There is so much to know about women’s suffrage, and it’s such a huge and complex issue that I could never get into all the details here, but I want to touch on a few points that tie into what we see in this trailer.
– Carey Mulligan plays a fictional character named Maud, but the woman Meryl Streep plays is Emmiline Pankhurst, one of the leaders of the suffragette movement in Britain. Fun fact: she’s mentioned in the song “Sister Suffragette” from Mary Poppins.
(“Though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group they’re rather stupid” may be my favorite line in anything ever.)
– The British suffragette movement was more militant than the one in America, as shown by the rocks being thrown at shop windows and the explosions being set off. Not everyone agreed with this tactic, but Emmiline Pankhurst said, “The condition of our sex is so deplorable that it is our duty to break the law in order to call attention to the reasons why we do.”
– Suffragettes were beaten up and had things thrown at them by men at their rallies, and were even met with extremely aggressive police response during one march. They punched, twisted arms and pulled on the breasts of the suffragettes, and the public and papers sided with the women, appalled that the police would attack unarmed protesters in such a way. In response some of the suffragettes learned jujitsu to defend themselves from the police, which is so incredibly badass. When the women were arrested and sent to prison, many of them went on a hunger strike, so prison officials began force feeding them to combat this. (You can see a clip of force feeding from the movie Iron Jawed Angels, which follows the efforts of famous suffragettes in the US.)
Emmiline Pankhurt’s daughter Sylvia wrote a first person account of what it was like being force fed.
– In 1918 the Representation of the People Act allowed all men over the age of 21 and women over the age of 30 to vote. The age difference was put in place to ensure that men didn’t become minority voters, since so many young men had died in World War I. Fascinating, considering before that the powers that be didn’t seem to care that absolutely zero women of any age were allowed to vote at all. It’s almost as if men didn’t take the issue seriously until it affected them directly. MAJOR FEMINIST SIDE EYE. Unfortunately Emmeline Pankhurst died only a few weeks before the act was revised to give the vote to all women over 21 years of age in 1928.
– The shot of a woman running onto a horse racing track at about 1:50 actually happened. Emily Davison wanted to bring publicity to the cause by trying to attach a scarf to King George V’s horse, but she was accidentally trampled and later died.
– My personal favorite line: “We’re in every home. We’re half the human race. You can’t stop us all.” Doesn’t that make you want to just punch a misogynist right in the face?!
Suffragette comes out in the fall. If you’re not already registered to vote, you can get started here.
