Voting Station

Christabel Pankhurst

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Advocate

The Resume

    (September 22, 1880-February 13, 1958)
    Born in Manchester, England, United Kingdom
    Daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst
    With her mother, founded the Women's Social and Political Union (1903)
    Became a Second Adventist evangelist
    Moved to California (1940)
    Wrote the books 'The Lord Cometh: The World Crisis Explained' (1923) and 'Pressing Problems of the Closing Age' (1924)
    Named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (1936)

Why she might be annoying:

    Fellow suffragette Helena Swanwick wrote, 'She was unlike her sisters, cynical and cold at heart.'
    After the government changed its policy towards imprisoned suffragettes who went on hunger strikes from early release to forced feedings, she stopped participating in activities that would get her arrested, while encouraging rank and file suffragettes to do them.
    She moved to Paris to avoid arrest on conspiracy charges after the WSPU initiated an arson campaign (1913).
    She claimed men opposed women's suffrage because it would put an end to their promiscuity.
    She claimed 80% of men were infected with sexually transmitted diseases.

Why she might not be annoying:

    She was named Christabel after a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
    She led the WPSU's adoption of tactics to gain media attention when she and Annie Kenney disrupted a Liberal Party meeting by loudly asking speakers when they would let women vote and unfurling a 'Votes for Women' banner (1905).
    She persuaded 116 physicians to sign a petition to Prime Minister H.H. Asquith protesting the forced feeding of imprisoned suffragettes (1908).
    She said in court about the suffragettes' adoption of more militant tactics, 'We cannot make any orderly protest because we have not the means whereby citizens may do such a thing: we have not the vote. And so long as we have not a vote, we must be disorderly.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying