More than just the vote
A look at the complexities of women’s rights over the last 100 hundreds and what role men can play
This year marks the centenary since the suffragette movement in the UK enabled women the legal right to vote. In an impassioned lecture at the Hay Festival by Helen Pankhurst, great granddaughter of the renowned Emmeline Pankhurst, the leader of the Suffragettes, she enriched the scores of people in the crowd with her exploration on where we’ve come over the last 100 years.
As a British-born male, who admittedly, has a rather ‘kindergarten’ understanding of the complexity of this subject, my struggle (like most men) was to understand what I should be doing.
Supplemented by her book “Deeds not words”, Helen’s main thesis focused on whether there has been progress on some primary domains: — politics, money, identity, violence, culture and power. I’ve taken the liberty to combine some quotes from her book and her talk.
“The big change in the political world a hundred years ago was the granting of the right of women to vote and be voted for on the same terms as men”, she mentions in her book. As a crowd-sourcing exercise, the packed-out theatre gave a score of 3/5 in this domain. The progress in political life occurred where institutions had accepted the legitimacy of a woman’s capability to influence political life, as evidenced by the increased representation in the two houses. But underneath the veneer of statistics lies the persistent patriarchal attitudes that undermine the authority of female leaders, who are still judged more by how they look than what they do or know.
When it came to identity, their roles were still being defined as “wives, mothers, sisters” and this “servicing of others” continues to give a lot of women a sense of self whilst paradoxically supressing their liberty to fully self-actualise their aspirations. The pre-occupation with ‘how a woman ought to look’ continues to pervade our collective psyches — both for women and men. She gave an example of a chemotherapy patient whom was “sent off to choose a wig…and a little later joined a make-up tutorial in a cancer group meeting set up to feel like a pamper party”, and the compulsion of “being a ‘good’ breast cancer patient”. Traditional attitudes continue to constrain our identities. Interesting suggestions of structural change from the audience were, amongst other things, gender-neutral clothing from a young age.
Violence against women, at a personal and global level, continues to be appalling and a number one issue. As per her verdict, it scores abysmally low in terms of progress.
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of her analysis was on Power and Intersectionality. The idea that no two women are the same seems blindingly obvious when stated plainly, but it rarely transpires into the dominant public narratives, and instead, all women are lumped into the same category, or worse, dominant power structures set agendas for everyone. Helen’s stark reminder was that a woman’s experience is heterogeneous, influenced as it were by age, sexuality, religion, colour, occupation, education, wealth, immigration status and so much more. How then can we demand a uniform narrative? The lens of intersectionality obliges us to see everyone as being full of differences and inherently complex. It compels us to positively seek openness in our approaches to understand what it means to make a woman’s life better. It challenges us to appreciate that there are other, perhaps more oppressive and discriminatory factors involved. For instance, a black, elderly immigrant woman living in social housing has a vastly different world experience to the white middle class, professionally educated and British-born woman. How can both these voices be equally heard?
It means we recognise all identities and social stratifications, not as independent variables, but interwoven and reinforcing. Kimberle Crenshaw first introduced this concept in 1989 where she sought changes in the justice system based on how Black women were discriminated against. Discrimination is not just the sum of sexism and racism but much more.
But what of the role of men? Helen’s take was akin to theoretical physics where matter can be seen as both particle and wave, thereby holding two seemingly paradoxical views on the topic at the same time. This manifests as having women’s-only, exclusive spaces — spaces where women can make their own decisions bereft of any male intervention, whilst at the same time appreciating the importance of bringing men to the table and educating them. As a man, it starts by acknowledging that, the ‘XY’ privilege, which society over time and space has constructed, still has a gripping and insidious hold on us; a hold that plays out in our every interaction.
When we think of the Suffragettes, we can be led to believe it was about the vote only; but the struggle was most undeniably farther reaching.
A hundred years later, in 2018, that struggle continues.
