suffragette

suffragette A member of a British militant feminist movement that campaigned for the right of adult British women to vote in general elections. The Women's Social and Political Union, which was founded by Emmeline PANKHURST in 1903, gained rapid support, using as its weapons attacks on property, demonstrations, and refusal to pay taxes. There was strong opposition to giving women the vote at national level, partly from calculations of the electoral consequences of enfranchising women. Frustration over the defeat of Parliamentary bills to extend the vote led the suffragettes to adopt militant methods to press their cause; Parliamentary debates were interrupted, imprisoned suffragettes went on hunger strike, and one suffragette, flinging herself in front of the king's horse in the 1913 Derby horse-race, was killed. These tactics were abandoned when Britain declared war on Germany in 1914 and the WSPU directed its efforts to support the war effort. In 1918, subject to educational and property qualifications, British women over 30 were given the vote (the age restriction was partly to reduce the number of women in the electorate to match the reduction in the numbers of men, as so many had died in the war). In 1928 women over 21 gained the vote.