- 228 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
A look at the leader and members of the militant Women's Social and Political Union and their contribution to the rise of fascism during the 1930s.
Emmeline Pankhurst is seen today as a valiant champion of democracy, but in the 1930s certain prominent former suffragettes were comparing her to Hitler and Mussolini. It was suggested that Mrs. Pankhurst and her Women's Social and Political Union could be viewed as a proto-fascist movement; an idea likely to strike the modern reader as grotesque.
Yet the WSPU certainly had much in common with the fascist parties that emerged after the end of the First World War. The group was financed by wealthy and aristocratic backers, and terrorism, in the form of bombing and arson, was widely used against working-class men and women. This, together with the rampant anti-Semitism and ambivalent attitude to democracy, all indicate that there was more to the suffragettes than we now realize. Few people today, for example, know that Emmeline Pankhurst was an advocate of ethnic cleansing and the use of concentration camps, nor that her daughter was imprisoned during the Second World War for pro-Nazi activities.
This helps to explain how former suffragettes came to hold such important positions in the British Union of Fascists in the years before the Second World War. After all, the ideology and structure of Oswald Mosley's fascist party was so eerily similar to that of Emmeline Pankhurst's Women's Social and Political Union.
"Fascinating . . . The book looks into the new leaders of the WSPU, their thoughts, attitudes and beliefs, the blackshirts, before the war, during and after." â UK Historian
Emmeline Pankhurst is seen today as a valiant champion of democracy, but in the 1930s certain prominent former suffragettes were comparing her to Hitler and Mussolini. It was suggested that Mrs. Pankhurst and her Women's Social and Political Union could be viewed as a proto-fascist movement; an idea likely to strike the modern reader as grotesque.
Yet the WSPU certainly had much in common with the fascist parties that emerged after the end of the First World War. The group was financed by wealthy and aristocratic backers, and terrorism, in the form of bombing and arson, was widely used against working-class men and women. This, together with the rampant anti-Semitism and ambivalent attitude to democracy, all indicate that there was more to the suffragettes than we now realize. Few people today, for example, know that Emmeline Pankhurst was an advocate of ethnic cleansing and the use of concentration camps, nor that her daughter was imprisoned during the Second World War for pro-Nazi activities.
This helps to explain how former suffragettes came to hold such important positions in the British Union of Fascists in the years before the Second World War. After all, the ideology and structure of Oswald Mosley's fascist party was so eerily similar to that of Emmeline Pankhurst's Women's Social and Political Union.
"Fascinating . . . The book looks into the new leaders of the WSPU, their thoughts, attitudes and beliefs, the blackshirts, before the war, during and after." â UK Historian
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Yes, you can access Suffragette Fascists by Simon Webb in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Civil Rights in Politics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Who Were the Suffragettes?
- Chapter 2 The Cult of the Leader and the Rejection of Democracy
- Chapter 3 The Suffragettesâ War on the Working Class
- Chapter 4 Vivisection, Sweated Labour and the âSocial Evilâ
- Chapter 5 1914: The Suffragettes Tackle the Enemy Within
- Chapter 6 Concentration Camps and Ethnic Cleansing
- Chapter 7 After the War
- Chapter 8 The Blackshirts as Natural Successors to the Suffragettes
- Chapter 9 The Second World War
- Endword
- Appendix: Five Women
- Bibliography
- Plate section