Rise Up Women!: The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes

by Diane Atkinson

On 6 February 1918, after campaigning for over 50 years, British women were finally granted the vote. In November 1919, Lady Nancy Astor, took her seat in the House of Commons. History was made.

A hundred years on, it is time to reflect on the daring and painful struggle women undertook to break into a political system that excluded them. In the voices of key suffragettes, Rise Up Women! chronicles the founding of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies in the 1860s, led by Millicent Garrett Fawcett, and the formation of the more militant Women's Social and Political Union in 1903.

'Deeds Not Words!' was their slogan - and they took increasingly violent action, enduring police brutality, imprisonment and force-feeding. Charting the history of the movement through the lives of those who took part, Rise Up Women! illuminates the stories of lesser-known figures and depicts a truly national and international struggle. Brilliantly researched, vividly rendered and celebratory, it is an essential reminder of what it took to get where we are today - and the progress yet to be made.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Feminism, Politics, Womens, Biography, Historical

670 pages, Hardcover

First published April 17, 2018

Reviews

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

'What a tragedy that such talent should be wasted upon women!'

'I ask that all of you here stand shoulder to shoulder with the militant women... Let them burn and destroy property! Let them do anything they will... this is a holy war!'

This year, 2018, sees the centenary of (some) women in the UK finally winning the vote, albeit a limited suffrage hedged around with age, property and class-inflected qualifications. Atkinson's book pays homage to some of those foremothers (and some forefathers) who enabled the right of women to participate in the governing of a country which taxed them yet excluded them from having a democratic voice.

The 'suffragettes' of the title is carefully chosen: this is primarily a popular history of the WSPU (Women's Social and Political Union), the militant group led by the Pankhursts who embraced window-smashing before escalating to fire-bombs, arson, and the attack of artistic and cultural objects in national galleries and museums.

While this is very readable, it's an accumulation of facts rather than analysis. Atkinson, to some extent, is an apologist for some of the violent methods adopted without articulating a sense of unease. I was sometimes confused, too, about exactly what the Pankhurst-led WSPU were fighting for especially when it came to the vexed issue of female vs. male suffrage - at times it seems like they're prioritising a vote for property-owning women above that of e.g. working-class, non-property-owning men, keeping the struggle for universal suffrage separated by gender.

This leads to some strange political alliances: in attacking the Liberal government and disrupting their by-electioneering, the WSPU enabled Conservative candidates to slip in, for example. This is a strange anomaly given that some of the WSPU members, including Sylvia Pankhurst, were more inclined to the Left, the nascent Independent Labour Party and other radical bodies such as workers co-operatives. Some analysis and commentary of what is going on here would have contextualised the material more effectively.

That said, the aim of the book is not to unpick some of these political tangles but to celebrate the women - however violent some of their actions are. Their commitment is unwavering, and there are harrowing episodes throughout as women are beaten, imprisoned, force-fed (in one case vaginally and rectally as well as orally), and forced to leave their homes for fear of re-arrest.

This is undoubtedly a remarkable story, and Atkinson intersperses it with potted biographies of the women involved, name-checking those individuals - including men - who paved the way for universal suffrage. Only about 66% of the page-count is narrative, the rest is appendices.

So this is certainly an engaging read and a suitable monument to women whose names are generally not well-known - I just would have liked a slightly more self-conscious approach to the problematics of celebrating a self-proclaimed militant political campaign conceived in violence and named, at least once, a 'holy war'.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellently researched account of the suffragettes including a summary of their backstories and how they came to join the movement and take action for women's rights. Atkinson goes through each stage chronologically starting in 1903 with the launch of the Women's Social and Politcal Union and finishing in 1918 with the vote and a summary of the after lives of the suffragettes. Each chapter covers a different stage of the movement and runs through the actions not just of the big names but also those that played on the ground or smaller but vital roles. I did find having the backstories woven into each chapter a little confusing at times though, but then it was useful having that there as an introduction as they made their appearance, I just think a bit more spacing might've helped. The writing itself is gripping and for me really captured the intensity of belief and conviction of the women involved and how they felt, even during the darker moments with broken promises from politicians and of course the death of Emily Davison, whose own story was far more complex than I had realised. This is a remarkable book that chronicles an even more remarkable set of stories.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rise up Women! – A Fantastic Chronicle of the Fight for Women’s Suffrage

It is 100 years ago that some women finally gained the vote, after years of fighting for the right to do so. 110 years ago, this year close to half a million-people gathered in Hyde Park, London, and celebrated “Women’s Sunday”. This was a peaceful, good humoured event that still did not persuade the Members of Parliament or the Government to extend the franchise to women. Peaceful campaigning had gained nothing in the fight for suffrage, others began to look at other ways to protest.

Today, even as someone has studied history and both undergraduate and post-graduate level, I had forgotten the humiliation that the suffragettes suffered. When you listen to the government today lecturing the world about democracy, one just to look back at how women were treated, and all they wanted was the vote.

Diane Atkinson has managed to bring this to the fore, with her brilliantly written and researched Rise Up Women! She brings some clarity and honesty to the vitriol the suffragettes faced, as the white middle-class and upper-class males protected their monopoly on the levers of power.

What comes through this excellent volume is the power of the bloody difficult women who continued to challenge the establishment and at the same time changed the perception of women, for the better, before the war in 1914.

I must admit I do like the riposte Kitty Marion gave to the magistrate, who has said women may get the vote if they behaved, Marion replied “Men don’t always behave properly and they the vote.” When one thinks what these men did to the suffragettes is unforgiveable, force-feeding with maximum violence. Nose and throats widened with knives to insert the unwashed feeding tubes.

It must never be forgotten that by 1903 seven countries, among them two countries in the Empire, Australia and New Zealand, had some form of female suffrage. It was Emmeline Pankhurst, Mancunian social reformer and her three daughters who founded the Women’s Social and Political Union in October 1903, that Atkinson rightly begins with, after discussing the previous reform acts.

From here Atkinson gives a voice to the hundreds of unsung women who fought and supported the suffragette campaign. While Atkinson gives as many women as possible a voice, it can sometimes feel like an encyclopaedia, and it is the first encyclopaedia I have read cover to cover and enjoyed.

What does scream out from every page is the sheer bloody mindedness of the women, the courage of large numbers of women campaigners. It also reminds us of the disgusting brutality by the government and their agents of violence, the police against the women. The so-called national hero, Winston Churchill, when Home Secretary, told the police to “throw the women around from one to the other.”

Sometimes history is never straightforward, leaves some questions unanswered, and those answers we do get are not necessarily easy or pleasant. The research that went in to this book and the accounts relayed reminds us that the battle for female suffrage was not easy, pleasant.

This is a wonderful book, totally engrossing read, and with over 600 pages to read and digest, an education and a reminder of what we have now and that work still needs to be done.

[Phee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book for someone who knows nothing about the fight for women's suffrage in England. It's super detailed, yet easy to understand.
The only reason I am rating it 3 stars and not 4, is that I studied the changing role of women and the fight for womens sufferage at college. I didn't exactly learn anything new from this, it just refreshed things for me. Which is by no means the book's fault. I would whole heartedly recommend it though.

[Kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beast of a book covering the suffragette movement and those involved in lots of detail.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a comprehensive chronological history of the WSPU. Just the WSPU, other people and groups are only mentioned as they affect the WSPU. It is therefore not a comprehensive history of the whole campaign for votes for women. As such it gives an excellent impression of the increase in militancy in the campaign. However the strict chronology does lead to a couple of issues. Firstly it is hard to keep track of all the women and they tend to merge. Secondly sometimes the information can feel a bit random and confusing. The reason the book isn’t a five star is that it only lays down the facts (from a WSPU viewpoint). There is no analysis, no discussion, no guidance in understanding the period in history more generally.

[Jason Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The campaign for female suffrage is an astonishing story and it’s done good justice here . Early political response is interesting - All parties contained pockets of support, though Tories were afraid women would vote to the left ( shades of current debates about extending voting age to 16) , Churchill in his Liberal patch was afraid they would vote Tory (Churchill’s response in general may politely be described as not one his best moments ) and Labour were sympathetic but wanted to sort male suffrage first.

And so the campaign gathered force. The book is not scared of the fact that human movements make mistakes : ruthless factionalism expelled some such as the Pethick-Trevinses who had been great benefactors for objecting to the more warlike language. Whether they were right or wrong, purging those who disagree with you is not good democratic practice. Also, though this was never a cause that was going to be won with good manners, some of the worst violence is hard to condone.

In the end it was war that forced the hand. The suffragists had suffered long and were finally rewarded. This is a good chronicle of it all.

[Dorie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rise Up, Women! :The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes
By Diane Atkinson
2017
Bloomsbury

Comprehensive and thoroughly researched, this 600+ page history of the campaign for Votes for Women in Great Britain between 1903-1914.
Formed by the infamous Parkhurst sisters, the WSPU (Womens Social and Political Union) followed the Independant Labour Party. Selling pamphlets, newspapers they eventually expanded and moved from Manchester to London in 1906. The Suffragists were often targeted and arrested on trivial charges and given sentences from 1 day to several months, many arrested numerous times. In 1908 the colors of purple, white and green were used to symbolize a Suffragette. In 1909 The Womens
Exhibition in Knightsbridge lasted 2 weeks, with speeches, demonstrations and marches against the Bill of Rights. Jailed Suffragettes began hunger strikes and were force fed, often through the nose, until the women became so frail they were released for fear they would die while in their care. And 'Black Friday', November 18, 1910 when 150 women were physically and sexually assaulted by police at a now famous protest against Winston Churchill .....and many more events are chronicled in the fascinating and beautifully written history. There are many B&W photos throughout the book.
Powerful...Remarkable...highly recommendationed. Excellent notes, as well!

[Fiona Warburton · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the title suggests a non-fictional account of the lives of the main players in the fight for women's suffrage in the early part of the 20th Century. Some of them are well-known, such as Mrs Pankhurst and her daughters and Emily Davison, who threw herself under the King's racehorse at the Epsom Derby. I was also interested in the stories of the lesser known women (and men) who fought for the right of women to vote, especially the growing numbers of working women, who were taxed like men, but had no say in the running of the country. Some of what happened to these women was horrific - sexual assault by policemen - the police were told to grab the women by the breasts among other things, the endless prison sentences, hunger strikes and
force-feeding, all the time being ridiculed by the establishment.
I thought it would be a very dense read, and at some points it was difficult to keep track of the multitude of Marys, Emilys and Margarets, but overall very readable and a very interesting read.

[Karmen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this for a thesis, so most of it, especially the second half, is skim-read at best. It is very thorough with details and all the people involved, but all the details do get a little tiresome. I can't really see this as a casual read, but if I had to choose one book to keep of the movement, I guess this would be the one (despite being the first one I've read).

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Atkinson looks at the Suffragette movement and the women who took part in some of the militant actions. Fascinating and well worth reading although it is something of a hefty tome.

[Ellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant! A well-researched book that’s not only interesting & important, but also a gripping read. If you’re interested in the women’s suffrage movement in the UK, or you simply enjoy a good history book, I highly recommend. I’ll definitely be looking for more of Atkinson’s work.

[Jung]

A scintillating study of the suffragettes.

The struggle for equal suffrage – a vote for every citizen – took a long time in the United Kingdom. In fact, it took just under a century before the dream was realized. But inequality also defined the struggle itself. The idea that all men should be given the right to choose their representatives was, for many, a lot easier to accept than the notion that such rights should also apply to women.

That’s where the so-called “suffragettes” came in. Built around the Women’s Social and Political Union or WSPU, the movement was shaped and dominated by the charismatic Pankhurst family. Between the first years of the twentieth century and the First World War, the WSPU was Britain’s most committed and militant pro-suffrage organization.

From attacks on leading members of the governments of the day to smashing windows, burning letterboxes, occasional bombing sprees and massive marches, the suffragettes were committed to taking matters into their own hands and achieving equality in their country. The path they followed wasn’t an easy one: along the way, they faced astonishingly brutal repression at the hands of the state and its police force and gaolers. These book tells their story.

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The Pankhurst family began advocating for women’s suffrage in early twentieth-century Britain.

Following voting reforms in 1832, around 800,000 property-owning men in the United Kingdom could vote. Women, however, remained disenfranchised. That struck some as deeply unfair. The English philosopher John Stuart Mill, for example, raised the issue in 1867, arguing that it was unjust that female taxpayers couldn’t elect their own representatives.

Yet little was done to change the situation. Even the socialist Labour party, which was otherwise committed to equality, kept silent. Its leaders feared that only wealthy women would be given the vote, boosting the Conservative and Liberal parties. By the turn of the twentieth century, the situation looked bleak for supporters of women’s suffrage.

Frustrated by this lack of progress, suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Sylvia decided to take matters into their own hands. In 1905, the duo began lobbying members of parliament or MPs directly, but their arguments mostly fell on deaf ears. One exception was John Slack, the Liberal MP for St Albans. Slack decided to raise the question of women’s suffrage in parliament and introduced a private members’ bill – a proposal to change the law.

The bill was filibustered. Opponents extended debates concerning other bills. By the time Slack’s proposal was raised for discussion, only 30 minutes remained. As it was announced, MPs laughed and clapped.

That was the moment the Pankhursts realized that they’d have to change their tactics. If they wanted to secure the vote for women, politely asking for change just wasn’t going to cut it. So what was the alternative? Well, they’d have to become a great deal more confrontational and shock people. Their organization – the Women’s Social and Political Union or WSPU – adopted a new motto to reflect this change in tactics: “Deeds not words.”

Christabel, another of Pankhurst’s daughters, and Annie Kenney, a mill worker from Oldham, led the way. They interrupted a Liberal rally in Manchester and waved a banner reading “Will you give votes for women?” As police officers led them away, Christabel spat at one of them, knowing it’d get her arrested.

Both were charged with obstruction while Christabel faced another charge of assault. When they refused to pay their fines, they were sentenced to several days in prison. That got people talking. Newspapers like the Times reported on the trial – the first WSPU event to ever feature in the national press!

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Pankhurst and her daughters were charismatic – and controversial – leaders of the WSPU.

Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters had founded the WSPU in 1903. They would remain at the center of the movement throughout its existence, and it was their ideas which shaped its identity. Their strong belief in the effectiveness of deeds rather than words was reflected in its official motto. Even the organization’s colors – purple, white and green – were chosen by the Pankhursts. Their militancy and dedication would inspire women throughout the United Kingdom to fight for their right to vote.

So who were these radical women? Well, let’s start with Christabel. She led the WSPU alongside her mother and became such an icon of the cause that women wore brooches bearing her portrait. She had received a first class degree in law but wasn’t allowed to practice the profession because she was a woman. Then there was Sylvia. She had studied at Manchester Art School and the Royal College of Art. She put that background to use by designing many of the WSPU’s banners as well as its membership card.

It was a tight clique. Most women in the movement were fiercely loyal to the Pankhursts, but their occasionally dictatorial leadership style also ruffled feathers. In 1907, Teresa Billington-Greig, a supporter of a more democratic movement, decided enough was enough and founded a WSPU splinter group. The Pankhursts weren’t impressed. As far as they were concerned, democratic decision making was simply a waste of time. Christabel responded to the split by writing to the organization’s members to remind them that it was a military movement. “Those who cannot follow the general,” she added, “must drop out of the ranks.”

They remained committed to that mind-set. When Fred and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, two supporters of the WSPU who had been vital to its money-raising operations, questioned the Pankhursts over the need for more militancy, they were also expelled. When they arrived in the movement’s new offices one day, they found that Emmeline and Christabel had simply decided not to give them desks!

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Suffragettes saw criminal damage as an effective way of inciting arrest and gaining publicity.

In 1906, suffragettes took stones wrapped in WSPU petitions and threw them through the windows of the British Treasury, Home Office and Privy Council. It was the first example of what would become an increasingly common strategy: criminal damage designed to raise the movement’s public profile.

It was a crude tactic, and plenty of the WSPU’s genteel members found the act almost painful. But they pressed on nonetheless – after all, breaking windows was a great deal less painful than being beaten up by the police on the frontlines of protests!

Over the following years, WSPU militants ramped up their operations. By the beginning of 1912, some 270 buildings had been targeted, racking up £6,600-worth of damage. Artworks also found themselves in the firing line. In 1914, Mary Richardson attacked Velázquez’s The Rokeby Venus in the National Gallery in London with an ax, and Clara Mary Lambert smashed several porcelain objects in the British Museum.

That wasn’t the suffragettes’ final word on the matter, however: soon enough, militants escalated matters even further and began starting fires – a course of action which outraged the public. An arson attack on the tea pavilion in Kew Gardens was followed by attacks on the empty houses of anti-suffrage MPs. When that failed to bring results, the movement took up bombs. One device was planted in a holiday cottage belonging to David Lloyd George, then the chancellor of the exchequer. The idea, in Emmeline Pankhurst’s words, was to “wake him up.”

Another bomb was found in the Bank of England in 1913. If it had detonated, the results would have been fatal. Because it contained hairpins, many believed it had been planted by suffragettes. The movement, however, never claimed responsibility, and others pointed out that no pro-suffrage literature had been found at the scene.

It hardly mattered who had been responsible by this point. The string of attacks had generated a public backlash. The number of attacks on WSPU members grew steadily. The situation looked like it was getting out of hand. The police even had to protect a WSPU meeting on Wimbledon Common from a furious mob!

On that particular occasion, the police protected suffragettes from violence. On plenty of other occasions, however, they showed that they were more than willing to brutalize activists.

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Emily Davison’s infamous suicide was met with mixed reactions within the movement.

Even if you don’t know much about the suffragettes, you’ll probably have come across the name of Emily Davison – the woman who died after throwing herself in front of the king’s horse at the Derby in 1913 while holding a banner featuring the colors of the suffrage struggle. So who exactly was Davison?

Well, in a word, a maverick. Davison was among the most radical militants in the movement, as her résumé suggests. She was one of the first women to set fire to public postboxes, a common tactic from which the WSPU was careful to distance itself. Her first arson attack came in December 1911 when she lit a kerosene-soaked package and put it into a postbox on Fleet Street in London. She was arrested three days later after burning down another three postboxes.

Davison didn’t like taking orders, which made for an uneasy relationship with the official suffrage movement. She smashed windows, for example, during a truce declared by the WSPU. In response, Christabel Pankhurst declared that Davison didn’t represent the organization. Only one suffragette appeared at her trial as a character witness: Eleanor Penn Gaskell. Davison remained influential, however. Other activists like Elsie Howe, a woman whose voice would be permanently damaged as a result of force-feeding, copied her tactic of burning postboxes.

Davison’s suicide fits into that pattern. It was the most shocking event in the history of the suffrage movement and received a mixed response. While she saw it as a glorious martyrdom – her last published article hails the idea of dying for a cause – others weren't so sure. As she lay dying in the hospital, letters filled with both admiration and violent hatred flooded in.

Suffragettes were also divided. Gaskell, the character witness at Davison’s trial, praised her courage and stated that “her sacrifice would not be in vain.” Philippa Strachey, a member of the altogether less militant London Society for Women’s Suffrage, wasn’t convinced: she believed Davison’s reckless endangerment of others’ lives had ultimately been counterproductive.

But whatever individuals made of it at the time, Davison’s death went on to become the most enduring symbol of the suffragettes’ campaign for the vote, and many regard her as a feminist icon to this day.

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The First World War changed both the movement and society’s attitude toward women.

The outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 changed the way people thought about themselves and society. The suffragettes were no different, and there was plenty of debate within the movement about which position it should take on the conflict.

Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst belonged to the pro-war camp. The duo became increasingly jingoistic over time. The Suffragette, the WSPU magazine edited by Christabel, reflected this. It condemned the Germans and was even renamed Britannia in 1917 to showcase its patriotism. There were reports of WSPU members handing white feathers – a symbol of cowardice – to men not wearing a uniform. Emmeline Pankhurst meanwhile called for a truce during the war period, and all suffragette prisoners were released within ten days.

Others rejected such boosterism. Pacifists like the ousted Pethick-Lawrences and the younger Pankhurst sisters Sylvia and Adela condemned the war. They angered Emmeline and Christabel by continuing to campaign for women’s suffrage and speaking out against the bloodshed in Europe.

The conflict also had a profound impact on women’s role in society. As more and more men were drafted and sent to the front, women increasingly stepped in to take their places in domestic industries. In 1915, Emmeline Pankhurst was commissioned by Lloyd George to organize a “Women’s Right to Serve” march encouraging women to work in munitions factories. It was a display of patriotism that moved both the public and the press. Even the anti-suffrage Daily Mail had to admit that “it was impossible not to be touched.”

Women’s entry into traditionally male workplaces changed the country. Women could now be found working as gravediggers, bakers, carpenters, chimney sweeps and ambulance drivers. Although they were paid less, the country was generally grateful for their dedication to the war effort. That led some people to reconsider their views. Herbert Asquith, for example, had opposed giving women the vote during his time as prime minister and chancellor of the exchequer. Their service during the war, however, convinced him that he had been wrong.

Things were changing fast. They were about to change still further.

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The 1918 Representation of the People Act was the first step on the path to full suffrage for women.

On 6 February 1918, the Representation of the People Act was passed into law. Although it fell short of granting women full equality, it was nonetheless a milestone in the struggle for suffrage. Christabel Pankhurst believed the law had been rushed through parliament for one simple reason: the fear that the suffragettes would return to their pre-war militancy.

So what did the law actually say? Well, it gave women over 30 a vote on the condition that either they or their husbands were householders or rented property worth £5 per year. Women who had graduated from a British university or held a comparable qualification were also given the vote.

While that still excluded plenty of women, it radically changed the makeup of the electorate: now, 8.4 million women could participate in elections. As Sylvia Pankhurst noted, if all women over 21 had been given the vote, they would have outnumbered males since so many men had died in the war!

It was a great achievement, but the reaction in the suffrage movement was pretty muted. The horrors and losses of the war years had left their mark, and no one was in the mood to celebrate. The property and age restrictions contained in the law also irked many – full equality still seemed like a distant prospect.

Although it might not have felt that way at the time, the reform was an important step on the road to further reforms. In 1919, for example, a law was passed which made it illegal to exclude women from all professions outside the church simply because of their sex.

That same year Nancy Astor became the first female MP. By 1924, another eight female MPs had joined her in parliament. Issues concerning women were now being taken more seriously. That paved the way for important legislation passed in the 1920s finally allowing women to divorce adulterous husbands.

The final piece in the puzzle had to wait a full ten years, but in 1928 all restrictions were abolished and every woman over the age of 21 was given the right to vote. Emmeline Pankhurst didn’t live long enough to see her great ambition fulfilled, but there’s no doubt that the movement she had spearheaded was central to this victory for equality.

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The UK movement for the women’s vote was one of the early twentieth century’s greatest civil rights struggles. At its heart was an organization molded and directed by the charismatic Pankhurst family: the Women’s Social and Political Union. Committed to making themselves heard, the WSPU’s activists used shock tactics to get their message out there, often facing ferocious repression along the way. Their campaigning and a gradual change in societal attitudes after the First World War paid off when, in 1928, all women were finally given the vote.

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What to read next: Bloody Brilliant Women, by Cathy Newman.

The Pankhursts weren’t the only women who changed the face of Britain, though you’d hardly know it from conventional accounts. All too often, books written by men leave out the contribution of British women to their nation’s history. That’s a wrong journalist and author Cathy Newman is determined to right. So if you’ve enjoyed this look at the suffragettes’ struggle for equality, why not dig a bit deeper into the feminist history of Britain with Bloody Brilliant Women!

[ellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book. Yes, it took me two months to read, but it was so interesting and so well written.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very detailed and factual account of all of the actions of the suffragettes. It's really incredible what they put themselves through and how long they were ignored and badly treated. This book was quite hard going; too many people to remember with too many similar events. Describing every action makes you realise how much they did but in the end it became tedious to read. More analysis was needed. It was really interesting to read about what happened to all the suffragettes during and after world war I.

[Hali Davidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's fantastic as a chronology of the WSPU, but it is only that. It would have been better had there been any amount of analysis, or had it discussed black feminism and how the leading suffragettes felt about race in general, yet alas. However, as a chronology, it is marvelous.

[Frumenty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Described in the preface as “a collective biography of the suffragette movement”, Rise up, women! is exactly that, biography. It follows the lives of a large number of women, and a few men, who in the period 1903 to 1914 were engaged in the militant struggle for the vote in Britain. A small band of British women and their allies had been seeking the vote since John Stuart Mill’s petition of 1867 and, in 1903 when the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was founded, they still had nothing to show for it. Emmeline Pankhurst and her WSPU supporters brought a new attitude to the cause, seeing themselves not as petitioners seeking justice through the “proper channels”, but as soldiers committed to a real and escalating fight with the government until their demands were met. Many suffragists of the time thought them too extreme, their methods unconscionable and tending to bring the cause into disrepute.

Activism of this sort demands extraordinary commitment and sacrifice; the imprisonments, the hunger strikes, and the pain and suffering of forced feeding, were embraced and endured by many for the sake of the cause. Suffragettes confronted hostile crowds, mockery (frequently of a sexual nature), casual violence, missiles, police brutality, extraordinary laws designed to frustrate them, sometimes long prison sentences, and repeated political betrayal and disappointment. They persevered. Their actions became ever more extreme: breaking windows, assaulting police and politicians, setting fire to pillar boxes, trashing the orchid house in Kew Gardens, damaging art works, setting fire to buildings and homes, and Emily Davison threw herself (with fatal result) in front of the King’s horse on Derby Day 1913.

In the early 1980s I was involved in the campaign to stop the damming of the Franklin River in Tasmania. What strikes me most about this account of the suffragettes is how little of what we were doing in the 1980s had not been done before by the suffragettes: the constant pestering of politicians, the stunts and events (the suffragettes and their allies had a great flair for pageantry), the fundraising and merchandizing, the editorials and letters to the press, the strategic pressure on elections and by-elections (we also did referendums), and eventually (after I had quit, wondering how many times one could reasonably ask voters to vote on the same questions and disregard their choices) civil disobedience, actual bodies in front of bulldozers - “No!” was never allowed to be an acceptable answer. We won, largely because the matter was taken out of the hands of state politicians. The suffragettes won, I believe, because the First World War provided a circuit-breaker and Emmeline Pankhurst was sufficiently politically savvy to jump at the opportunity it provided. The politicians of 1918, for whom giving in to the demands of the hysterical fanatics of the years before the war had been politically unthinkable, were disposed to indulge the wishes of loyal women who had served the nation with credit through the war.

Atkinson’s book makes no attempt to address the sometimes posed historical question of whether militancy hastened the enfranchisement of women in Britain, or whether it delayed it by bringing discredit to the cause. However, when one has read in such detail of such unrelenting campaigning in the face of formidable opposition, it beggars belief that any politician in his right mind would want to stir up the hornets’ nest of militant suffragism again by denying women the vote. I think the answer to that question may be deemed, in the language of the American Declaration of Independence, “self evident”.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent primer on the suffragette movement but fails to tell the remarkable life-stories.

As someone who already knew a decent amount about the campaign for women's suffrage and their methods, I picked this book up specifically because it promised to tell the stories of the individuals behind the campaign. I have been involved with campaign groups and charities since my teens, and having gotten a hint of the suffragettes' diversity from Helen Lewis' Difficult Women, I wanted to see what living with the Votes for Women campaign had been like.

However, this book is much more interested in the details of force-feeding than digging into the women's lives outside the movement. Unlike the 2015 film Suffragette, this book rarely acknowledges the difficulties of maintaining house, husband and home, while regularly disappearing into prison.
Atkinson's mode of biography is to give a thumbnail sketch of birth to death whenever we first meet a significant figure, making the timeline rather difficult to hold on to.

This book is also pre-occupied with events, milestones down the road to a foregone conclusion, than chronicling the lives and relationships of those fighting for that goal.
For example, we get an account of two women trying to burn down a politician's house, another woman attempting to accost that same politician at a train station but getting someone else by mistake and then another pair of women accosting him on a golf course at different times. But these are treated like discrete events. Atkinson never shows us women at head office, having a brew, making jokes at the expense of the government and co-ordinating their plans.
To hear this book tell it, these women were radicalised like modern terrorists; at home, alone or with one friend/relative.
The one time it gets good on the humanity of these famous figures is when the Pethick-Lawrences are ejected from the movement by the Pankhursts.

My final issue with this book is the elision of queer history. Atkinson acknowledges the existence of relationships between two AFAB people often, sometimes calling them "intimate friends", sometimes as "companions" and once or twice as "lovers". But, in keeping with the rest of the book, she takes no time to look at the trials they faced in their personal lives; they only get mentioned when they are relevant to an event.
There is also at least one reference to an AFAB being called a masc name by their friends but nowhere in this book is there discussion of cross-dressing or clothing as a battlefield for equality.

In conclusion, I have read successful corporate biographies – Liberty by Lucy Moore and Take Six Girls by Laura Thompson – that use the lives of their subjects to illustrate the French Revolution (Liberty) or 1930s Britain (Take Six Girls). And this book doesn't do that, which I find disappointing.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good, very detailed popular history of the suffrage movement. It can get a bit repetitious with more and more women being tried and sent to Holloway and it comes across as rather a long list of facts, who, what and when, without much analysis or look at what was going on behind the scenes. But what it does is give you a vibrant picture of all the women involved in the movement, what they did, what their background was, and what their punishment was, with a lot of primary source extracts in the women's own words. The descriptions of the torture of force feeding are harrowing. The worst case was a woman, Fanny Parker who was anally and vaginally raped with instruments in the name of "force feeding". I mean I know Victorians are notorious for their lack of knowledge about women's anatomy but that can't be an excuse to put a feeding tube in a woman's vagina? (505)
Mrs Humphrey Ward (whose books I see all the time in 2nd hand book shops but never bought) was a campaigner against women's rights. Delivering a petition against women's franchise to Parliament. Saying it would bring disaster upon England (111)
9 Feb 1907 women's march to Hyde Park
21st June Women's sunday in Hyde Park 1908 supported by wells, HArdy and zangwill (99)
175 first graphic description of feeding tube torture
Black Friday 18 November 1910 saw many protesters sexually and physically abused by police and bystanders (249)
Women's coronation procession saw between 40-60,000 women 17 June 1911 Included Welsh women who knitted socks as they marched.

[Leona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rise up women was my non-fiction pick for August and it's an extremely well researched book documenting the lives of the suffragettes in the UK with some small snippets of information also on the Irish suffrage movement. The suffrage movement is something that fascinates me and I loved reading about it and learning more information. This book is extremely detailed showing how well researched it was with a wealth of primary source information used throughout. The book includes information of around 200 suffragettes over the pages with a very detailed appendix with where to find more information including some memoirs by the suffragettes themselves. Each chapter covers a different stage of the movement and runs through the actions of these women.

Its mainly centered around the Pankhurst family and their huge involvement with the movement. But the author also tried to bring in information about other members in the group including some of the lesser known ones. One aspect I loved included the section at the end that detailed the lives of some of the suffragettes after the movement. But it also recognised that a number of women couldn't be found due to changing their names through marriage etc. One thing I didn't love about this, is that at times I felt they tried to include too much information and some paragraphs jumped from person to person with no real context or correlation that made it hard to read at times. However, I understand the author wanted to fit in a lot of information on these women and it was still engaging despite this one issue.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and learned a lot more information on the suffrage movement specifically in the UK. It was engaging from start to finish and detailed the remarkable lives of these women.

Favourite quotes:
"Chains symbolically express the political bondage of womanhood, and for the practical reason that this device should prevent the woman being dragged away."

[Nick Mount · Rating 4 out of 5]

Atkinson decided to write the history of the militant suffragette movement as a “collective biography” of over a hundred women who took part in it, rather than take a great-women approach that told the story through its leaders. I admire her motives, and I can see why anybody who spent a lot of time with the increasingly autocratic Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst would look for a different way to tell the story. But the decision does make the first couple hundred pages hard reading, and it’s difficult to keep all but a handful of those women in mind throughout. The narrative becomes easier to follow once chronology takes over.

Setting its narrative aside, Rise Up is a fair-minded, carefully researched and comprehensive account of what Atkinson calls “the most important political campaign of the twentieth century” (646), and what was certainly a tremendous act of courage and sacrifice by many women and a few men, people willing to be mocked, beat up, imprisoned, force fed, and then get out of prison and do it all over again.

[Fern myadventurewithbooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

A look at this history of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and the Suffragettes...

What a suitable book for Women's History Month, and one that I've had on my shelf unread for too long.

There was so much I didn't know in this:
How organised the WSPU were
How much they campaigned throughout the country and how they accosted MPs and the Prime Ministers of the time
How well known Liberal MPs, Herbert Asquith, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill were against women's suffrage
That there were marches in the tens of thousands throughout London

That being said, this was actually a very difficult book to get through. The book is long, the writing is small and there is just so much info dumping.

There's endless names and brief histories given that it's really hard to know who is who outside of the universally known suffragettes. There is also a lot of repetitiveness of events which become tedious.

Overall, the book conveys such an important part of women's history, but I felt the narrative style could have been different as it made it a hard read.

[Helen Homer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book, lots of detail. Retells the stories of many women involved in the suffragette movement, from their origins, to actions within the movement and their lives following. Lots of names and acts I was aware of, but also lots of people and actions I was not. Was sometimes a little difficult to follow the timeline as often would jump around based on a particular individual, dates were always referenced but hard to keep track of, made me want to keep a written timeliness with me! That being said I did enjoy the following of individual stories as tangents off the main narrative, I probably just need to read it again to fully understand how they all fit together. There was lots of direct quotes from the women themselves, taken from correspondence, writings, autobiographies and later life interviews and I really enjoyed these 'in their own words' reflections. Overall a great read on a very emotive topic. Highly recommend.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has taken me such a long time to complete.

Now treat would suggest it was hard to read, wordy perhaps. But generally I found it quite easy going and it was written in an informative but not exclusive manner.

My issue was the sheer size of the book. It’s not something you can easily pick up. Also whilst easy to read there is reference to a LOT of people and trying to remember who everyone is and how it connects can be difficult.

Like many others have stated this is an extremely thorough account of the suffragettes but I think sometimes the detail slowed the pace of the reading. It was all too easy to put this down, and not want to really pick it up again.

Despite all of that I do think it is a worthy read. I have certainly learnt more about the movements that helped me to have a political voice, and understand more the actions it took to have their voices heard.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very detailed account of radical suffragettes, including extensive bios of what happened to dozens of them in later life. They were courageous, driven women who endured much for their cause -- most particularly, gruesome forced feeding during prison hunger strikes -- but considering their many serious crimes of assault of public figures, arson, bomb throwing and bail jumping, they were treated much more leniently than would be the case in today's world. As a criminal defense attorney, I was constantly amazed that the British prison system would let many of them out of a six month or even three -year sentence after less than a week of a hunger strike. It was fascinating to see how many participants were working-class women.

[Sam Eccleston · Rating 2 out of 5]

In one sense this is quite interesting, focusing as it does on the details of what suffragettes went through in their fight for the vote. However, the detail in which this is related is overwhelming; there are so many names and occasions in quick succession that one is left with little overall sense of what was achieved thereby. In the author’s eagerness to document the unsung heroines of the movement they have written something which has little overall coherence- unexplored, for example, are the motivations of those who resisted women’s suffrage. Absent too is much of a sense of how the decision makers in the WSPU made decisions, or their motivations, principled or strategic, in doing what they did.

[Michelle Birkby · Rating 4 out of 5]

This took me so long to read because it is so packed with information I kept having to take a break to take it all in. Masses and masses of information about the suffragette movement, the people involved, their actions and a wonderful section at the end about what happened to them all (something sadly missing from a lot of histories of the suffragettes) although there are a lot of people in it, they are all presented as individual people with their own stories and they don’t merge into each other. Very useful and interesting

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with her other books, I just don't get along with her style. Can't be faulted for detail and the overview of the increasing violence of the WSPU, so good in that sense, but there's a real lack of emotion or narrative behind it that I found made this more difficult to plough through as its hundreds of pages wore on. The onset of the First World War and the decisions these brought about, alongside the final winning of the vote, are brushed over in the shortest chapter of the whole book!

[Vida · Rating 5 out of 5]

6 out of 5 stars if I could give it. This is a remarkable very approachable well researched book.

if I had just the tiniest critique...I wish it had more on Edith Garrud and the bodyguard.

I loved the end with all the information of how each Suffragette ended up. I do wish there was a comprehensive list of all the unknowns. The people that seem to fall out of record. but I am just being greedy.

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a history, essential reading. Reads like a thriller with the action galloping along. The lengths these brave women went to and the adversity they faced is inspiring, and the actions taken through the wrongheadedness of the men (and women amazingly) against them is astounding. If you vote, read this and be proud, inspired and thankful. If you don't, read this and be ashamed.