Book Review: Women´s Rights

         
BOOK REVIEW

         
MY OWN STORY (Womenś fight for equal rights)

           
EMMELINE PANKHURST

           
Vintage classics  London 2015  {originally published in Britain by Eveleigh Nash in 1914}

           
"Women would have got the votes earlier if the Suffragettes had not resorted to such extreme tactics which alienated much of their public support," argued my Scottish history teacher. This was in 1976. I have wondered over those words since. And I often thought, how would the Suffragettes themselves have answered this criticism? I later read in a history book by David McDowall, used by students of English in Russia that: "Many politicians who agreed with their aims were shocked by their violent methods and stopped supporting them. However, if they had not been willing to shock the public, the suffragettes might not have succeeded". This was a more ambivalent answer. Then I had a stroke of luck. I came across a republished book by Emmeline Pankhurst 'My Own Story.' The book offers a brilliant insight into why the Suffragettes felt compelled to use what the authorities regarded as 'extreme tactics'. The book is not just a treatise on women's rights, but provides portraits of the British Prime Minister Asquith, Lloyd George and Sir Winston Churchill. They are hardly flattering!

           
Emmeline Pankhurst was one of the main founders of the Women's Social and Political Union set up in 1903. The aim of the movement was to secure votes for women using direct action. Although women over thirty gained the right to vote it was not until 1928 that they attained equal voting rights with men. But even today women still don't have equal pay with men nor even the complete right to divorce should their husbands refuse consent. English divorce laws are still old, antiquated and absurd.

           
What emerges from the pages is a strong, but compassionate and caring woman whose motivation was inspired by the unjust treatment of pregnant woman abandoned by men, and older women forced to work like slaves in the workhouse. In the 19th century women were treated as the property of men, could not get a divorce and even had to give up property to men when they married. Until 1891 men were legally allowed to beat up their wives and lock them in a room. Even the early Celtic Brehon Laws and Adomnan's Laws of the Innocents of 697 A.D. gave women more rights. Under these laws newly married women were entitled to keep their property. They could divorce a man who beat her up. As Peter Ellis states in his work: 'The Celts', 'in both Law systems women were protected from rape and, indeed, from sexual harassment. In Ireland, the laws are clear that physical or even verbal harassment was punishable by a whole series of fines.' This shame not only the English legal system, but also the modern Russian system which in 2017 decriminalized certain forms of domestic violence thus inciting a huge increase in violence against women. Russian law does not even go to the trouble of defining or mentioning domestic violence as a separate offence, yet early Irish Medieval law is explicit about this!

           
The Suffragettes felt driven to use more extreme tactics because more moderate methods such as petitions, articles and new bills were being consistently ignored by the British Parliament. The British government were not only stubborn. They were intransigent and the cabinet was implacably opposed to granting women the vote. The Suffragettes often resorted to destroying golf courses, burning down pillar boxes and even attacking Buckingham Palace. Pankhurst writes articulately as well as convincingly on page 252 that:

'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 theaters; 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, demoralize the world of society, shame the churches, upset the whole orderly conduct of life -

           
That is, we had to do as much as this guerrilla warfare as the people of England would tolerate.' Such tactics make the antics of Pussy Riot in Russia look very moderate!  Pankhurst also declared that human rights transcend those of private property. In one passage she thunders at a priest: "You are well aware sir, that property has assumed a value in the eyes of men, and in the eyes of the law, that it ought never to claim. It is placed above all human values. The lives and health and happiness, and even the virtue of women and children-that is to say the race itself- are being ruthlessly sacrificed to the God of property everyday of the world." Her words are as relevant today as a century ago.
            

The suffragettes suffered badly from the often callous response of the authorities. Many who were imprisoned, force fed, and beaten later died. The history books have never generously acknowledged their profound role in sacrificing their health and at time, lives, to empower women.

This struggle has often been described as a war between the sexes. Even Pankhurst uses this very phrase. Yet she mentions that the English Philosopher James Stuart Mill fought for women's rights and so did her husband, who was a lawyer.

           
One intriguing moment in the book is when one of her supporters Mr George Lansbury  puts the Prime Minister Asquith on the spot during a duel of words. The Prime Minister made a speech defending the cruel method of force feeding Suffragette hunger strikers. Pankhurst writes:

           
'Shocked to the depths of his soul by the insult thrown at our women, Mr Lansbury strode up to the ministerial bench and confronted the Prime Minister, saying again:

           
That was a disgraceful thing for you to say, sir. You are beneath contempt, you                    and your colleagues . You call yourselves gentlemen, and you forcibly feed and murder women in this fashion. You ought to be driven out of office. Talk about protesting. It is the most disgraceful thing that ever happened in the history of England. You will go down in history as the men who tortured innocent women.' {pages 227-228}

             
Things got so tough that Asquith had to go around with a special bodyguard. He even had to flee women who were pursuing him. Pankhurst writes : 'Every time he entered or left a railway carriage or  steamer he was confronted by women. Every time he rose to speak he was interrupted by women. Every public appearance was turned into a riot by women '.{page 233} Asquith was terrified of those women.

           
Pankhurst argues eloquently that every right secured by the oppressed has to be fought by massive protests which include direct action. This protest often leads to the full force of the law being imposed on you. What is interesting is how so called rights to petition the Prime Minister could be overruled by the chief of police and how even the will of parliament could be obstructed or overruled by a cabinet of ministers.

This book is a must for those interested in history. They will also find a soulmate        sympathetic to those who advocate direct action. The disturbing thing about this

book is that 1914 sounds so much like 2019!