody wants it.”

Lord Lytton’s words were prophetic. At this last brazen piece of trickery on the part of the Government the country blazed with bitter wrath, All the suffrage societies united in calling for a Government measure for women’s suffrage to be introduced without delay. The idle promise of facilities for a private member’s bill was rejected with contumely and scorn. The Liberal women’s executive committee met, and a strong effort was made to pass a resolution threatening the withdrawal from party work of the entire federation, but this failed and the executive merely passed a feeble resolution of regret.

The membership of the Women’s Liberal Federation was, at that time, close to 200,000, and if the executive had passed the strong resolution, refusing to do any more work for the party until a Government measure had been introduced, the Government would have been forced to yield. They could not have faced the country without the support of the women. But these women, many of them, were wives of men in the service, the paid service of the Liberal Party. Many of them were wives of Liberal members. They lacked the courage, or the intelligence, or the insight, to declare war as a body on the Government. A large number of women, and also many men, did resign from the Liberal Party, but the defections were not serious enough to affect the Government.

The militants declared, and proceeded instantly to carry out, unrelenting warfare. We announced that either we must have a Government measure, or a Cabinet split-those men in the Cabinet calling themselves suffragists going out–or we would take up the sword again, never to lay it down until the enfranchisement of the women of England was won.

It was at this time, February, 1913, less than two years ago as I write these words, that militancy, as it is now generally understood by the public began-militancy in the sense of continued, destructive, guerilla warfare against the Government through injury to private property. Some property had been destroyed before this time, but the attacks were sporadic, and were meant to be in the nature of a warning as to what might become a settled policy. Now we indeed lighted the torch, and we did it with the absolute conviction that no other course was open to us. We had tried every other measure, as I am sure that I have demonstrated to my readers, and our years of work and suffering and sacrifice had taught us that the Government would not yield to right and justice, what the majority of members of the House of Commons admitted was right and justice, but that the Government would, as other governments invariably do, yield to expediency. Now our task was to show the Government that it was expedient to yield to the women’s just demands. In order to do that we had to make England and every department of English life insecure and unsafe. We had to make English law a failure and the courts farce comedy theatres; we had to discredit the Government and Parliament in the eyes of the world; we had to spoil English sports, hurt business, destroy valuable property, demoralise the world of society, shame the churches, upset the whole orderly conduct of life-

That is, we had to do as much of this guerilla warfare as the people of England would tolerate. When they came to the point of saying to the Government: “Stop this, in the only way it can be stopped, by giving the women of England representation,” then we should extinguish our torch.

…

It was absolutely in this spirit that our women went forth to war. In the first month of guerilla warfare an enormous amount of property was damaged and destroyed. On January 31st a number of putting greens were burned with acids; on February 7th and 8th telegraph and telephone wires were cut in several places and for some hours all communication between London and Glasgow were suspended; a few days later windows in various of London’s smartest clubs were broken, and the orchid houses at Kew were wrecked and many valuable blooms destroyed by cold. The jewel room at the Tower of London was invaded and a showcase broken. The residence of H. R. H. Prince Christian and Lambeth Palace, seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, were visited and had windows broken. The refreshment house in Regents Park was burned to the ground on February 12th and on February 18th a country house which was being built at Walton-on-the-Hill for Mr. Lloyd-George was partially destroyed, a bomb having been exploded in the early morning before the arrival of the workmen….

Source: Emmeline Pankhurst, My Own Story (N.Y.: Hearst International Library, 1914, Kraus Reprints, 1971), pp. 3-9, 270-283. It can be found online at The Internet Archive

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