British suffragists and the conquest of public space: integration, re-creation and subversion

Abstract

Women’s Suffrage in Britain is a widely researched topic among English-speaking scholars. In this article we shall try to summarise the main characteristics of the movement as they are presented in the essential bibliography. In addition, the paper will put forward

some reflections on the strategies employed by the suffragists, and their use of the public arena. Not many political movements have achieved such a skilful blend of the gessellshaft (rational, pragmatist and legalistic) and the gemeinshaft (emotional, cohesive of identities). There is no other movement whose activities embraced legal and violent action, public spectacle and political propaganda so comprehensively, harnessing each of these elements to their goals of integration, subversion or revision of the social and political status quo.