Virginia Woolf: Suffragettes and Women’s Rights
Suffragettes was the name given to members of women’s organizations in the early 20th century who fought for their right to vote in public elections, known as women’s suffrage, which cut across class. The term refers in particular to the members of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), a women-only movement founded by Emmeline Pankhurst. The WSPU engaged in direct action and civil disobedience, including:
- Chaining themselves to railings
- Smashing windows
- Setting fire to postboxes and empty buildings
- Setting bombs to damage churches and property
- Breaking into the Houses of Parliament
In exchange, they were attacked and sexually assaulted during battles with the police. When imprisoned, they continued reacting against repression by going on hunger strikes, to which the government responded by force-feeding them.
Dora Thewlis and the *Daily Mirror*
One of the most well-known events was the imprisonment of Dora Thewlis, a teenage mill worker who supported the cause at the age of 16. Known as ‘the baby suffragette,’ she participated in a mission to break into the Houses of Parliament. The event became the front page of the Daily Mirror, featuring a photo of Dora struggling against two police officers holding her.
Emily Davison’s Sacrifice at the Epsom Derby
Another significant event was the death of Emily Davison, who ran in front of the King’s horse at the 1913 Epsom Derby to place a scarf that said, “Vote for Women.” This act made headlines around the world.
Virginia Woolf, Patriarchy, and *Three Guineas*
As stated in Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas, men have been able to influence other people’s thoughts and actions due to their involvement in every area of public life. They had almost all access to and control over the law, education, the stock exchange, the civil service, and the diplomatic service. Women’s access to these areas was very limited and discouraged; the struggle to achieve the vote was exhausting and even humiliating. Women were relegated to insignificant positions in the church and had no access to the Armed Forces whatsoever. While they could write articles and send letters to the press, the decision of what was printed was in men’s hands, further excluding them and reinforcing the dominant role of men in a patriarchal society.
This patriarchal system not only states the political leadership, moral authority, control of property, and social privilege of men over women but also explains and justifies this dominance through supposed natural differences between men and women. This dominance can even be seen through language, where ‘mankind’ is used to refer to both genders, and ‘woman’ expresses that females are a complement to males. Thus, men are the ones who speak in the name of women in a patriarchal society.
Social Construction of Gender
Virginia Woolf claims that this differentiation in terms of gender is a social construction and not a natural outcome of innate differences. This socially constructed difference can be clearly seen even through signifying practices—that is, how, within a given context, things are made to mean, which are culturally influenced. For instance, dress was, and is, used to express the social position of the genders. The two police officers show their authority over Dora as men since women could not be police officers at the time. Dora, dressed in the clothes women wore, challenges the socially-constructed idea that women cannot also be quarrelsome.