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According to Wikipedia, many historians think the suffragettes hurt the cause of women getting votes. There were several suffragist movements, and "suffragette"

by wisty 11y ago

According to Wikipedia, many historians think the suffragettes hurt the cause of women getting votes. There were several suffragist movements, and "suffragette" was used to describe the militants (who went on hunger strikes, committed arson, etc). The opponents of suffrage would refer to suffragists as "suffragettes" (in much the same way Fox News might refer to left-wing politicians as socialists or communists), and would often argue "women are too crazy to vote - just look at the tactics they use!". Women got the vote in 1918, 4 years after WSPU (the militant suffragette group) ceased activity (they essentially disbanded / split after the war started, because domestic terrorism during a war was obviously not a winning strategy). It might be fun to think they beat up policemen, forcing people to take them seriously. But it actually had the opposite effect. At best, they were comparable to Malcolm X (making other groups look relatively acceptable).

teachrdan 11y ago
Meh. People in power always say the militants were too militant and actually hurt the cause - whether it's true or not. When you think about it, the only thing the establishment wants is an opposition too weak to effectively stop them. Winning movements almost always have a radical edge. You mentioned Malcolm X, but even Martin Luther King was accused of hurting the cause for black equality by being too extreme. And even if all the militant suffragettes did was make the mainstream suffrage movement look more acceptable, that's still a huge impact for a numerically small group.
- Kalium 11y ago
  There have been some studies showing that militant tactics in the civil rights era provoked conservative backlashes compared to geographic areas where militant tactics were not employed. We're not in the realm of pure hypothesis and supposition anymore. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/new-study-shows-riots-make-america-conservative.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/new-study-shows... It's worth considering that the people in power who say the militants are hurting their cause may be speaking the truth. Rather than dismissing them out of hand because you find their motives suspect.
  - unimpressive 11y ago
    That is a really confusingly written article, but the study does seem to say what is claimed.
  - gozo 11y ago
    There's a faulty premise that militant action is a strict choice. Once the police start beating and arresting people there's often no going back. Look at all the movements that in the US that no one cares about. That study seemingly doesn't say anything about why the riots happened, it might very well be that "social control" was more politically prevalent at certain times which reflected in both in violence and in public opinion.
    - Kalium 11y ago
      Militant action is a choice. People choose violence. Sentient human beings are always capable of not choosing violence. Therefore, I believe the premise to be correct and valid. Do you have a reason for believing otherwise? The study doesn't just look at years. It looks at county-by-county voting patterns.
      - gozo 11y ago
        Well. HN is probably not the best place for this, so I'm not going to make this too long, but there are a couple of point. Few movements will survive its more prominent members being beaten and arrested, which is what happens when there's no power balance. Even fewer movement will survive going out and doing the same thing all over again. No seasoned movement can ever guarantee that a protest won't turn violent if the police start arresting people. I'm not saying you should go out and do militant things, but you can't make is easy for the authorities to stop you from protesting. If the choice is between your movement being silenced and trying to defend yourself then maybe that's not really a choice as such. Of course the US is so far beyond any reasonable protest culture that you might as well not protest at all.
        hoopd 11y ago
- hoopd 11y ago
  And any criticism of militants is always framed and dismissed as coming from "power" or "the establishment".
- tedks 11y ago
  The reason why Martin Luther King is the person we as people in 2015 know about is because he was selected by the administrations of his time as the black rights leader they would and did endorse. Likewise, the reason why people in the West know Gandhi and not Bhagat Singh is because the British Empire selected Gandhi as the entity they would transfer power to. It seems extraordinarily questionable to claim that the reactions of existing power holders is the benchmark by which we should measure liberatory struggle. It also seems likely that there were strategic and geopolitical reasons why the power holders selected those groups, rather than others, to legitimize and endorse. Certainly Johnson, the man that fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to bring the nation to war, did not select Martin Luther King as the torchbearer for civil rights purely because he believed the man's cause to be just and his morals pure. I wonder, what do people who oppose radical groups say to the continued efficacy of the Afghan people at expelling occupiers from their nation? Certainly, attacking Soviet tanks and American patrols can only increase the resolve of an occupier. If only they knew of the power of nonviolence! Then they could really achieve independence rather than remaining crushed under the boot of oppression for so long.
  - selimthegrim 11y ago
    Bhagat Singh/Rajguru/Sukhdev or Ram Prasad Bismil/Ashfaqullah are good examples but Subhash Chandra Bose would probably be a slightly better one for the sake of generalizability
mnem 11y ago
That's quite a selective extract from that Wikipedia article. That section starts: "Historians generally argue that the first stage of the militant suffragette movement under the Pankhursts in 1906 had a dramatic mobilising effect on the suffrage movement": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette#Legacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette#Legacy Do you believe that without the movement, which forced many public discussions and debates, that the right to vote would still have been granted in 1918? Sooner?
mcantelon 11y ago
It's pretty normal for there to be militants, as well as moderates, in a resistance. The militants create pressure and demand total capitulation while the moderates leverage the pressure to promote pragmatic solutions. Good cop, bad cop.
- Kalium 11y ago
  Historically, militants can and have provoked backlashes. These can harm the overall cause. This isn't hypothesis. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/new-study-shows-riots-make-america-conservative.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/new-study-shows...
  - tedks 11y ago
    Historically, these backlashes are unsustainable, less so the more networked and humanized the resistance becomes, and so the burden of proof is still on you to show that these militants are truly harmful to their goals. In particular, I would ask you to consider the following conflicts: * The American Colonies vs. The British Empire * The Bolsheviks vs. The Russian Empire and Republic * The Mujaheddin vs. the USSR Can you elaborate on how, in those cases, militant political action harmed the overall cause?
    - Kalium 11y ago
      It's spelled out in the article. Backlashes shifted voting patterns, possibly enough to affect electoral outcomes away from a President favorable to the cause of the protesters. The result was, at the very least, a significant delay in civil rights. Is that enough for you? I suspect that if you asked a historian, you could find many examples of movements that were utterly discredited after a turn to violence. Such as anarchism in the US.
      - tedks 11y ago
        I suspect if you asked a historian you would get a much more nuanced view of the concept of a movement being "discredited"; especially any American leftist movement that was under significant state suppression for virtually all of its lifespan. There were possibly more anarchists predating the first Red Scare using violent tactics than state socialists, but Eugene Debs still ended up in prison, and I think it's pretty impossible to claim he was somehow violent. Further, a historian would tell you that a societies' definition of "violent" is highly contextual; for example, the Occupy movement was classified as "violent" and subsequently subject to significant (and actually, physically violent) repression because as other comments in this very thread have pointed out, they used nonviolent civil disobedience tactics similar to the 60's civil rights movement. Further, since we can't experiment, we can't make statements about whether or not there were delays in civil rights because of any particular thing. It could very well be that violent tactics from "extreme" leaders like Malcolm X caused backlash, but it might also be that media presentation of these events in a certain way was more causal of backlash, or that these events were polarizing, resulting in some people identifying more with the civil rights struggle while others identified more strongly with white supremacy. So no, it is not enough for me. Why is it enough for you?
LordKano 11y ago
At best, they were comparable to Malcolm X (making other groups look relatively acceptable). Malcolm filled a necessary role. If white middle America hadn't been so terrified of Malcolm, Dr. King wouldn't have been nearly as accepted. Malcolm's pre-Hajj vision of separation would have been like Dr. King's bus boycott but on a national scale and across all sectors of the economy. Never discount the ability of uncompromising extremists to bring other parties to the negotiating table. Everyone's money is green.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- hugh4 11y ago
  And do you approve of uncompromising extremists when they support causes you deplore, or only when they support causes you support?
  - mark_edward 11y ago
    What kind of question is that?
    - hugh4 11y ago
      A question for people who think their preferred ends justify deplorable means.
      - LordKano 11y ago
        I don't remember anything deplorable in Malcolm X's position. I disagree with separation of the races but it's not like he wanted to exterminate anyone.
  - angersock 11y ago
    What sort of fool doesn't admire somebody who'll stick to their principles, even if those principles aren't always agreeable?

by wisty 11y ago

teachrdan 11y ago

Meh. People in power always say the militants were too militant and actually hurt the cause - whether it's true or not. When you think about it, the only thing the establishment wants is an opposition too weak to effectively stop them. Winning movements almost always have a radical edge. You mentioned Malcolm X, but even Martin Luther King was accused of hurting the cause for black equality by being too extreme. And even if all the militant suffragettes did was make the mainstream suffrage movement look more acceptable, that's still a huge impact for a numerically small group.

Kalium 11y ago
There have been some studies showing that militant tactics in the civil rights era provoked conservative backlashes compared to geographic areas where militant tactics were not employed. We're not in the realm of pure hypothesis and supposition anymore. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/new-study-shows-riots-make-america-conservative.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/new-study-shows... It's worth considering that the people in power who say the militants are hurting their cause may be speaking the truth. Rather than dismissing them out of hand because you find their motives suspect.
- unimpressive 11y ago
  That is a really confusingly written article, but the study does seem to say what is claimed.
- gozo 11y ago
  There's a faulty premise that militant action is a strict choice. Once the police start beating and arresting people there's often no going back. Look at all the movements that in the US that no one cares about. That study seemingly doesn't say anything about why the riots happened, it might very well be that "social control" was more politically prevalent at certain times which reflected in both in violence and in public opinion.
  - Kalium 11y ago
    Militant action is a choice. People choose violence. Sentient human beings are always capable of not choosing violence. Therefore, I believe the premise to be correct and valid. Do you have a reason for believing otherwise? The study doesn't just look at years. It looks at county-by-county voting patterns.
    - gozo 11y ago
      Well. HN is probably not the best place for this, so I'm not going to make this too long, but there are a couple of point. Few movements will survive its more prominent members being beaten and arrested, which is what happens when there's no power balance. Even fewer movement will survive going out and doing the same thing all over again. No seasoned movement can ever guarantee that a protest won't turn violent if the police start arresting people. I'm not saying you should go out and do militant things, but you can't make is easy for the authorities to stop you from protesting. If the choice is between your movement being silenced and trying to defend yourself then maybe that's not really a choice as such. Of course the US is so far beyond any reasonable protest culture that you might as well not protest at all.
      - hoopd 11y ago
hoopd 11y ago
And any criticism of militants is always framed and dismissed as coming from "power" or "the establishment".
tedks 11y ago
The reason why Martin Luther King is the person we as people in 2015 know about is because he was selected by the administrations of his time as the black rights leader they would and did endorse. Likewise, the reason why people in the West know Gandhi and not Bhagat Singh is because the British Empire selected Gandhi as the entity they would transfer power to. It seems extraordinarily questionable to claim that the reactions of existing power holders is the benchmark by which we should measure liberatory struggle. It also seems likely that there were strategic and geopolitical reasons why the power holders selected those groups, rather than others, to legitimize and endorse. Certainly Johnson, the man that fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to bring the nation to war, did not select Martin Luther King as the torchbearer for civil rights purely because he believed the man's cause to be just and his morals pure. I wonder, what do people who oppose radical groups say to the continued efficacy of the Afghan people at expelling occupiers from their nation? Certainly, attacking Soviet tanks and American patrols can only increase the resolve of an occupier. If only they knew of the power of nonviolence! Then they could really achieve independence rather than remaining crushed under the boot of oppression for so long.
- selimthegrim 11y ago
  Bhagat Singh/Rajguru/Sukhdev or Ram Prasad Bismil/Ashfaqullah are good examples but Subhash Chandra Bose would probably be a slightly better one for the sake of generalizability

mnem 11y ago

That's quite a selective extract from that Wikipedia article. That section starts: "Historians generally argue that the first stage of the militant suffragette movement under the Pankhursts in 1906 had a dramatic mobilising effect on the suffrage movement": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette#Legacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette#Legacy Do you believe that without the movement, which forced many public discussions and debates, that the right to vote would still have been granted in 1918? Sooner?

mcantelon 11y ago

It's pretty normal for there to be militants, as well as moderates, in a resistance. The militants create pressure and demand total capitulation while the moderates leverage the pressure to promote pragmatic solutions. Good cop, bad cop.

Kalium 11y ago
Historically, militants can and have provoked backlashes. These can harm the overall cause. This isn't hypothesis. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/new-study-shows-riots-make-america-conservative.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/new-study-shows...
- tedks 11y ago
  Historically, these backlashes are unsustainable, less so the more networked and humanized the resistance becomes, and so the burden of proof is still on you to show that these militants are truly harmful to their goals. In particular, I would ask you to consider the following conflicts: * The American Colonies vs. The British Empire * The Bolsheviks vs. The Russian Empire and Republic * The Mujaheddin vs. the USSR Can you elaborate on how, in those cases, militant political action harmed the overall cause?
  - Kalium 11y ago
    It's spelled out in the article. Backlashes shifted voting patterns, possibly enough to affect electoral outcomes away from a President favorable to the cause of the protesters. The result was, at the very least, a significant delay in civil rights. Is that enough for you? I suspect that if you asked a historian, you could find many examples of movements that were utterly discredited after a turn to violence. Such as anarchism in the US.
    - tedks 11y ago
      I suspect if you asked a historian you would get a much more nuanced view of the concept of a movement being "discredited"; especially any American leftist movement that was under significant state suppression for virtually all of its lifespan. There were possibly more anarchists predating the first Red Scare using violent tactics than state socialists, but Eugene Debs still ended up in prison, and I think it's pretty impossible to claim he was somehow violent. Further, a historian would tell you that a societies' definition of "violent" is highly contextual; for example, the Occupy movement was classified as "violent" and subsequently subject to significant (and actually, physically violent) repression because as other comments in this very thread have pointed out, they used nonviolent civil disobedience tactics similar to the 60's civil rights movement. Further, since we can't experiment, we can't make statements about whether or not there were delays in civil rights because of any particular thing. It could very well be that violent tactics from "extreme" leaders like Malcolm X caused backlash, but it might also be that media presentation of these events in a certain way was more causal of backlash, or that these events were polarizing, resulting in some people identifying more with the civil rights struggle while others identified more strongly with white supremacy. So no, it is not enough for me. Why is it enough for you?

LordKano 11y ago

At best, they were comparable to Malcolm X (making other groups look relatively acceptable). Malcolm filled a necessary role. If white middle America hadn't been so terrified of Malcolm, Dr. King wouldn't have been nearly as accepted. Malcolm's pre-Hajj vision of separation would have been like Dr. King's bus boycott but on a national scale and across all sectors of the economy. Never discount the ability of uncompromising extremists to bring other parties to the negotiating table. Everyone's money is green.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
hugh4 11y ago
And do you approve of uncompromising extremists when they support causes you deplore, or only when they support causes you support?
- mark_edward 11y ago
  What kind of question is that?
  - hugh4 11y ago
    A question for people who think their preferred ends justify deplorable means.
    - LordKano 11y ago
      I don't remember anything deplorable in Malcolm X's position. I disagree with separation of the races but it's not like he wanted to exterminate anyone.
- angersock 11y ago
  What sort of fool doesn't admire somebody who'll stick to their principles, even if those principles aren't always agreeable?