Suffragette: The After-Story

I just went to see Suffragette, the period drama about the militant phase of the British Suffrage Movement, and, of course, I wanted to share my thoughts.

First, there is a justified viral campaign to protest the complete—and I mean complete—absence of persons of color in the film. In 1913, Britain was coming out of their heyday of global colonization, and, as a result, there were entire communities of color in London. There was an especially large Indian community, including the Indian princess Sophia Duleep Singh, who fought not only for women’s suffrage but for the liberation of Indian women. It is interesting to note that three decades earlier, a suffragist named Catherine Impey founded Anti-Caste, which has been described as Britain’s first anti-racist journal. In its pages, the editor attempted to speak “with” rather than “about” people of colour, a dynamic with which white political leaders are still struggling more than a century later.

Anyway… with all the attention to historical accuracy about the details of women's tailoring, and with all the photo ops of processions, meetings, rallies, factory interiors, and street scenes… surely central casting could have and should have paid more attention to diversity.

So there is that.

And then, of course, the perennial absence/closeting of the lesbians. Not surprisingly, there were many lesbians in the Suffrage Movement in both England and the US. One of Emmeline Pankhurst’s daughters, Christabel, was the subject of many suffragist crushes, and had lengthy relationships with Annie Kenney and with Grace Roe. The composer Ethel Smyth dedicated two years of her life to the movement. She wrote openly about her passion for women and had a crush on Emmeline Pankhurst. (See my blog on Ethel Symth.)

But in spite of the a-historical absence of diversity in the film, there is much to admire. It features a working-class heroine. It does not flinch from the subject of rape and sexual harassment in the workplace in an era when women had no legal recourse whatsoever. It dramatizes the consequences of women having no rights of ownership over their own children. The central character is evicted from her home because of her activism, and then her husband, unable to provide care for the child, puts him up for adoption without her knowledge or permission.

For me, the most exciting part of the film is the coming to consciousness of the central character. We see her waking up from a deep sleep. We see her beginning to see what could be possible. We see her excitement in bonding with other women and in executing acts of civil disobediance—most notably blowing up the Prime Minister’s summer home.

And, then of course, there is the punishing routine of repeated incarceration, the police violence meted out at rallies, the horror of the force-feeding of hunger strikers. In an effort to shape a concise dramatic arc, the film begins to focus on a cat-and-mouse dynamic between the heroine and the police inspector assigned to neutralize the movement. He has been given the injunction not to allow any of the suffragists to become martyrs.

The dramatic climax of the film is the death of Emily Wilding Davison, the suffragist who ran onto the race track at the Epsom Derby and attempted to attach a “Votes for Women” banner to the King’s horse. She was trampled to death.

The film ends with the “victory” of the Suffragists having achieved the desired martyrdom. The story went around the world and thousands turned out for the funeral procession. This is presented as the happy ending for the film, the moment that turned the tide. Just before the final credits, text appears to inform us of the historical timeline for women’s suffrage, and for other laws, including women's right to own their children.

But here's my biggest concern: The film absolutely implies that the women’s activism, and especially their tactical move to destruction of property, resulted in the granting of suffrage.

This is not true. At the height of the incarcerations and force-feedings, World War I broke out. In what many, including myself, considered a stunning betrayal of not just the suffrage movement, but of feminism, Emmeline and Christabel called an immediate halt to all militant suffrage activism. Emmeline turned her brilliant organizing skills toward recruiting women for industrial production and encouraging young men to enlist. She was a prominent figure in the “white feather campaign” to shame and stigmatize able-bodied men who were not joining up. Later on, she would become a member of the conservative and classist Tory Party.

Finally, at the end of the war, Parliament passed an act that would enfranchise women over the age of thirty who met minimum property qualifications. This was specifically in recognition of the fact that women had been pressured into filling men’s industrial jobs during the war and, after that, it would have been ludicrous to maintain the fiction that they were too frail or feeble-minded to be entrusted with suffrage. It was their reward for doing as they were told.

What is my point? My point is that history does not support the theory that women’s escalating activism for the vote brought men in power to their knees. It did not. Women’s abandonment of their own agenda and participation the most patriarchal of patriarchal horrors was what turned the tide.

My point is that women’s movements do not follow the same trajectories as men’s movements. If there were no gay men, and the entire queer movement had been composed solely of lesbian and bisexual women, I do not believe that we would have ANY of the legal gains that we have today. In fact, I believe that the movement, as with the Suffrage Movement in both England and the US, would have resulted in increased marginalization and suffering. Today we are seeing our hard-won abortion rights being eroded by cat-and-mouse games. Today, poor women in some areas have great difficulty in arranging for abortions, because of laws about waiting periods, restrictions on where abortion clinics can operate, and the expenses that these new laws entail.

My point is that lobbying men should be a last resort. We should organize ourselves around efforts to provide for our needs without needing to petition men in power. By all means, get women elected into as many positions as possible, but the rush for equal participation in patriarchal institutions is what led to Pankhurst’s abandonment of the movement.

And, much as the movement recognized the significance of having a martyr, Emily Wilding Davison died with a ticket in her pocket to a women’s dance that night. She did not plan to martyr herself, but to celebrate her victory in the company of women. That is the movement I want to commemorate.