How NOT to Teach Women's Suffrage: Part One

If we only ever teach the Suffragettes, the Cat and Mouse Act and World War Two, whose story of women's suffrage are we telling?

Jun 16, 2022

Well, hello to you 👋🏻

I’m chomping at the bit this week, so let’s just dive in …

In British schools, there is a tendency to teach women's suffrage and industrialisation as separate subjects. In fact, most curricula tend to start women's suffrage in 1903 when Emmeline Pankhurst formed the Women's Social and Political Union. It was the members of this group who would later become known as the Suffragettes.

Fun fact: The term "suffragette" was coined by a Daily Mail journalist in 1906 who basically wanted to take the piss out of women members of the WSPU. Turns out the joke was on him.

Take a look at this current GCSE history textbook to see what I mean. This is the introductory paragraph for a sub-chapter on women's suffrage. This introduction is the best bit because it's where we see the angle that a writer will take throughout the entire chapter:

(Apologies for it being a bit wonky but the spine of this textbook would NOT bend - almost as though it knew my cunning plan …)

I think there are 3 key points here:

The Suffragettes are the stars of this chapter, which implicitly sends the message to students that they were solely responsible for securing women's access to the vote. That's one interpretation but not the only interpretation.
There's a lot of loaded language here. I come away from this paragraph wondering why women would go to such trouble for something as inconsequential as a vote. MY GODDESS, YOU'D THINK WOMEN WOULD HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO BACK THEN. YOU KNOW, LIKE THE IRONING.
The writer makes a big deal of 1913. Why? Well, 1913 is notable for a few reasons:
1. Members of Parliament pass the Cat and Mouse Act, which was the official response to hunger strikes. (Again, by the Suffragettes). The Act allowed prison governors to temporarily release Suffragettes who were on hunger strike and then re-arrest them when they had recuperated.
2. Emily Wilding Davison, a Suffragette, is killed by a horse at the Epsom Derby. There's some debate around whether or not Emily intended to die that day. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say our writer probably thinks she did. SILLY WOMAN. (Spoiler alert: that's exactly what happens, two pages later).
3. Sophia Duleep Singh, an Indian Suffragette who NEVER gets props in history lessons, goes to court over her refusal to pay tax. Singh's philosophy is no taxation without representation. Does she get a mention in the textbook? Course she doesn't!

(Note: I am trying really hard to not react emotionally to this paragraph but it's HARD because this stuff matters so very much).

Anyway

A big problem here is that the writer's viewpoint is being misrepresented as fact. I don't believe it's possible to remove your biases completely in anything, history included, because bias isn't a pair of shoes. You can't just slip it off and on when the mood takes you. The goal is to be mindful of your biases and how they present in your work, not attempt to eradicate them (because you won't). However, when it comes to educational materials, the danger of not checking your biases is that you end up telling children what to think. And what do children love? They love approval from adults.

No matter how good your intentions are, if you're not actively creating opportunities for deep thinking, then you won't.

End of story.

This is how we've ended up with such a narrow view of the past.

For far too long, educational materials have told children what to think.

It's time we moved past that.

I started reading a fab book last week called ‘The Woman Question in Europe.’ It's a collection of essays from 1884 in which different women talk about the movement for political, social and domestic equality in countries across Europe.

Finding women's voices is always a joy but getting their side of the story of women's suffrage is a joy on another level. When you listen to these voices, a different picture of women's suffrage emerges. The reason for the different interpretation is because the latter brings new knowledge. It's the knowledge that the mainstream has - for whatever reason - consigned to the annals of time.

So let's dust that off and put it centre stage:

At the time of writing, many women credited Mary Wollstonecraft and her book, ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,’ as kicking off the movement. So this puts us in 1792, not 1913.
Another key date to note is 1867 when women suffragists (or activists) began forming suffrage societies. London, Manchester and Edinburgh were the first ones. Many, many followed.
Women did vote in some elections before 1918 but it was piecemeal and confined to very specific times and places. I'm not going to go into this today because it's worth an email of its own. (And - holy macaroni - do I have a story for you next week!)
A little reminder: Under the 1918 Representation of the People Act, women over 30 who met certain property qualifications voted. It wasn't until 1928 that women voted on the same terms as men (basically anyone over the age of 21 - regardless of wealth). So when we talk about legislation, precision is ~~king~~ queen.

So let's play around with this textbook introduction by doing a cheeky little rewrite 🥳

To save you scrolling, here's the before:

The first thing I’m deleting?

That f****** awful headline.

The second?

Those objectives.

Third?

That loaded language.

This is what I came up with:

It took me an extra 19 words and you'll notice that I don't talk about "winning the vote," which is what many of us are programmed to say. The vote wasn't (and still isn't) a prize in a competition called democracy. Women took what they were owed.

My rewrite isn't perfect and I could tweak around with it all day. But I'd much rather have my daughter read this version because it gives her the space to investigate the movement for herself and ON HER OWN TERMS.

Until next time,

Kaye x