ABSTRACT
On 17 October 1912, Emmeline Pankhurst stood alone on the platform at the Albert Hall. There was a tense feeling amongst her audience since the statement about the split had appeared that morning in both Votes for Women and The Suffragette, circulated one day earlier than their scheduled publication date. The rank-and-file membership had had no say in the expulsion of the Pethick Lawrences and now Emmeline had to draw on all her powers of persuasion to present the fait accompli as a favourable move, that was only a small part of a much broader and more important initiative. After emphasising the need for unity of purpose and of policy, Emmeline made a brief reference to the statement and began to outline the new militant policy which would include relentless opposition not only to the party in power, the Liberals, but also the Irish and Labour Parties which supported the anti-suffrage government. With great mastery and emotion, she carried her audience with her as she explained how militant women were the victims rather than perpetrators of violence, including sexual violence (‘outrages’), and how they were a fighting force for the progress of all women in a society which upheld a double moral standard:
Now, why are we militant? … I tell you, women, in this hall that you who allow yourselves to be tricked by the excuses of politicians, have not yet awakened to a realisation of the situation. The day after the outrages in Wales, I met some of the women who had exposed themselves to the indecent assaults of that mob. (‘Shame!’) … one woman … said she did not feel she could even tell her husband or her son the nature of the assault, and then I said to her – ‘How could you bear it?’ … And she said, ‘All the time I thought of the women who day by day, and year by year, are suffering through the White Slave Traffic’ - (‘Shame’). … In our speeches on Woman Suffrage, we have not dwelt very much on that horrible aspect of women’s lives, because some of us felt that to think of those things, to speak very much about them, was apt to cause a state of feeling which would make it impossible for us to carry on our work with cheerful hearts … until women have the Vote,
the White Slave Traffic will continue all over the world. Until by law we can establish an equal moral code for men and women, women will be fair game for the vicious section of the population inside Parliament as well as outside it.
