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Fight for the Right: the Birmingham Suffragettes

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Fight for the Right: the Birmingham Suffragettes

Monthly Archives: November 2012

Our Second Visit to Birmingham Archives

27 Tuesday Nov 2012

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birmingham, first world war, suffrage, suffragettes, suffragists, vote

Don Hazzard, Ariadne, Tabby and Ayah from Kings Norton Girls School, Nikki Thorpe

During November, Kings Norton Girls’ School visited Birmingham Archives for the second time. In the image shown above, Don Hazzard talks to the girls regarding how most soldiers after the First World War rapidly changed their opinion on whether women should be given the right to vote or not.

The main reason men changed their minds about letting women vote was because there were lots of female nurses at the front line in the War who died alongside the soldiers; so men thought that if women were that responsible then they should be rewarded the privilege to vote.

Dwelling on this subject, Mr Hazzard informed the girls of the tragic stories some of these females went through in order to politely and respectfully achieve this right – these well-mannered ladies were known as suffragists. Furthermore, the fact that women were able to take on the everyday roles of hard-working men drastically projected the women’s responsibility and trust to accomplish tasks appropriately and effectively to those men especially in high status.

Overall, we enjoyed listening to these true life tales Don informed us of as well as the actual reasoning of how women overpowered men’s traditional thinking of a woman, who was completely single-minded, too emotional and non-worthy of such a privilege. To conclude, still today women need to gain that equality in some areas of the world for several reasons. Looking at these old strategies and methods may help us dearly in the near or far future.

Blythe and Tabby

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The F word

27 Tuesday Nov 2012

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equality, feminism, militant, protest, suffragettes, women's rights

On Friday an article appeared in the Guardian, ‘Why is ‘feminism’ such a tough badge to wear?’. Written by a young woman, Rosie Kelly, she describes how in a recent university seminar, when her lecturer asked for feminists to raise their hands, she felt unable to do so (only 1 female student out of 20 did raise their hand). Kelly then declares herself unembarrassed by what she stands for but reluctant to label herself a feminist. Many things troubled me about this article (and I would be keen to know what happened in the seminar after the question was asked), particularly the conclusion that if Caitlin Moran says it’s ok to be a feminist then it must be ok, along with the somewhat twee definition of feminists as ‘just informed women who don’t think we’re quite there yet on the equality front’.

But it was the image of WSPU founders, Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst that really bothered me.

Annie Kenney & Christabel Pankhurst

As project manager for Fight for the Right, I’ve been thinking a lot about the suffragette fight and about how young women today relate to history and issues around gender and equality. The article itself did not refer to the campaign for women’s right to vote and the following comments mentioned the word ‘suffragettes’ twice, albeit in passing. There was no historical context to this article and no awareness of the progression of women’s rights since gaining the vote in 1928. In terms of campaigning today, UK Feminista, for example, has a really high profile at the moment but this is not mentioned and it really worried me that Kelly could only think of feminism within the context of Moran’s recent book, How to be a Woman. This is why I think our project, and other similar ones, have real value for young women growing up today. Being involved in this project will not only encourage students to understand the importance of exercising their right to vote, but will help make them aware of what was happening in their own city, to understand the reasons behind militant suffragette activity alongside the peaceful methods of the suffragists, to appreciate how long it can take for things to change, and to recognise that generally speaking women today still do not enjoy the same equalities as men, socially, financially and politically, not just in Britain but across the globe.

Kelly’s reasoning for not wanting to identify herself with the word ‘feminism’, because it equates to ‘man-hating, frumpy lesbians’, seems to me to be really clichéd and I think Kelly, and women who hold that same opinion, are in trouble if they can’t engage with the wider issues and the historical context of women’s rights and equality. The accusation that women who stood up for themselves were sexually-frustrated man-haters was around 100 years ago and there really is no place for it anymore. By using that as an excuse for not wanting to label themselves as feminists, the young women in this article are continuing to perpetuate that version of women. Being a feminist is not about some tabloidy, lads-mag image but so much more than that. It’s about people standing up for what they believe in and for equal rights and opportunities for people, men and women, of all backgrounds. I think if Kelly really wants to understand what it means to be a feminist, and to not be scared of the word, she needs to look much farther back than just ‘Before Caitlin’ – and find out about Pankhurst, Fawcett and the rest. And for the record, I am definitely a feminist – and proud to admit it!

Nicola Gauld

Who we are…

23 Friday Nov 2012

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birmingham, equality, militant, protest, suffrage, suffragettes, suffragists, vote, women's rights

We’re a group of Year 10 students from Kings Norton Girls School and Year 8 students from Waverley School, both in Birmingham.

We wanted to be involved in this project:

To learn more about the past, to learn how to interpret the past for others, because we’re interested in women’s rights and in learning more about protest and direct action. We hope to inspire future generations and to give women in the past a voice today.

We want to learn more about the Suffragettes, especially the non-famous ones and ones that lived in Birmingham, to find out about different methods of protest, especially peaceful versus militant, and to find out how the activities of the Suffragettes are relevant for us today.

The activities we’re planning to do include: workshops at Birmingham Archives and Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, to meet a local female politician, to visit the Houses of Parliament, to record stories about the suffragettes through film and to document the project to create a learning resource.

And we’ll be regularly blogging about the project so follow us here on or Twitter to keep updated!

Deeds not Words!

20 Tuesday Nov 2012

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asquith, bingley hall, birmingham, militant, protest, suffrage, suffragettes, suffragists, vote, wspu

After receiving great news that our project, Fight for the Right, was going to be funded by the HLF it was all systems go! Workshops at Birmingham Archives were the first activities planned, so the students can begin their research into the Birmingham Suffragettes and Suffragists. Most of the young people didn’t realise that there were two groups of women using different methods to try and gain the right to vote. At the first workshop we thought about this and looked at examples of both peaceful and non-peaceful protest.

Students from Waverley School

One of the most notorious incidents of militant protest occurred when Prime Minister Asquith visited Birmingham’s Bingley Hall to address the Liberal meeting on the budget. The Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) tried to gain entry to the meeting but were prevented from doing so.

Students from Kings Norton Girls School

Students from Kings Norton Girls School

Alternative tactics were then employed – two of the women climbed onto the roof of a nearby house and threw roof slates at Asquith’s car (the newspapers contain amazing stories of “fragile” women climbing out of windows onto ladders!). The disturbance continued while Asquith was in Birmingham, and another missile was thrown at his train as he left.

10 women were arrested in connection with the disturbances, one of whom, Hilda Evelyn Burkitt, a 26-year-old WSPU committee member from Sparkbrook, will be the subject of further research. We first encountered Burkitt in the Birmingham Weekly Mercury in October 1908, where she is illustrated participating in a peaceful debate about womens’ suffrage at the Aston Parliament. Unfortunately, her militant activities at Bingley Hall resulted in a custodial sentence and she was sent to Winson Green, where she underwent force feeding.

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