Whitewashing Women’s History, Criminalising Peaceful Protest

[IwantToRetire]

... Lady Carr, Chief Justice of England and Wales, declared that “Palestine Action is not, as it claims, a direct-action civil disobedience protest group like the Suffragettes operating transparently in the open.”

Turning to the history books rather than subscribing to the judge’s conveniently sanitised version of events, I read the list of suffragettes’ direct actions: bottles of acid poured into post-boxes; bombings of theatres, hotels and railway stations; arson attacks at Kew Gardens; assassination plots against the prime minister. Are they seriously trying to hoodwink us into believing that these militant women planned their actions out in the open, within earshot of any passing James, George or Joe? The Suffragettes were angry and they were deliberately violent. At least four people died and multiple others were injured at the height of their activities between 1912 and 1914. The history of the Suffragettes is being deliberately whitewashed. ...

From https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2026/06/19/whitewashing-womens-history-criminalising-peaceful-protest/

I think a lot of people conflate the Suffragists with the Suffragettes - the former being exclusively about peaceful protests and the latter being quite unpeaceful in their actions. I'm no historian, but from what I have read it is unclear whether equalisation of the franchise was influenced more by the Suffragists or the Suffragettes. The word 'suffragette' has been what has been remembered in popular history but not sure whether they were the most influential.

I thought that in fact what in the end helped (some) women get the vote was the impact of WWI.

Some women who have been campaigning agreed to end any actions whilst the war was on, although some continued.

And the "reward" for doing this was the promise to bring forward a bill to give women the vote once the war was one.

And have seen it said, that although various theories have been put forward about why only women over 30(?) were give the vote, whilst men gained the vote at 21, was because of the terrible number of deaths in WWI and had all women from 21 been able to vote it would have meant that effectively women would be deciding the future government.

Suspect none of us will know had there not been WWI and campaigning and acts of violence had continued, whether (some) women would have got the vote earlier than the actually did.