edjiejwi
edjiejwi
07.04.2020 • 
English

Thirty-three years before, Emmeline's husband had drafted the first Women's Suffrage Bill for Parliament, which was doing well in the House of Commons until the prime minister, William Gladstone, spoke out against it:

I have no fear lest the woman should encroach upon the power of the man. The fear I have is, lest we should invite her unwittingly to trespass against the delicacy, the purity, the refinement, the elevation of her own nature, which are the present sources of its power.

By invoking the delicacy and refinement of women. Gladstone made a calculated appeal to traditional, repressive Ideas of how a lady should behave.

-A History of the World in 100 Objects, Neil MacGregor

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