How would the Suffragettes have dealt with issues around women in leadership?
Today marks 100 years since women over 30, who met minimum property requirements, were granted the right to vote in Britain. Today, I give thanks and remember those sisters who campaigned to ensure the Representation of the People Act would be passed. At school, even in Manchester, the birthplace of Emmeline Pankhurst, I was taught that women were given the vote as a reward for their war time efforts. It was the first example of hearing the message that women need to work extra hard to get their entitlements.
My nine year old son came home from school with the same message this month. I was able to tell him that it was actually as a result of decades of protest and direct action that secured us our rights.
It was women speaking up in meetings and dodging the rotten fruit and dead rats that were thrown at them. It was women shouting to be heard as men in public meetings sat ringing hand bells to drown them out. And it was the imprisonment and horrific torture that they suffered to highlight our disenfranchisement.
Today, I give thanks to a very special woman who is often overlooked in the recounting of that period - Annie Kenney. Our Annie, the Oldham mill worker, who has inspired me my entire life, ever since the day my grandmother told her story on a bus ride to Oldham market. Annie started work in the mills aged ten.
She was maimed aged eleven, in the cotton machines that brought untold riches to their owners. She worked in the mills for years, involving herself in workers' rights and eventually attending a Votes for Women rally, where she met the Pankhursts. Annie rose to become one of the few working class leaders of the Suffragette movement. She lived to see her goals achieved, but her health never recovered from the torture she endured in prison.
How would the Suffragettes have dealt with the economic inequality in our society, what would their solution be to the gender pay gap and lack of representation in the boardroom? Would they have demanded diversity initiatives that focus on women being better leaders?
From what I've read about Annie and her fellow campaigners, I think their agenda would have focused less on ways for women to work harder and instead focus on asking business the big questions and making demands for change.
There are many areas where our work is not yet done. Our daughters will go even further. But today is all about you, Annie, thank you for your sacrifice.
Retired - Senior HR Leader, Coach, and Mentor
6yWe all owe a huge debt to their boldness and bravery. And we need to learn - not to do again - the abuse and misogyny that resulted in their torture and abuse.
Transformation consultant
6yI'm so humbled by the suffragettes and what they endured. Would I have had the same fervour and courage? I'm not sure. I think now that many women have achieved relative comfort and equality in some areas we've almost become resigned to the fact that this is the way it is and it'll have to do. I don't believe this, we've come too far to not continue to push for the change required for true equality. I agree with you that it's most definitely not about women working harder, rather it's about asking the difficult and uncomfortable questions over and over again until true equality is achieved.
Consultant I Executive Coach I Speaker I Trainer I Leadership I Mindset
6yThank you Jo for your article. Indeed our daughters will most likely carry on and let’s look at what we can each do to move things forward because we can. Not all of us are destined (or desire) grand acts of courage but we can all do something: informal mentoring, speaking our truth - like you just have -, not offering to take notes next time you're in a meeting and the only female 😉, I will leave it to your imagination !
Councillor for Roehampton and Cabinet Member for Adult Care, Health and Community Safety LB Wandsworth, and Occupational health, safety, well-being and employment specialist
6yWe should also recognise the tremendous achievement of the women’s suffrage movement to creating a universal franchise for men as well as women. Many people think that the UK is the world’s oldest democracy. It isn’t. At the start of the First World War in 1914 only an estimated two thirds of all men over the age of 21 had the right to vote. 1918 and 1928 were the first real steps to universal suffrage and even then plural voting was not abolished until 1948. We all owe a tremendous debt to those women who endured appalling treatment and oppression for something too many people take for granted!