Lytton's Speech: Self-Hurt Equals A Political Statement

  On January 31, 1910 Lady Constance Lytton gave a speech at the Queen's Hall addressing the issues of her treatment in prison. At the center of her speech is the issue of being force-fed and the reason behind the hunger strike as well as the pain women endured in order to make a political statement.
  When the hunger strike was called by Ms. Pankhurst all women suffragettes began to starve themselves. According to Lytton, "But what the women of this movement have specially stood out for is that they will not kill, they will not harm while they have other weapons left to them. These women have chosen the weapon of self-hurt to make their protest, and this hunger-strike brings great pressure upon the government. It involves grave hurt and tremendous sacrifice, but this is on the part of the women only, and does not physically injure their enemies" (CP 226). The hunger strike was not meant to cause pain to anyone but the suffragettes who were trying to get the government's attention to allow their voices to be heard. As a result, the government and medical officials did respond but it was not with reasonable actions but instead it was with forcibly feeding these women and causing tremendous pain not only to their bodies but to their mindsets as well.
   Often the force-feeding involved a tube being shoved down the throat and then liquefied food was poured into the tube that deposited the food into the woman's stomach. Choking and vomiting were common as Lytton writes, but one of the greatest tolls on the body was the "moral poisoning of one's whole mind" (CP 227). The doctors ordering this inhumane treatment were not thinking of the moral and physical damage that was being done to these women but instead were focused on the idea of returning the women to the home to complete their "womanly work". Meaning, these women were to be sent home to cook and raise children as they were supposed to have been doing all along. The idea was solely not to return these women to a healthy state physically but was to remind them of where their place was in society and that male officials would allows have control over them. I would argue that the force-feeding was used as a metaphor to show that the government would always have control over women; women did not have control over their bodies but the government did. Therefore, officials could make the decision on whether a woman could starve to death or would be forced to live through being force-fed.
Question:
-Do you all think the force-feeding had a metaphorical meaning behind it or was it strictly for medical purposes?

Works Cited

"Lady Constance Lytton: A Speech Delivered at the Queen's Hall, January 31, 1910." In Women In European History Coursepacket complied by Dr. Shelley Wolbrink. Spring 2014. 

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