Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!psuvm!YALEVM!ELINZE From: ELINZE@YALEVM (Naama Zahavi-Ely) Newsgroups: bit.listserv.history Subject: Suffragettes and mainstream political history Message-ID: Date: 18 Jan 90 16:17:30 GMT Sender: History Reply-To: History Lines: 19 Approved: NETNEWS@PSUVM Gateway Comments: To: gender@rpiecs, history@finhutc Hello! Has anybody studied or even noticed the role of the suffragettes ("militant" voting-rights-for-women activists) in the development of non-violent civil disobedience as group tactics? Their tactics seem similar to those used by Gandhi and later by Martin Luter King -- protests, getting arrested, hunger strikes, etc. They made headlines in their days and eventually achieved their aims. Yet I am under the impression that in most histories and in the minds of most educated people and of most historians (certainly in mine) they are relegated to "women's" history, to a sideline, without even asking whether they had any influence on "mainstream" historical movements, even though such a connection is obvious both in terms of chronology and of subject matter. It is also interesting to note that when women use such tactics, they are "militants", while men using the same tactics are "non-violent". Comments, anyone? -Naama Elinze@Yalevm.Bitnet Zahavi-Ely-Naama@Yale.Edu