If it weren’t for him, perhaps you, reading these lines, wouldn’t be able to vote. Or your mother, sister, daughter, partner or friend can’t. Yes Emmeline Pankhurst (1859-1928) if not, what would be British women? And of all the societies he inspired? She is, nothing more and nothing less, the mother of the suffrage, the architect of it suffrage recorded in historical records.

Captured on the big screen by Meryl Streep, “that suffrage They were soldiers and he was their commander. This is how the writers and translators describe it Lucky Gloria in the prologue my story (1914), Pankhurst’s autobiography and “important historical document of the most radical political campaigns of the 20th century” now edited in spanish Captain Swing.

In 1903, this Briton, who “stubbornly” forced the House of Commons to pass women’s suffrage, formed the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), an organization composed entirely of women. Although he was close to the Labor Party, he stood out and constantly opposed British political parties. From there it comes suffrage, the name you will use Daily Mail to mock them and Pankhurst who will proudly readjust.

As such, the women of the WSPU distinguish themselves from other, much more moderate British suffrage. And we can’t forget that that suffrage from Pankhurst are rebels, those who rise and those that provoke, to say the least, confusion.

“They sneak into demonstrations where women are barred from entering and shout their demands, they ended up being beaten in a street protest, they were imprisoned and subjected to forced-eating torments because of their hunger and thirst, they made escraches, threw stones at the windows of the most emblematic buildings, they boycotted mail and tourism, burned luxury homes and a golf course…”, Fortn wrote.

All of this – and more – is described in great detail by Pankhurst himself in his autobiography. But, as the translator recalls, although the motto is “deeds, not words”, these women “never risk any human life other than their own.”

Victoria’s ‘feminist’ family

Throughout her life, Pankhurst surrounded herself with people who stood up for women’s rights and, of course, voices. Born in Manchester as Emmeline Goulden, she grew up in rather progressive family for Victorian England.

The daughter of Robert Goulden, a male and female civil rights advocate, and Sophia Crane, who has a broad pedigree of women’s rights defenders, raised their 10 children according to their own values.

From a very young age, Pankhurst lived surrounded by suffrage. She even attended her first rally to defend women’s rights when she was just 14 years old. At the age of 20, she met and fell in love with her future husband: Richard, a lawyer 24 years her senior and a passionate campaigner for women’s suffrage.

In 1879 and they had 5 children; the eldest, Christabel and Sylvia, will accompany their mother down the street to demand their right to vote. A decade later, the couple manifested their political activity in women’s league, an organization that sought to shape the booming feminist movement in British society at the time. Soon, the authorities regarded this association as radical.

After her husband’s death in 1898, Pankhurst founded her Women’s Social and Political Union. And with him, suffrage starts to make real noise. After a break in protest activity, which took place during the First World War, in 1925 the activist joined the British Conservative Party. Three years later, women’s suffrage will arrive in Britain – eight years after the United States.

That same year and having achieved what he had been striving for all his life, Pankhurst died in London. Her departure left a legacy of suffrage that inspired movements around the world and continues to shape feminist activism even today.

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