Being a Suffragette:Emily Davison – A Case Study Before we begin

what can you tell about Emily just by looking at her in this photograph?

 

The Suffragette Derby, 1913.

Emily Wilding Davison (1872-1913)

is one of the most famous of the Suffragettes.

It was Emily Wilding Davison who threw herself under the

king’s horse at the Derby of 1913 thus making her mark in

history. Click on the window and watch the moment. You will need to look carefully a few times to see all of the tragic event.

Work through the following slides to see how the feminist struggle for Suffrage got to this point. Questions are posed in yellow throughout. Take the time to consider them before you move on from each slide.

Suffragettes will be the focus of this study as some of their number gave their lives for their cause.

Some give the lions share of the success of this early feminist era to them because it forced the government to act

Deeds not Words

The founder of the Suffragettes was Emmeline Pankhurst. She was an engaging speaker and promoted militant action (Deeds) to achieve Universal Suffrage.

What deeds?

The deeds Suffragettes carried out included: Smashing shop front

windows and windows at parliament house

Violent protests Attempted Suicide

As a consequence many Suffragists were arrested.

Life in Gaol

Mrs Pankhurst herself was arrested (pictured right) but the experience only hardened her resolve.

Suffragettes even found ways to continue their struggle in prison

What could they do?

What do you think is happening in this picture?

Suffragettes would go on hunger strikes while in prison.

What would be the benefits of this?

It was a lose/lose situation for the government. If the women died in prison they would look like monsters but if they released them they would look very weak.

One solution was to force feed the hunger strikers (pictured right)

Resolve increased

Being force fed was not pleasant. Pankhurst recalled that while in prison she:

was horrified by the screams of women being force-fed during hunger strikes. In her autobiography she

wrote: "I shall never while I live forget the suffering I experienced during the days when those cries

were ringing in my ears.“Hinton.,

What is Evidence.

Given that force feeding was cruel to say the least and that NOT

arresting suffragettes was

also not an option... What

might the government do.

And no, giving women the right to vote did not cross

their mind – yet.

The Cat and the Mouse

The Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act or the "Cat and Mouse Act” was passed in 1913.

It made legal the hunger

strikes that Suffragettes were undertaking at the time and stated that they would be released from prison as soon as they became ill with the intention of re-arresting them later.

The ineffectiveness of the act was very soon evident

Authorities experienced much more difficulty than anticipated in re-arresting the released hunger-strikers, many of whom eluded the police with the help of a network of suffragette sympathisers.

The inability of the government to lay its hands on high-profile suffragettes transformed what had been intended as a discreet device to control suffragette hunger-strikers into a public scandal.

What is this political poster suggesting about the Act in question?

The Act's nickname of Cat and Mouse Act, referring to the way the government seemed to play with prisoners as a cat may with a captured mouse, underlined how the cruelty of repeated releases and re-imprisonments turned the suffragettes from targets of scorn to objects of sympathy.

A Well Educated Lady

It was this political climate into which Emily Davison Entered

As a young lady she had defied the odds a male-dominated society imposed on women, by graduating with a BA at London University and after this she gained a first class honours degree at Oxford University.

 

. Emily Davison became a natural follower of the Suffragettes and joined in 1906. She took part in attacks on property. She became a leading member of the Suffragettes and was imprisoned and force-fed. On one occasion she barricaded herself in a prison cell to escape force-feeding. Her cell was flooded with ice cold water which drenched her while workmen broke down the cell door.* Such treatment only made her even more determined.

On another occasion while in prison, she threw herself off of a prison upper gallery floor. She was badly

injured but realised that a Suffragette dying in prison would look bad for the authorities.

This was the exact type of event the Cat and Mouse Act was designed to prevent.

Prison Record

March 30th 1909 One month in prison for

obstruction July 30th 1909 Two months in prison for

obstruction, released after five and a half days hunger strike.

September 4th 1909 Two months for stone

throwing at White City, Manchester, released after two and a half days hunger strike.

October 20th 1909 One month for stone

throwing at Radcliffe near Manchester. Hunger strike, forcibly fed, hose-pipe incident at Strangeways prison and released at end of eight days.

November 19th 1910One month for breaking windows in the House of Commons

January 10th 1912 Six months for

setting fire to postal boxes at Holloway, London. Released 10 days before sentence finished on account of injuries sustained in protest made against forcible feeding.

November 30th 1912

Ten days for assaulting a vicar who she mistook to be David Lloyd George (the PM!)

Derby Day, 4th June, 1913. The horse Anmer struck Emily with his

chest, and she was knocked over screaming. Blood rushed from her nose and mouth. The king's horse turned a complete somersault, and the jockey, Herbert Jones, was knocked off and seriously injured. An immense crowd at once invaded the course. The woman was picked up and placed in a motor car and taken in an ambulance to Epsom Cottage Hospital where she died from her injuries.

Some contemporary reflectionsWhat do these suggest about reactions of Suffragette and mainstream publications to the events at the Derby?Cartoon in Daily Mail, 1914 The Suffragette, Friday June

12, 1913.

Did she mean to kill herself? In 1988 the possessions Emily had on her that

day were discovered in the belongings of one of her close friends. They included: Half a return train ticket dated 4th June, 1913. Unused. A marked and paid for race card including races

following her death A pass for a Suffragette rally to be held up to 10 days

later

What does the What does the evidence infer or evidence infer or

suggest?suggest?

The Consequences of the early Feminist movement The struggle did not end

with Emily’s death but it turned a corner.

Delayed by WWI success was achieved on February 6th 1918 when The Representation of the People Act was decreed :

All women over 30 who were married to property owners or who owned property themselves were allowed to vote in parliamentary elections.

8 million people received Universal Suffrage

This early feminist movement achieved what they set out to do.

In coming years even more women would be granted the right to vote when Universal suffrage for all adults over 21 years of age was granted in 1928.

Success or Failure? Women like Emmeline

Pankhurst saw an injustice, articulated a view and fought for it.

Feminist warriors like Emily Davison gave their lives, intentionally or not, for that cause.

This movement would become known as the First wave of Feminism

Second Wave Feminism or the Women’s Liberation Movement developed in the 1960 and is best articulated by the likes of Australia’s Germaine Greer.

This movement rejected politics as a solution but sought to understand the social constructs that oppressed them.

Some Second Wave Feminists regard the First Wave as failing to deliver real change in the long term.

What is your response to that charge?

Look at the statistics from the Gender Equity Initiative on the next few slides and answer that question again.

21

Women represent 50.3% of the Australian population1

Australia is one of a group of countries ranked #1 for women’s educational attainment 2

Women comprise 33% of the total membership of Australian Government boards and bodies 3

Gender Equity in Australia – What Problem?

.

1. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Demographic Statistics, March 2008, Catalogue No. 3101.0, ABS, Canberra,

2. World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Report 2007.

3. Office for Women, Government Boards Report 2008, Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Canberra, 2008.

22

Women in Parliament

of elected positions in the

Australian Commonwealth Parliament

are held by women

35.5%of Australian Senators

are women29.6% 26.7% of the Members of the

House of Representatives are women

Politics and Public Administration Group Parliamentary Library, Composition of Australian Parliaments by Party and Gender, as at 25 May 2009, available at www.aph.gov.au/library/intguide/pol/currentwomen.pdf

23

The Commonwealth Public Service

Women are:

• 57.6% of Commonwealth Public Service employees and outnumber men in all junior classifications

• 45% of employees at Executive Level

• 37% of the Senior Executives

State of the Service 2007/08, Australian Public Service Commission

Some outstanding individual achievements

Australia has a woman:• Governor-General • Prime Minister• Premier of Queensland• Premier of New South Wales• CEO of a Major Bank

3 out of seven High Court Justicesare women4 women in Federal Cabinet (pre 2010

election)

24Address to Victorian Premier’s Women’s Summit, Anne Summers AO, September, 2009

However

25

On virtually every objective measure,

women in Australia

are behind

and going backwards

Address to Victorian Premier’s Women’s Summit, Anne Summers AO, September, 2009

Gender Equity Initiative

26

The Global Gender Gap Index Australia’s ranking declining year on year

2006 2007 20081.Sweden 1.Sweden 1.Norway 2.Norway 2.Norway 2.Finland 3.Finland 3.Finland 3.Sweden 4.Iceland 4.Iceland 4.Iceland5.Germany 5.New Zealand 5.New Zealand 6.Philippines 6.Philippines 6.Phillipines 7.New Zealand 7.Germany 7.Denmark 8.Denmark 8.Denmark 8.Ireland 9.United Kingdom 9.Ireland 9.Netherlands 10.Ireland 10.Spain 10.Latvia 11.Spain 11.United Kingdom 11.Germany 12.Netherlands 12.Netherlands 12.Sri Lanka 13.Sri Lanka 13.Latvia 13.United Kingdom 14.Canada 14.Lithuania 14.Switzerland 15.Australia 15.Sri Lanka 15.France

16.Croatia 16. Lesotho17.Australia 17.Spain

18.Mozambique 19.Trinidad and Tobago 20.Moldova 21.Australia Source: World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Report 2008.

http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gendergap/rankings2008.pdf

Gender Equity Initiative

Where to From here...

Areas which are open to investigation in order to understand the social constructs that shape the lives of women include sacred texts of various religions.

Consider the picture from the previous PPT again. Does the sentiment of this image match the written word of say Genesis?

See you next lesson.