WHO WAS EMELINE PANKHURST (anglais bac LV1)

                                        Who was Emmeline PANKHURST ?

VOC : high educated = d’un niveau supérieur (etudes)

To include : inclure

Social activism : actions en faveur du social

On the way : sur la route (elle retrouve sa mère en train de faire un débat public dans le parc pour les droits de vote de la femme)

To sell, sold, sold : vendre

To raise funds : lever des fonds

To support : soutenir

Both married and unmarried women : à la fois celles marriées et celles qui ne l’étaient pas

Wife : épouse

Brave : courageuse

Inspirationnal : inspirant(e) (ici une personne inspirante est une pers qui nous incite à faire comme elle)

To share : partager

To found : fonder

Hunger strike : grève de la faim

To demand : exiger

To leave, left, left : quitter, partir

Emelline PANKHURST was a high educated British woman. She is a British leader for the ‘votes for

women'. She was born in 1858 in Manchester to a politically active family. For example, her grand-father is known for his radical beliefs because he was against slavery. Her parents included their children in social activism. At the age of 14, she returned home from school one day to find her mother on her way to a public meeting about women's voting rights

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Portrait badge of Emmeline Pankhurst sold in large numbers by the WSPU to raise funds for its cause - Museum of London

She went to the Ecole Normale Supérieur in Paris in 1873 and when she left France to England, she met her future husband the activist lawyer Richard Pankhurst was for women's suffrage.  They met at a public meeting in 1878. She was 20, he was 44 and got married ! They had 24 years of difference but shared the same political convictions. They had five children. He supported his wife activities and she founded the Women's Franchise League. It allowed both married and unmarried women to vote.

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In 1903, five years after her husband died, Pankhurst founded the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).

But then, Emelline Pankhurst believed that years of moderate speeches, hunger strikes and promises about women's suffrage was not successful,  the struggle became known for physical confrontations (the suffrage is the right to vote) Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections it is why the women activists were called “suffragettes”

As a consequence, E Pankhurst, her daughters, and other WSPU activists received repeated prison sentences. At that time, she was perceived as a feminist. In fact, Emmeline PANKHURST is now perceived as the mot brave and inspirational leader in history.

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