Emmeline Pankhurst Quotes
I thought I had been a suffragist before I became a Poor Law Guardian, but now I began to think about the vote in women's hands not only as a right but as a desperate necessity.
Pankhurst, Emmeline. My Own Story. Hearst's International Library Co., 1914, p. 25.
She was the first presidential candidate's wife to admit such a radical position.
Many people, mostly men, tended to regard and label the militant suffragettes as extremists and allowed as how women who advocated their voting rights but in an acceptable way might be wrong but they were at least ladies. The same kind of attempted split occurred in the latter half of the 20th century over the Woman’s movement. The Feminists were not “ladies” and were not to be emulated by normal women even if they had sympathy for he views. Groups without power have always been acceptable to society as long as their cries for a share of power were ineffectual and did not disrupt the existing order. But when they begin to use more successful means and are heard and attended to, then they are labeled as extremists not to be emulated by “decent” people.
Emmeline Pankhurst was a British political activist. She is best remembered for organizing the UK suffragette movement and helping women win the right to vote. In 1999, Time named her as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating that "she shaped an idea of objects for our time" and "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 is recognised as a crucial element in achieving women's suffrage in the United Kingdom.
