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Some suffragist female groups developed militant and violent tactics which tarnished the image of women as peaceful people that the anti-suffragists had been striving to preserve. Anti-suffragists used these acts as reasons to show that women were unable to handle political matters and that both genders had different strengths. [29]
The "suffragists" of the largest women's suffrage society, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, led by Millicent Fawcett, were anti-violence, and during the campaign NUWSS propaganda and Fawcett herself increasingly differentiated between the militants of the WSPU and their own non-violent means.
On 13 October 1908, Emmeline Pankhurst together with Christabel Pankhurst and Flora Drummond organised a rush on the House of Commons. 60,000 people gathered in Parliament Square and attempts were made by suffragettes to break through the 5000 strong police cordon. Thirty-seven arrests were made, ten people were taken to hospital. [21]
With fine weather as an ally the women suffragists were able to bring together an immense body of people. These people were not all sympathisers with the object, and much service to the cause must have been rendered by merely collecting so many people and talking over the subject with them.
There were about 80 to 100 people in the Abbey at the time, with some being less than 20 yards (18 m) away, but there were no injures. The explosion caused a panic for the exits, and many from the House of Commons (which at the time was debating the best way of dealing with the violent methods of the suffragettes) came rushing to the scene.
The National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), also known as the suffragists (not to be confused with the suffragettes) was an organisation founded in 1897 of women's suffrage societies around the United Kingdom. [1] [2] In 1919 it was renamed the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship. [citation needed]
At odds with the Militant school's depiction of Suffragettes, the Constitutionalist school posits that constitutional suffragists were on the way to success in gaining female enfranchisement, and had politicians and the public on side, before militancy hindered any further support and even caused discouragement and alienation among those who ...
The violence may have caused the subsequent deaths of two suffragettes. The demonstration led to a change in approach: many members of the WSPU were unwilling to risk similar violence, so they resumed their previous forms of direct action—such as stone-throwing and window-breaking—which afforded time to escape. The police also changed their ...