Suffragette City (Tuesday 06/02/2018).
The things you thought you'd never say.
"Must dash - I promised the children I wouldn't be late for the suffragette march!"
For most, The Representation of the People Act 1918 isn't a gripper. We file it away with constituency boundary changes and electoral expenses.
It hasn't been a hotly debated topic in the snooker halls and drinking establishments of the nation for precisely a century but when it was, there was blood on the cobbles. It was genuinely a seismic shift in British politics when the old world of privilege and fob watches got robustly hand bagged by the new.
Had there been a passing omnibus from which to alight, the historical echo would have been complete but, despite this, we all managed to rendezvous at the march which started somewhere near the top of Park Street in Bristol. It was a sizeable gathering at the heart of the Georgian Establishment despite the driving snow and biting wind.
I found Jane and the children huddled in the doorway of Pizza Express grimly clutching home made lanterns, whose battery powered flicker was quite clearly failing to ward off the cold. Each was embellished with a range of strident manifestoes such as 'Challenge the Establishment (Jane) and some unintelligible scribbles from the kids that might have read 'Down With The Patriarchy' (Sophie) and more pertinently, 'Did You Bring Any Cake?' (Alex).
An energetic brass section accompanied by some tub-thumping percussion, lead the river of placard waving marchers down the hill to College Green. We trudged to the rhythm of modern suffragette anthems including a incongruous medley of 'Hit the Road Jack' and Salt-N-Peppa's 'Push It'.
Judging by the play list, I suspected that the fairy light bedecked ensemble were a jobbing rent-a-tune and not ideologically motivated to be out braving the cold. I was sure that the same troupe had provided the musical accompaniment to the Canford Park fireworks in November and the Balloon Fiesta in August.
Eventually, the synchronized parping gave way to the real thing as a 100 strong girl's choir belted out a rendition of the 1911 anthem 'March of the Women' which left Alex and I feeling distinctly out of step.
Parliament had a particularly busy year in 1918 and, in the aftermath of the Great War, managed its own feat of superlative endurance by moving a total of 11 pieces of legislation on to the Statute book. This remains a record low. The Representation of the People Act faced stiff competition for Parliamentary time from The Horse Breeding Act and The Aristocrat's Moustache Wax (Subsidy) Regulations.
But pass it did and the power of the Patriarchy was severely dented if not entirely smashed by the admission of women, albeit over the age of 30 (and in possession of a goodly fortune) to the register of voters.
As if to underline the futility of it all, the male mediated process of female emancipation was truly completed by the simultaneous enfranchisement of women lacking the necessary credentials but having the good fortune to be married to a chap with a reputable tailor.
It was little surprise then, that the march was almost exclusively peopled by those of the fairer sex but for the unwary this was a hazardous place to be; Alex and I tiptoed through a minefield of heteronormativity, negotiated the quick sands of intersectionality and fought the treacherous cross currents of gender politics.
In my naivety, I wrongly assumed that we had gathered to celebrate the successful subversion of a millennia of outdated male power structures and I coached Sophie accordingly with some suffragette buzz words.
She struggled with the Pankhurst favourite "I Incite This Meeting To Rebellion" and I wisely thought better of "Putting the 'Man' in Emancipation".
In the end I settled for a few suffragette standards I saw crudely crayoned on an inside out Fat Face bag waving above the crowd nearby.
Proving that my classical education was not wasted and with a little encouragement, she found her voice and to the assembled crowd, she uttered a sentence that I have no doubt will come to encapsulate the next hundred years of struggle for gender equality.
"Agite, mulierculae. Quid omnes fuss est circa?"
I was about to correct her declension when the said cross currents of gender fluidity suddenly surged across our own lantern bearing tide.
A large counter protest appeared from behind a lamp post and rapidly unfurled banners beside us, cranked up the megaphones to a notch above ear bleeding and launched into an acrimonious denouncement of the suffragette anniversary. There were a welter of objections but although the precise detail was lost in crackly feedback, the thrust was clear; Pankhurst was a sexist/racist; Fawcett was a tool of the patriarchy; by supporting the enfranchisement of women, the movement had betrayed the interests of the gender fluid and the non-binary community.
It rapidly dawned on me that not only was I out of touch but also very much out of my depth in the murky waters of an internecine squabble and silence was the best policy. Alex and I spent the rest of the march staring intently at our shoe laces lest eye contact be construed as an act of assignment bias, deconstructive provocation or a nod of approval to the exclusionary radicals.
If this seems like gobbledegook then read up as it all means something quite important.
It turns out the ambiguous nature of the suffragettes is not a modern phenomenon.
While Pankhurst broke windows, burnt down buildings and even lightly cuffed the comic Chief Inspector Scantlebury, for such a momentous achievement, the social cost of the suffragette movement was relatively small. But what was more disconcerting is that many in the movement went on to join Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists in the 1930's, apparently in the belief that my enemy's enemy is my friend.
I told Clare all about this when I got home. She nodded sagely.
"Now, shut up and get my dinner sweet lips" was all she said.
"Must dash - I promised the children I wouldn't be late for the suffragette march!"
For most, The Representation of the People Act 1918 isn't a gripper. We file it away with constituency boundary changes and electoral expenses.
It hasn't been a hotly debated topic in the snooker halls and drinking establishments of the nation for precisely a century but when it was, there was blood on the cobbles. It was genuinely a seismic shift in British politics when the old world of privilege and fob watches got robustly hand bagged by the new.
I found Jane and the children huddled in the doorway of Pizza Express grimly clutching home made lanterns, whose battery powered flicker was quite clearly failing to ward off the cold. Each was embellished with a range of strident manifestoes such as 'Challenge the Establishment (Jane) and some unintelligible scribbles from the kids that might have read 'Down With The Patriarchy' (Sophie) and more pertinently, 'Did You Bring Any Cake?' (Alex).
An energetic brass section accompanied by some tub-thumping percussion, lead the river of placard waving marchers down the hill to College Green. We trudged to the rhythm of modern suffragette anthems including a incongruous medley of 'Hit the Road Jack' and Salt-N-Peppa's 'Push It'.
Judging by the play list, I suspected that the fairy light bedecked ensemble were a jobbing rent-a-tune and not ideologically motivated to be out braving the cold. I was sure that the same troupe had provided the musical accompaniment to the Canford Park fireworks in November and the Balloon Fiesta in August.
 |
| Someone said Alex looked coerced. |
Eventually, the synchronized parping gave way to the real thing as a 100 strong girl's choir belted out a rendition of the 1911 anthem 'March of the Women' which left Alex and I feeling distinctly out of step.
Parliament had a particularly busy year in 1918 and, in the aftermath of the Great War, managed its own feat of superlative endurance by moving a total of 11 pieces of legislation on to the Statute book. This remains a record low. The Representation of the People Act faced stiff competition for Parliamentary time from The Horse Breeding Act and The Aristocrat's Moustache Wax (Subsidy) Regulations.
But pass it did and the power of the Patriarchy was severely dented if not entirely smashed by the admission of women, albeit over the age of 30 (and in possession of a goodly fortune) to the register of voters.
As if to underline the futility of it all, the male mediated process of female emancipation was truly completed by the simultaneous enfranchisement of women lacking the necessary credentials but having the good fortune to be married to a chap with a reputable tailor.
It was little surprise then, that the march was almost exclusively peopled by those of the fairer sex but for the unwary this was a hazardous place to be; Alex and I tiptoed through a minefield of heteronormativity, negotiated the quick sands of intersectionality and fought the treacherous cross currents of gender politics.
In my naivety, I wrongly assumed that we had gathered to celebrate the successful subversion of a millennia of outdated male power structures and I coached Sophie accordingly with some suffragette buzz words.
She struggled with the Pankhurst favourite "I Incite This Meeting To Rebellion" and I wisely thought better of "Putting the 'Man' in Emancipation".
In the end I settled for a few suffragette standards I saw crudely crayoned on an inside out Fat Face bag waving above the crowd nearby.
Proving that my classical education was not wasted and with a little encouragement, she found her voice and to the assembled crowd, she uttered a sentence that I have no doubt will come to encapsulate the next hundred years of struggle for gender equality.
"Agite, mulierculae. Quid omnes fuss est circa?"
I was about to correct her declension when the said cross currents of gender fluidity suddenly surged across our own lantern bearing tide.
A large counter protest appeared from behind a lamp post and rapidly unfurled banners beside us, cranked up the megaphones to a notch above ear bleeding and launched into an acrimonious denouncement of the suffragette anniversary. There were a welter of objections but although the precise detail was lost in crackly feedback, the thrust was clear; Pankhurst was a sexist/racist; Fawcett was a tool of the patriarchy; by supporting the enfranchisement of women, the movement had betrayed the interests of the gender fluid and the non-binary community.
It rapidly dawned on me that not only was I out of touch but also very much out of my depth in the murky waters of an internecine squabble and silence was the best policy. Alex and I spent the rest of the march staring intently at our shoe laces lest eye contact be construed as an act of assignment bias, deconstructive provocation or a nod of approval to the exclusionary radicals.
If this seems like gobbledegook then read up as it all means something quite important.
It turns out the ambiguous nature of the suffragettes is not a modern phenomenon.
While Pankhurst broke windows, burnt down buildings and even lightly cuffed the comic Chief Inspector Scantlebury, for such a momentous achievement, the social cost of the suffragette movement was relatively small. But what was more disconcerting is that many in the movement went on to join Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists in the 1930's, apparently in the belief that my enemy's enemy is my friend.
I told Clare all about this when I got home. She nodded sagely.
"Now, shut up and get my dinner sweet lips" was all she said.
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