Saturday 1 June 2013

Rational Deeds and Words Too!

Comment on today's BBC story
“Emily Davison: Votes for women's Derby Day 'martyr'” by Sally Nancarrow BBC News, Surrey

It is incorrect to state that ‘The Pankhursts’ renounced the campaign for the vote in favour of supporting the war effort. Emmeline and Christabel certainly did so, but Sylvia and Adela broke with their mother and sister on this issue. Sylvia was a prominent anti-war campaigner, upholding socialist and internationalist principles while continuing the struggle for women’s rights (not just the vote). It was in Sylvia Pankhurst’s newspaper Workers’ Dreadnought that Siegfried Sassoon’s celebrated statement in opposition to the war was first published.

Related posts to follow, possibly.

For now:-

There are worse and sillier anniversaries to commemorate this June than that of Emily Wilding Davison, but better ways to remember her than certain items in the wonderful and in some cases distinctly weird programmes of events scheduled - and better role models among the Suffragettes (see above).

No doubt it is possible to be 'inspired' in some ways by her life as a whole but let’s not be inspired to imitate its end – or to ‘celebrate’ that melancholy event unthinkingly.


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