In addition to the #MyFirstTime video, we have a new featurette clip, "19 Days Of Suffrage" Day 1-5 badges for this week, and have also attached interesting facts about women’s firsts in politics to think about as we exercise our right to vote TODAY!!!
#MyFirstTime Special Video
New Featurette Clip – “Now &Then"
Week of 11/9: Women in the Military; Veteran’s Day (11/11)
Week of 11/16: Influential Women in History
Week of 11/23:
Things to Be Thankful For; Thanksgiving (11/26); #fightsnotover, there
are still many women around the globe who do not have equal rights, what
rights are you most thankful for?
Suffragette is a moving drama that will empower all
who are striving for equal rights in our own day and age. The stirring film,
directed by BAFTA Award winner Sarah Gavron and written by Emmy Award winner
Abi Morgan, is inspired by the early-20th-century campaign of the Suffragettes,
who were activists for Women’s Suffrage – the right of women to vote. The cast
includes Academy Award nominees Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter, Golden
Globe Award nominee Brendan Gleeson, British Independent Film Award winner
Anne-Marie Duff, BAFTA Award winner Ben Whishaw, and three-time Academy Award
winner Meryl Streep.
The time is 1912. The U.K. is seeing an
increased public presence of the Suffragettes, whose rallying cry is “Votes for
Women!” Their efforts at resistance over the years have been passive, but as
the women face increasingly aggressive police action, they engage in public
acts of civil disobedience endangering property – but never human life. The epicenter
of their national Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) is in London, where
Maud Watts (played by Carey Mulligan) is a working-class wife and mother; she
and husband Sonny (Ben Whishaw) toil at a laundry. Startled one day by a protest,
Maud recognizes a co-worker, Violet Miller (Anne-Marie Duff), among the
agitators. Initially unwilling to get involved in the Suffragette cause, Maud comes
to realize that she must claim her dignity both at home and in her workplace…
…and that she is not alone, as brave
women from all walks of life have joined the fight for equality. Pharmacist
Edith Ellyn (Helena Bonham Carter) and upper-class Alice Haughton (Romola
Garai) coordinate WSPU grassroots efforts. Maud’s commitment to the movement is
tested by giving testimony before Parliament, a brutal street skirmish – and a
jail stint that, while brief, alarms her husband. But her resolve is strengthened
by observing Emily Wilding Davison’s (Natalie Press) ability to endure prison
stints – and by meeting WSPU founder Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep), who
emerges from hiding with an electrifying public speech that galvanizes the Suffragettes
to activism.
Maud’s dedication leads her to hard
choices that will change her own life forever, as she strives to effect real
change for generations to come. The police step up their surveillance and harsh
treatment, with Inspector Steed (Brendan Gleeson) shadowing Maud’s journey at
every step; ultimately, she and her fellow Suffragettes will risk their very
lives to ensure that women’s rights be recognized and respected.
A Focus Features, Pathé, Film4, and BFI
presentation in association with Ingenious Media with the participation of Canal+ and Ciné+. A Ruby Films
production. Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Brendan Gleeson, Anne-Marie
Duff, Ben Whishaw, and Meryl Streep. Suffragette. Casting, Fiona Weir. Hair
& Make-up Designer, Sian Grigg. Costume Designer, Jane Petrie. Production
Designer, Alice Normington. Music by Alexandre Desplat. Editor, Barney Pilling.
Director of Photography, Edu Grau. Co-Producers, Andy Stebbing, Hannah Farrell.
Executive Producers, Cameron McCracken, Tessa Ross, Rose Garnett, Nik Bower,
James Schamus, Teresa Moneo. Produced by Alison Owen and Faye Ward. Written by
Abi Morgan. Directed by Sarah Gavron. A Focus Features Release.
Suffragette
Background: Suffragette City
(the following text courtesy of the Museum of
London)
By
1900 women had been campaigning for the right to vote in parliamentary elections
for over half a century. Fifty years of peaceful protest had, however, failed
to arouse enough interest in the Suffrage movement to provoke reform and women,
along with prisoners, the insane and the poorest men continued to be excluded
from the parliamentary process.
In
1903 the “votes for women” campaign was energised by the creation of the
Women’s Social and Political Union. Founded in Manchester by Emmeline Pankhurst
and her daughters the WSPU aimed to “wake up the nation” to the cause of
Women’s Suffrage through “Deeds not Words.” The decision to relocate the
headquarters of the WSPU to London in 1906 transformed the Suffrage movement
and, for the next eight years, the fight to win the vote became a highly public
and, at times, violent struggle played out against the backdrop of Edwardian
London.
The
WSPU burst onto the streets of London at a time when women played little part
in public life, their role in society being firmly centred on the home and
family life. The Pankhursts stimulated in their supporters a ‘spirit of revolt’
that directly challenged this male dominated society by bringing women to the
forefront of public life.
By
taking their campaign to the streets the Suffragettes attracted maximum
publicity for their cause. Identifiable by their purple white and green colour
scheme they became a familiar sight in central London. Street processions were
announced by brass bands playing Suffragette marching songs and meetings and
events were publicised by poster parades and pavement chalking parties. The
move to the political heart of the nation enabled the Suffragettes to maintain
a constant presence in Whitehall, petitioning Downing Street, heckling MPs and
chaining themselves to government buildings.
A
London base also raised the international profile of the campaign and provided
opportunities for staging visually spectacular set-piece demonstrations that
aimed to convince the government this was a mass movement with mass support.
Women’s Sunday, the first ‘monster meeting’ to be held by the WSPU, in June
1908 brought Suffragettes into the capital from all over the country to march
in seven different processions through central London to Hyde Park.
Demonstrators arrived on specially chartered trains from over seventy towns
and, on reaching Hyde Park, were addressed by over eighty speakers. The highly
choreographed demonstration attracted a crowd of up to 300,000 drawn by the
colourful spectacle of the delegates dressed in the Suffragette tricolour and
carrying over seven hundred embroidered banners. “Never,” reported the Daily Chronicle, “has so vast a
throng gathered in London to witness a parade of political forces.”
The
Coronation of George V three years later inspired the WSPU to organise its own
spectacular coronation pageant in an attempt to engage the support of the new
King. The four-mile Suffragette Coronation Procession through central London
culminated in a rally at the Royal Albert Hall and involved over 60,000
delegates from both regional and international suffrage groups dressed in
national and historical costume.
The
Suffragette campaign was masterminded from WSPU headquarters, initially
established at 4 Clement’s Inn, The Strand and, from 1912, at Lincoln’s Inn,
Kingsway. Both salaried and volunteer office staff organised fund-raising
events, public meetings and demonstrations and produced the weekly newspaper Votes for Women which, by
1909, had a circulation of 22,000. The WSPU established ninety branches
throughout the UK but London remained the chief area of support with a total of
thirty-four local offices. Branch members held regular meetings, organised fund
raising events and supported the work of the national headquarters by
participating in demonstrations and processions.
In
1910 the publishing arm of the Union, The Woman’s Press, moved to 156 Charing
Cross Road. The premises were chosen for their proximity to Oxford Street and
included a shop selling a range of Suffragette merchandise including badges,
books, postcards and stationery. The commercial success of the business led to
the opening of nineteen similar shops in the London area from Chelsea and
Kensington in the west to Streatham and Wandsworth in the south, Mile End and
Limehouse in the east and Hampstead and Kilburn in the north.
Over
one thousand Suffragettes, including Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel,
Sylvia, and Adela received prison sentences for their militancy. Many were sent
to Holloway jail in north London where they protested against prison conditions
by enduring hunger strike and force-feeding.
From
1912 the WSPU shifted the focus of their campaign to attacks on property and
the disruption of London’s public life. An organised window-smashing campaign
by 150 Suffragettes in May 1912 devastated London’s shopping district and
caused Emmeline Pankhurst to remark that the hourlong protest “will long be
remembered in London.” Suffragette
attacks on works of art, including the slashing of the Rokeby Venus at the
National Gallery, resulted in the closure of many London art galleries and
museums to female visitors. Militancy often provoked confrontation with the
police and members of the public resulting in undignified street fights and
scuffles.
For
many opposed to the campaign Suffragette militancy was regarded as a threat to
the balanced social and sexual order where men and women inhabited separate
spheres.
Suffragettes
were often condemned as shrieking, hysterical females responsible for actually
physically distorting the face and shape of the ideal, pure and feminine woman
as mother. Captured in the national press being arrested, shouting, chaining
themselves to railings and delivering political, rousing speeches in public
they were also satirised in popular culture as ugly harridans wearing masculine
clothing.
The
outbreak of the First World War brought an immediate suspension of militant
action as the Suffragettes threw themselves into supporting the war effort. By
taking their fight to the streets and making London the focus of their
campaign, the Pankhursts had invigorated the Suffrage movement and inspired, in
their supporters, a confidence and independence that enabled them to challenge
the male dominated society in which they lived. Their work eased the way for
women to take a more active and public role in society during the war. Their
contribution to the war effort proved women were vital not only to victory but
also to the long term economic success of the country – this value acknowledged
with the granting of the parliamentary vote to propertied women over the age of
thirty in 1918.
©
Museum of London 2015
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