Woud you really have liked the Suffragettes?

Of course the use of the word ‘innocent’ may need a little debate

If white policemen are violently attacking black protesters, should the protesters a) stand there and take it b) fight back c) stop protesting

No, the hurting and killing of innocent people is never justifiable to me. I’m the case of South Africa, there is still to this day terrible atrocities committed and it is wrong. I personally cannot condone violence towards another human being.

I'd have been more involved with the suffragists. I accept that direct action is necessary sometimes but I have never been able to reconcile that with hurting people.
The suffragettes get all the positive publicity and are seen as heroes, whereas the suffragists, like many other working class women, remain unsung.
I'm thankful that votes for women were granted, in whatever drip feed process that followed. My great grandmother was abandoned with 6 children to feed. My grandmothers worked in the mills whilst they had young children and in one case, a baby. As everyone knows, it's tough up north but - I can't imagine my grandmothers would have been too exhausted or busy to give a flying * about the vote. They'd have wanted it and seen it as a way to try and improve their lives.

MeMop - if we take the example of South Africa, every single day in the apartheid years there was terrible terrible violence against black people in every way imaginable ( and then some). Democracy did not exist, there were no sustainable peaceful structures through which to implement change. In that situation sometimes violence is all that people have left - the state is all powerful and violent.

No matter the cause, I would not support violence in any form. Not then, not now.

I would have been the nanny MissAdventure, so neither 'downstairs' nor 'upstairs' but you may have been serving the children's meals and mine in the nursery and clearing away afterwards.
I can manage to draw my daily bath, thank you very much for offering.

I wish I'd asked my grandmother how she felt about the suffragettes. I remember her telling me about Emmeline Pankhurst and Emily Davison when I was about 10 but there was no hint as to whether or not she approved of their actions.

Grandpa was in the Navy and they lived a comfortable middle class life but I'm sure that having lived through those times she would have had an opinion that was worth listening to if only I'd probed a bit deeper.

I don't know how far I would have gone in my support if I'd been alive at that time because it must have been hard to get the full facts unless you were directly involved.

my grandmother was a normal woman ..not poor but the family worked for a living .She was passionate about womens suffrage and yes she was arrested for knocking a policemans hat of at a demo..and yes I am very proud of who she was and the fact she stood up to be counted.She was also one of the first woman members of the Labour party ..when its constitution had at its core Home Rule for Scotland .So We have all carried on her fight for independence and we always will until we acheive it .I'd hope I would have had her determination under the same circumstances ,its much simpler just posting leaflets through doors and manning street stalls .

As Jalima said earlier, I would have been poor. Probably lower working class and so wouldn’t have got the vote yet anyway . I would have probably been struggling to feed my hungry children and wouldn’t have given a flying “f” about a vote .

Millicent Fawcett – one of the traditional, moderate ‘suffragists’ – was also supportive:

I hope the more old-fashioned suffragists will stand by them. In my opinion, far from having injured the movement, [the Suffragettes] have done more during the last 12 months to bring it within the region of practical politics than we have been able to accomplish in the same number of years.
Mrs Millicent Fawcett, leader of the NUWSS, writing in 1906.

No, I believe they delayed women getting the vote that the suffragists had been working slowly and carefully to get. I am a suffragist through and through.

She was a member of the Women’s Social and Politcal Union, became disillusioned with them and was asked by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies to work for them, which she did for many years. She was very active politically, keen to get women into parliament.

Jalima1108 I don’t know what she called herself. I will look up the names of the societies she belonged to. She spoke up against violence.

I would have been too busy laying out their clothes and drawing their baths, I'd imagine.

Most of them were upper middle class so the majority of women would probably have had no contact with them. The violent ones were too extreme for most of us to be comfortable but they weren't all like that.
I may have agreed with their aims but would not have joined in even if from that background. I'm not one to join in marches or protests now.

www.ournellie.com/learn/womens-suffrage/political-equality-timeline/

I wonder if they'd take any notice of a woman who preferred peaceful protest?
But would anything else have worked I wonder?
DM used to say 'Everything comes to she who waits' - the movement was sweeping many countries and women in other countries got the vote before British women.

Grandma70s was she a suffragette or a suffragist? I mentioned them in my first post.

Not all suffragettes were violent. In fact, I think most were not. There were different suffrage societies. The only suffragette in my family was my husband’s step-grandmother, so not really a relation. She disliked violent tactics and changed to a suffrage society which didn’t use them. I met her when she was very old, and a more decent, intelligent woman you could not imagine. So I have met an ex-suffragette, and I definitely liked her.

Great aims; not so great methods. But would anything else have worked I wonder?

I tend to admire people who are doers and passionate about a cause, if it's a decent, good one.

I'd admire them for that reason. Their cause was admirable. Their methods weren't so wonderful. I appreciate they had to make themselves heard and seen but in all honesty I wouldn't be able to take part in much more than placard carrying. It's a good point. Who of us can say we admire bombers, or arsonists or methods of protest which could kill innocents?

I'd ally myself with the cause but I wonder if they'd take any notice of a woman who preferred peaceful protest?

Well it’s difficult to judge yesterday’s circumstances by today’s standards. So with that in mind I think I remain grateful for their role in procuring some rights for women & the vote .

No, I probably would not have 'liked' them if I thought they were going to hurt others. I would probably have supported the suffragists but would not have been one because I'd have probably been very poor, not middle-class, with no time to fight for suffrage.

However, I don't know because I didn't live through those times and I may have been quite angry that they were fighting for votes just for 'middle-class women' and not for all.

Well everything else had failed hadn’t it? Bit like South Africa- sometimes violence is the only way as sorry as I am that is true.