By gum! Is your wife a suffragette? Incredibly sexist anti-Suffragette postcards revealed

The humiliation heaped on women fighting for the vote has been brought to light in a collection of postcards.

Opening a window on the struggle of the Suffragette movement, images from the picture campaign dating between 1908 and 1912 have now re-emerged.

The anti-Suffragette postcards show the prejudice the movement faced when attempting to secure women the right to vote.

They portray now celebrated women such as Lady Emmeline Pankhurst as violent, unruly, domineering and lazy.

One shows two Suffragettes attacking a policeman, while another captures Mrs Pankhurst being led away from a protest by police after her arrest.

Others imply they were lazy and made their husbands do all the chores which were thought to be the women’s responsibility.

Women were made to appear less intelligent than men

‘I want my vote!’ Suffragettes were likened to crying babies in the postcard collection which has provided fresh insight into how the women were treated by society in 1908

Some images mocked the women including those which featured men in dresses

The parrot image referenced the women's refusal to back down

The women were constantly accused of abandoning their families (left) as posters said men would be ‘proud’ of them if the were at home while using mocking images of men in dresses. Other images likened the women to squaking parrots (right) referencing their refusal to back down 

A man can be shown washing clothes outside his home with the message below ‘is your wife a Suffragette?’, implying she is too preoccupied to do her household tasks.

Offensive images include a whining baby with the caption ‘I want my vote’, with campaigners portrayed as preaching parrots on a separate postcard.

One postcard even suggests men were facing discrimination at the hands of women who would get their own hotels and benches, forcing a man with bags to stay standing.

The caption below it reads ‘By gum! Them Suffragettes be gitting everything’.

And a condescending poem compares women to mites and says society would be ‘proud’ of women if they stopped ‘ranting about women’s rights’.

The postcards are part of a large collection compiled by the Jersey-based collector David Gainsborough Roberts who died last year.

They have been consigned for sale with Henry Aldridge & Son, of Devizes, Wilts, and are tipped to sell for £300.

Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said: ‘These postcards reinforce why the Suffragette movement became so strong as women’s rights were non-existent and they faced horrendous stereotypes.

Any braces? The posters were made to embarrass the women

'Only a figure of speech' The women were painted as rude and brash

The women were repeatedly accused of wanting to be men – rather than being women who expected the same rights in the campaign to humiliate them. Suffragettes were suffering violent punishment at the same time as they stepped up their campaign to get the vote

The postcards, which date from 1908 to 1912, portray the campaigners led by Lady Emmeline Pankhurst as violent, unruly, domineering and lazy. This postcard shows Emmeline Pankhurst arrested in an attempt to discredit her

The postcards, which date from 1908 to 1912, portray the campaigners led by Lady Emmeline Pankhurst as violent, unruly, domineering and lazy. This postcard shows Emmeline Pankhurst arrested in an attempt to discredit her

‘This was a time when social media had not even been dreamt of so postcards were the main propaganda medium available to those who opposed women’s rights.

‘The messages are very unpleasant and it shows how strong and brave these women were to go against the establishment.’

The Suffragette movement was founded in 1903 and many campaigners were imprisoned before they were released to help with the First World War effort, which they did with distinction. However, it is rooted in Millicent Fawcett’s founding of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage.

Voting rights for British women were won through a combination of the militant suffragettes and their more law-abiding sisters, the suffragists. 

More than 1,000 women were arrested over the course of their campaign. Never before had so many women been imprisoned for a political cause. The women demanded to be given the status of political prisoners, and when the government refused, they went on hunger strike. 

In November 1918, months after the conflict ended, women over the age of 30, who met a property qualification, were given the right to vote.

However, it would be another 10 years before this right was extended to all women over the age of 21 under the Equality of the Representation of the People Act.

A statue of suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett was recently erected in Parliament Square, the first on the site to commemorate a woman.

The sale of the postcards takes place on Saturday.

The women were dehumanised and criminalised in a series of postcards designed to make them look as though they were not a serious political group

The women were dehumanised and criminalised in a series of postcards designed to make them look as though they were not a serious political group

The Suffragettes were likened to children

A man watches on as the Suffragettes 'git everything' on one of the postcards

The women were compared to children in postcards (left) while their opponents insisted they were trying to take over – instead of becoming equals (right)

Suffragists were accused constantly of being violent and out of control as they stepped up their campaign to get the vote for women - while in prisons they were brutally force fed 

Suffragists were accused constantly of being violent and out of control as they stepped up their campaign to get the vote for women – while in prisons they were brutally force fed 

Votes for Women! The suffrage movement and the often bloody battle for equal voting rights

The Suffragettes fought a long and often bloody battle to see women given the right to vote.   

1897: The movement officially took off when Millicent Fawcett founded the National Union of Women’s Suffrage.

1903: Emmeline Pankhurst and others, frustrated by the lack of progress, decided more direct action was required and founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) with the motto ‘Deeds not words’.

The more militant arm were known as suffragettes while their previous, more law-abiding sisters, were called suffragists 

Emmeline Pankhurst wanted to take more direct action over women's rights

Emmeline Pankhurst wanted to take more direct action over women’s rights

1905: A turning point for the women was when Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney interrupted a political meeting in Manchester between Winston Churchill and Sir Edward Grey where they unfurled a banner and shouted at the men. 

The pair refused to pay a fine saying they would rather be in prison.

Afterwards, the women became more daring, breaking the law and carrying out public stunts to show they would not back down. 

Some Suffragettes began to attack politicians and their properties and the violence against them rocketed. Some abstained from more violent protesting.

In prison the women were force-fed in using painful and heavy handed techniques which left many with long-term health problems. 

1912: Four suffragists, including Mary Leigh, attempted to set fire to the Theatre Royal while Prime Minister Herbert Asquith was attending a packed show

1913: Emily Davison was the first Suffragette to lay down her life for the movement as she threw herself under the King’s horse, Anmer, on Derby as it rounded Tattenham Corner.

The protests dipped during the war as women supported their nation at the orders of Ms Pankhurst. 

1918: The Representation of the People Act passed on February 6, which allowed women over 30 with certain property qualifications to vote



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