The public largely frowned upon the act of force feeding, especially as many of the A Suffragettes were young women from middle class families. [1] They attempted to harness the shocking nature of forcible feeding to gain the political advantage and publicise these posters to the widest audience possible. A Poster Protesting against the Force Feeding of Suffragettes in US Prisons in 1905, n.d., The Irish Times The Irish Times 'ALL THE SUFFRAGIST LEADERS ARRESTED, “WE WILL ALL STARVE TO DEATH IN PRISON UNLESS WE ARE FORCIBLY FED.”' , 1913, Daily Sketch My breath was coming faster and with a sort of low scream that was getting louder.”. Newspaper report on the force-feeding of Suffragette prisoners 1913-05-01. In fact, the Suffragettes started off relatively peacefully. One of these propaganda posters was a pamphlet named ‘grace before meat’, which depicted a well-dressed caricature of Mr Mckenna who worked for the Home Office, brutally force-feeding a suffragette (figure 1). The British press covered the issue of force-feeding extensively. From their perspective, the harsh treatment they faced at the hands of the government was especially insulting considering they were being forced to conform to a government in which they had no part electing. JJec. I set my teeth and tightened my lips over them with all my strength. In effect, the government claimed that they were protecting the suffragettes and providing treatment in prison, however, they actually abused the process of force-feeding, and instead used it to punish the suffragettes who were nationally humiliating the government. [1] Papers of Emily Wilding Davison- The Women’s Library, London- 7EWD. The force-feeding was violent and brutal, a power struggle of physical strength that symbolised the suffragettes’ political and social battle: [d]uring the struggle before the feeding, prisoners were held down by force, flung on the floor, tied to chairs and iron bedsteads. Marion Wallace Dunlop, 1909. Therefore, one of the key strengths of hunger striking and force-feeding originated in the fact that it challenged the authority of the male-dominated medical profession and helped to develop a more modern notion of what it meant to be female. The way in which these suffragettes took control of a situation in which they originally had very little and shaped the narrative of forcible feeding as a whole empowered and inspired so many women, and thus made forcible feeding one of the most significant aspects of the female suffrage campaign. Letters to the Manchester Guardian in October of 1909 how the issue angered many Britons - some calling for the suffragettes to be left to starve, while others pointed to the immorality of essentially ‘attempting suicide’. The controversial nature of forcible feeding, and the nature of the relationship the government had with forcible feeding, was magnified by the conventional Edwardian characterisation of these women as vulnerable individuals, an idea that they themselves promoted to some extent. Some died. HistoryLearning.com. Geddes, J.F, ‘Culpable Complicity: the medical profession and the forcible feeding of suffragettes, 1909-1914’, Women’s History Review, 17 (2008), 79-94. themselves in their newspaper Votes for Women, but also within parliament and the national press, where terms such as ‘violence’, ‘torture’ and ‘violated bodies’ were used to intensify opposition to this procedure. It was only in 1905 that the organisation created a stir when Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney interrupted a political meeting in Manchester to ask two Liberal politicians (Winston Churchill and Sir Edward Grey) if they believed women should have the right to vote. When imprisoned they went on hunger strike, to which the government responded by force-feeding them. The Evening News reported negatively on this evident exploitation, and counter-argued that they should suffer the full proper punishment. The forcible feeding of the suffragettes, although shocking in its practice, was a useful device to heighten public support for the fight for suffrage and gain recruits to their cause. 2015. The suffragette stance on forcible feeding became significant as it allowed these women to take ownership of their own narrative and push back against the government to continue to pursue their fight for female suffrage. I felt I should go mad; I felt like a poor wild thing caught in a steel trap. Forcible feeding was used by the government on suffragette prisoners who were on hunger-strike as an alternative to realising these female prisoners early. I made my own small contribution to the new ‘suffragette moment’ in early 2015 with a talk on force-feeding, given at the Postdoctoral Research Colloquium at Queen Mary School of History, on which this blog post is based. [6] So, the government were imposing unnecessary amounts of suffering onto suffragette prisoners through force-feeding, and thus, in reality, transformed this medical procedure into a cruel punishment. They soon had me on the bed and firmly held down by the shoulders, the arms, the knees, and the ankles. The suffragettes also pushed for their propaganda material to reach as many members of the public as possible, as they urged readers to ‘pass this on to your friends’. Imprisoned suffragettes went on hunger strikes for their cause. The American Medical Association and the Red Cross both condemn force-feeding as a form of torture. [4] Ross was actually not an avid supporter of the female suffrage movement, choosing to remain largely indifferent, but he still spoke out about the potential dangers proving that the risks of the procedure had the potential to overshadow the political nature of the events.