#Emilymatters – Helen & Laura Pankhurst guest blog

The following guest post is by Dr Helen Pankhurst and her daughter Laura who will be joining us for the Emily Davison Statue in Parliament Campaign event this evening in the Houses of Parliament.

We’re delighted that Helen will be a member of our #Emilymatters panel. You can tweet the panel your questions anytime today, 13 February 2014. The live debate will begin after the performance of ‘To Freedom’s Cause’, so join us from 7.00pm.

 

This International Women’s Day (08 March) CARE’s Campaign Ambassador Dr Helen Pankhurst will “Walk In Her Shoes” through London. The walk is in solidarity with women and girls in developing countries who have to walk long distances to fetch water for their families. Helen will walk with her daughter Laura, the “Suffragettes” from the Olympic Opening Ceremony, women’s rights campaigners and others to celebrate International Women’s Day.

Below Dr Helen Pankhurst, great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst and granddaughter of Sylvia Pankhurst, leaders in the British suffragette movement and her 17 year old daughter Laura reflect on women’s rights. They wrote the piece in 2012.

Helen

In 2011, I remember speaking about Sylvia and Emmeline Pankhurst, my grand-mother and great grand-mother, and of how our campaigns today build on, and echo, the Suffragettes’ fight for women’s right to vote. They do so not just in terms of the end goal, but also in the colour, vibrancy and sheer gusty determination of our methods.

Thankfully, women can now vote in the UK and in most, but not all countries around the world. However everywhere there is still a lot that needs to change before we can speak of true gender equality. But where to focus? Inequality is such a persistent, multi-headed beast. Yet it is easier to come together around a particular government policy that needs to be passed or even a single action that we can all take. So maybe the rallying call now should be ‘vote women in’, i.e. a campaign for greater female representation, given the reality that we are still living under a male dominated system which, consciously and/or unconsciously, formulates policies in its own image – undervaluing the experiences of the other half.

However, a lot of the barriers that women face are not narrowly political – though they are about women’s empowerment. Women need to fight for equal opportunity on all fronts: in their personal choices, to be treated with dignity, the right to work and to advance in their work, to equal pay, to equal inheritance rights, to live in families were the burden of domestic responsibilities for the young and the elderly, for cleaning and cooking to be shared, for the feminine eye or approach to be as valued as the masculine one….the list goes on and on and on.

Fundamentally, our demands are messier and less discrete than they were when the chant was ‘votes for women’. Today around the world, it’s not only about political and economic equality; it’s also that we need to talk about culture, norms and attitudes which we all sometimes perpetuate.  Ensuring women’s empowerment, gender equality and the valuing of the feminine is difficult and complicated, but we need to keep chipping away on all fronts, all of us; women and men, whatever our lives, wherever our spheres of influence, only then  will we tame that beast!

‘To Freedoms Cause‘ is also about our common cause and the links between women of all ages.

 

 

 

Laura

My name is Laura Pankhurst. My mum kept  her surname when she got married, and passed it on to me, and, needless to say, it’s a surname that I plan to keep, and hopefully pass on to the next generation, too.

At the moment I am studying for my A-levels – history, politics, maths and physics, and I am thinking of a career in Law or Engineering… Engineering and Law are two careers that for many women before me were nigh on impossible.

But I am one of few to be in such a fortunate position. In Ethiopia, a country that I love, and that my family has been linked to since Sylvia’s campaign for its liberation in the 1930’s, girls much younger than myself have to collect water, with young children on their backs, and stay at home, while their brothers go to school.

So many girls would have already been married off to men more than twice their age, with no say whatsoever. If I had been born somewhere else, by now my schooling would have been cut short, if I had any, because of the need to cook, help in the fields or look after my children. The chance of my having experienced violence before now is significant. Greater still in countries with conflicts, where violence, even systematic rape of women and girls, is often used as a tool in war.

Even today, personal security, political voice and even the ability to choose our own future are still not the reality for most girls my age.

 

Useful Links: 

CARE International – click here

Women’s Walk Day, 8 March 2014
Join Helen and Laura Pankhurst who will be leading the walk on International Women’s Day and launching CARE’s Walk In Her Shoes campaign. For more information – click here

 

“Emily Wilding Davison was a great campaigning feminist. Her struggle continues and she remains an icon for women even over a century after her death.”
Emily Thornberry MP, founder of the
Emily Davison Statue in Parliament Campaign

 

 

Special Parliamentary Performance & Debate Details: 

The debate:

The panel includes Dr Helen Pankhurst, great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst and granddaughter of Sylvia Pankhurst, Yas Necati, feminist campaigner and winner of The Guardian Women awards 2013: Best hope for the future (UK) and Emma Barnett (writer and broadcaster).

 

The play:
Brian Astbury directs an exclusive presentation of To Freedom’s Cause – a new play about one of the nation’s most important suffragettes – as part of a special Parliamentary event to promote the Emily Wilding Davison statue campaign.

 

This is the powerful story of people who encountered Emily,
who changed her life and whose lives she changed

 

Sign up:
Emily Davison is one of our most important feminist icons. Her legacy continues through current campaigns such as No More Page 3 and the Everyday Sexism Project. Sign the petition in support of the campaign calling for a statue of Emily to be erected in Parliament:

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51269

 

Get involved:
Due to the location restrictions, this is an invitation only event.

A small number of tickets will be made available via Twitter.

Emily Davison was a pioneer in using modern media to promote direct political action. She believed that women and men had the right to be equal citizens.

Join the conversation now by following @2FCPlay and using #Emilymatters

 

 

Emily Davison’s legacy is for life, not just for 2013.