Suffragette - a movie for the world

By Ken Russell in All Sorts

reflecting the vision of the gospel; catching the vision of a better life for women; equality between men and women, slave and free; the struggle goes on.

HOLIDAYS LOSE MUCH OF THEIR SIGNIFICANCE once you're retired, and looking back on the last six weeks, or so, and
gauging the highlights, or otherwise, is not the exciting process it once might have been. But despite unwelcome intrusions on the serenity of my holiday experience, there was indeed one highlight worth sharing in the first Connections column of the year. It was the movie Suffragette.
I had seen the trailer weeks before, and marked it as a must-see. There are a limited range of movies that will attract me into the cavernous depths of the Rialto in daylight hours. I abhor the tsunami of violent extravaganzas regularly inflicted by the Hollywood moguls, and equally, the gooey American attempts at comedy. But movies that address serious social issues, that illuminate the rich dramas by which the human race has made progress toward a more just and humane manner of living, get my vote. Suffragette promised to be one of those, and I bought my ticket with anticipation. I was not disappointed.

Let's be clear, it's not a movie for the faint hearted. It's a grainy portrayal of life in the big cities of England in the years prior to the first war, with the demeaned role of women in sharp focus. Forget Downton Abbey. Maud Watts is an unlikely heroine. Young wife and mother, she works with her husband long dreary hours in a London laundry. The wages are subsistence stuff, just enough for the two of them to make a poor living for themselves and their little boy. She regularly suffers sexual abuse at the hands of the male supervisor, with no recourse, as do many of the younger women who wash and iron the linen of richer and more privileged families.

Un-affected by the simmering tide of angry voices pushing for womens rights in 1912 England Emma had no aspiration to be part of it until she comes under the influence of an older fellow laundry worker and
witnesses some of the civil disobedience being waged by the militant campaign of (Mrs) Emmeline Pankhurst. Naively unaware of the dangers, Maud is drawn in and becomes what we would call today, an "activist" eventually morphing into a front-line member of the Womens Social and Political Union, advocating for womens voting rights. They became the suffragettes. The tactics of WSPU were then, and still are, hugely controversial. While they aschewed personal violence, they took their deep sense of injustice out on property. They bombed pillar boxes, lit fires, smashed windows, lay on the roads and disrupted public life in a hundred ways. They practiced civil disobedience. As popular indignation grew exponentially, police confrontation became particularly brutal, with beatings and imprisonment the order of the day.
Emma Watts was increasingly drawn into the vortex of all of this, and the movie shows her increasing commitment despite. growing opposition. The impact on her, personally, was profound, and the ferocity of the public backlash on women identified as among the leaders is a striking part of the movie. Emma was thrown out of the family home by a husband who has no understanding or sympathy for the cause.. She is denied access to her son. She loses her job. She goes to jail, several times, and while on hunger strike she is force-fed by a posse of prison staff, the men of which take the opportunity to fondle and humiliate her.

Above all, the movie graphically demonstrates the implacable depths of male dominance on the political and civil structures of Great Britain in the pre-war years. The womens voice was held to be of no account, an impudent and improper demand from a half of society whose aspirations were seen to undermine the God-given order of things.
So what's the significance of the movie a hundred years after those fraught events have passed into history? In short, a great deal. We should never forget, especially the women among us, the price paid for what are counted as among the most fundamental rights in the civil
code. And it's perhaps timely to note that the right so grudgingly won for the womens vote, won here twenty yrs earlier by our own Kate Sheppard was based on the appeal for equality, the irony of which should not be lost on any of us. The current cry is not for the vote but the still elusive gender equality, equal pay for equal work and sufficient recognition for womens role in bearing our children. Women still struggle for the true equality needed to bridge the gap between "rights" and "opportunities." Suffragette is not a perfect piece of history. It's a work in progress - as witness so many white ribbons on the lapels of New Zealand men.

But Suffragette, hopefully, will be a movie for the world. While it is a moot point as to whether the most socially introverted countries will allow it in, wherever the film is shown it will be a powerful encouragement to women still denied even the most basic rights - to the vote, yes, but to an education, to a meaningful say in the life of their communities - not to mention liberation from paternalistic marriages that allow for the most frightful exploitation. Even a few such women may see this movie, and like humble Emma Watts, will catch a vision of a better life for women. It is a cost being borne this very day by women on every continent. It may be a call to patient perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds, or to rebellion stark and dangerous. Those women will know that the entrenched prejudice of powerful men is hugely oppressive of womens right to self expression, and sooner or later must be challenged. Let there be a silent prayer from movie goers that when the movie reaches less permissive shores the whispered encouragement of Mrs Pankhurst to Emma in the thick of London's turmoil will be heard anew "never surrender, never give up the fight."

Is this a Christian movie? By a narrow definition, no, but by St Paul's highest vision of the gospel, engendering equality between "men and women, slave and free" the movie world is a powerful weapon of "christian" liberation today. So go buy your ticket soon. The season is almost over. Ken Russell