I find it very interesting that so many different excuses seem to be offered by the men as to why women can vote or have any kind of political power; and the suffrage women at this speech turn each argument against themselves. For instance one of the first things that is brought up is the rules surrounding women petitioning. Women were allowed petition, and they were allowed to present those petitions. This sounds all well and good until it is discovered that if the person in question can simply refuse to see the petition and thus it would be killed. So the rules in of themselves do not make sense. Women are not given the fair and equal chances they deserve and that is made evident from the speech. Another example is the evidence shown that at one point the suffrage women were giving public speeches and believed their voice was getting out to the public. Sadly it turned out that their speeches were not being reported, thus their voice and influence reached few.
The women leading this speech made it very clear that had they simply been allowed to petition and speak their minds as they wanted then no violence would have occurred. But because their voices were being obscured then it forced the women to act accordingly and began being violent. So in a sense all the violence and destruction that occurred in London is the fault of the men who would not listen or give equal chances to women. Had they simply allowed women to do these things all this destruction would have been avoided. But instead they decided to try and come up with any and every excuse to keep women down.
1 comment:
Philip,
Good post, your conclusion is extremely interesting. It suggests that if the men in government had merely heard the women then the violence would not have occurred. While I agree with your statement, I was wondering if you could speculate as to why the men refused to listen to women, even once they realized the violence came from the fact that they ignored the women until that point. Was it pure vanity that prevented the men in admitting they were wrong, did they view the women as less respectable because they committed the violent acts, or was it just simply that these men did not want to listen to women? All hypothetical of course, just think it could be an interesting discussion.
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