My first exposure to the term “suffragette” was in the song “Sister Suffragette” in the Mary Poppins movie, which I saw when I was eight or nine. I can still see Glynis Johns strutting through her front hall as she sang
“Cast off the shackles of yesterday!
Shoulder to shoulder into the fray!
Our daughters’ daughters will adore us
And they’ll sing in grateful chorus
‘Well done, Sister Suffragette!’”
All I really understood from the song at the time was that it was about women fighting to get the vote. I didn’t know about the suffrage struggles that went on for decades, nor about the militancy and hunger strikes of some women’s suffrage efforts that presaged later civil rights struggles. It wasn’t until many years later that I realized my grandmothers were born before women could vote, though by the time they were twenty-one and eligible, they could vote.
And it was only recently that I learned that “suffragette” began as a derogatory term. The term “suffragette” was first used in 1906 to describe members of the Women’s Social and Political Union, a women’s suffrage organization founded in the United Kingdom by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters. The WSPU believed in using militant tactics, including breaking windows, setting fires, and even planting bombs, to draw attention to their cause. The term “suffragette” was used to portray these women as hysterical, unladylike, and dangerous.
By contrast, “suffragist” was a more neutral word, intended to describe those who supported giving women the vote without any negative connotations. In fact, most proponents of women voting used lawful means, rather than illegal property damage and other disruptive tactics. Lobbying, letter-writing campaigns, and civil protests were the most common tactics used by suffragists.
Despite the slur intended by the term “suffragette,” many proponents of women’s suffrage embraced the term as a badge of honor, and it came into general usage. After that point, “suffragist” and “suffragette” were used interchangeably. Many believe that it was the combined tactics of the suffragists and suffragettes that led to women getting the vote.
For my current work-in-progress and for the next book in my series, I’ve been researching women’s suffrage in the West, and one of its main proponents, Abigail Scott Duniway. Duniway began her work soon after the Civil War, and she continued through the remainder of the 19th century. Her efforts, and those of many other women, culminated in several Western states extending the vote to women long before the U.S. Constitution was amended.
In 1912, Oregon became the fifth Western state to give women the vote. Duniway was able to vote in Oregon before her death in 1915, but she did not live to see passage of the federal 19th Amendment in 1920.
I try to be careful with etymology in my historical novels. I want to use language that characters of the time would have used, so long as the words are understandable to modern readers. Sometimes I have my characters use words that came into usage not long after the year in which my novel is set, but I try not to stretch it too far.
An early draft of my work-in-progress had one of the more despicable male characters calling Abigail Duniway a suffragette. It was a perfect use, and I can hear that male character deriding Duniway, whom he detested. But I decided to take the word out, because “suffragette” didn’t come into usage until 1906 in Britain. The almost forty years between 1867, when my novel is set, and 1906 seemed too far a stretch for me to ignore the etymology. I will have to show his loathing for Duniway with other words.
What modern words have you noticed in books you’ve read about the past? Did they take you out of the story?
