"Terribly Nervous"

(An newspaper rendition of what the smashing of the windows in West London may have appeared as.)

This week, as anyone who took senior seminar last semester knows, is a topic that I have delved deep into, the Suffragettes. These women stood against the government to fight for their rights, some only desired the right to vote, while others wanted full equality under the law. Yet this reading specified the militant Suffragettes, or those willing to use violent means to accomplish their ideas. These women did not start out as militant individuals; instead, they were forced into it when other options of recourse offered no solutions for them (CP 203). Even though these women felt they had no other options, the media portrayal of them was anything but positive.

The Daily Graphic article on these women proves that the Suffragettes did not have much positive press. In the article, women are described as young girls. Many of whom “were terribly nervous” about destroying the windows. It is interesting because one cannot be sure how the reporter knows these women were nervous, because it is unlikely he talked with any of them. Also interesting is how the reporter said, “The women “furthered their cause” by doing thousands of pounds’ worth of damage to the windows of West London shopkeepers,” (CP 201). The internal set of quotation marks placed by the reporter, lead one to believe that this reporter did not approve of the destruction. The quotation marks suggest that their goal was not accomplished by their destruction of property. Without the media approval anything the Suffragettes did held a negative light.