Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurstwas a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement who helped women win the right to vote. In 1999 Time named Pankhurst as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating: "she shaped an idea of women for our time; she shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back." She was widely criticised for her militant tactics, and historians disagree about their effectiveness, but her work...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth15 July 1858
Solitary confinement is too terrible a punishment to inflict on any human being, no matter what his crime. Hardened criminals in the men's prisons, it is said, often beg for the lash instead.
One does not expect to be comfortable in prison. As a matter of fact, one's mental suffering is so much greater than any common physical distress that the latter is almost forgotten.
How different the reasoning is that men adopt when they are discussing the cases of men and those of women.
I have not personally suffered from the deprivations, the bitterness and sorrow which bring so many men and women to a realisation of social injustice.
Every principle of liberty enunciated in any civilized country on earth, with very few exceptions, was intended entirely for men, and when women tried to force the putting into practice of these principles, for women, then they discovered they had come into a very, very unpleasant situation indeed.
I have made speeches urging women to adopt methods of rebellion such as have been adopted by men in every revolution.
You must make women count as much as men; you must have an equal standard of morals; and the only way to enforce that is through giving women political power so that you can get that equal moral standard registered in the laws of the country. It is the only way.
I had to get a close-hand view of the misery and unhappiness of a man made world, before I reached the point where I could successfully revolt against it.
Men make the moral code and they expect women to accept it.
The whole argument with the anti-suffragists, or even the critical suffragist man, is this: that you can govern human beings without their consent.
Women had always fought for men, and for their children. Now they were ready to fight for their own human rights. Our militant movement was established.
If men will not do us justice, they shall do us violence.
Those men and women are fortunate who are born at a time when a great struggle for human freedom is in progress.
Men make the moral code and they expect women to accept it. They have decided that it is entirely right and proper for men to fight for their liberties and their rights, but that it is not right and proper for women to fight for theirs.