EMMELINE PANKHURST

Emmeline Pankhurst



Short Term Significance of Emmeline Pankhurst In Order To Get Women Votes

Introduction

God has created men and women equally. But variegated issues that exist in our society give unequal status to men and women. There are scores of instances that prove behavior of society which predict that women are inferior creature. Women always have been treated by society as an inferior being. Males have always dominated the society and have treated women as their subordinates. But, things have changed now. A woman of today's world knows her value. She is capable of doing anything to prove her mettle. The notion that women are slave to their men has been jettisoned now. With her studious effort and remarkable achievements women have achieved a status that demands respect and integrity. Gone are the days when women did not have the right to vote. In order to gain the status that a woman possesses today depends on the courageous efforts and movements of women. They ran a number of movements to get the rights of women. Among these women, the name of Emmeline Pankhurst is also worth to mention. The aim and objective of this paper is also to talk about this courageous lady.

Discussion

Suffragist, Emmeline Pankhurst was born and raised in Manchester, England. Emmeline Pankhurst was 14 when she attended her first suffrage meeting. After her marriage in 1879, she and her husband worked for the Married Women's Property Committee and the Manchester Woman's Suffrage Committee. They also joined the Fabian Society and, in 1893, the Independent Labour Party. In 1903, Pankhurst and her daughter formed the militant Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Pankhurst led many marches and recruitment drives in her pursuit for woman suffrage. She was arrested on numerous occasions and responded with hunger and thirst strikes. The activities of the WSPU were suspended during the First World War, and it was then that Mrs. Pankhurst threw herself into conscription propaganda. In 1917, Pankhurst founded the Woman's Party with her daughter Christabel; this organization collapsed in 1918 after an unsuccessful campaign for elected office by Christabel. Pankhurst's interest in the cause waned after this defeat. Her energies were then directed toward the welfare of several illegitimate children she fostered, and then adopted, during the war (Pankhurst 1908, 35).

The actions taken by Christabel and Annie at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester in 1905 introduced a modern, middle-class and female politics. Although middle-class women had been entering previous “male” or public spaces through education, employment and consumerism, this was the first time that a woman entered the male, political arena, and actively participated and demanded to be heard. Formed by Christabel and her mother, Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903, the WSPU introduced a new political tactic in the women's suffrage movement: militancy. This was a new and modern form of politics because it was the first time that the word 'militant' consciously was used in a political or trade union sense of a person who used organized, direct action ...