The decision to raise a statue to Dame Millicent Fawcett, the campaigner for votes for women, in London’s Parliament Square (where there are 11 statues of men) is not just a victory for feminism: it’s also a recognition of the achievements of change through constitutional and peaceful means.
The more flamboyant lives of the Suffragettes have hitherto claimed the greater claim to fame. Mrs Pankhurst has been portrayed by Vanessa Redgrave and Meryl Streep. The movie Suffragette gives much historical credit for winning votes to Emily Wilding Davison, the unbalanced extremist who threw herself under the king’s horse at the 1913 Derby (years later, the jockey committed suicide, unable to forget the trauma).
By contrast, Millicent Fawcett – working steadily and persistently for votes, education and property rights for women – has often been overlooked. Dame Millicent – whose sister was Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first British woman doctor – disapproved of the violence that the Suffragettes embraced, posting bombs in letter boxes and attempting to set theatres on fire.
So it’s good that Dame Millicent’s achievements should now be commemorated. By the same token, Christian feminists should reclaim their history, underlining what a strong role religious faith played in the advancement of women’s status.
Many of the first modern feminists drew their values from Christianity, starting with Florence Nightingale (who is acknowledged as a true pathfinder by Ray Strachey in her authoritative account of the women’s movement, The Cause). In her writings, Flo Nightingale sees the example of Christ leading her in all her endeavours.
Other founding feminists who were influential with Dame Millicent and her sister were the religious writers Hannah More and Harriet Martineau, and especially the anti-slavery campaigner and vicar’s wife Josephine Butler (who took prostitutes into her own home). The values of Christian Socialism were embedded in these campaigners for women’s suffrage and advancement.
The achievements of women as pioneering doctors also deserve recognition. As well as Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (and the American Elizabeth Blackwell), honour is due to the Anglo-Catholic Dr Mary Scharleib, a skilled surgeon who advanced women’s health but opposed abortion, and Dr Agnes M’Laren, a niece of the statesman John Bright, who campaigned to allow doctor-nuns in Africa (of the Medical Missionaries of Mary) to tend to women in gynaecology and obstetrics.
Theresa May would be in that tradition of Christian feminists who work for change through constitutional means, and it’s no surprise that she is pleased about the statue to Millicent Fawcett.
Another product of that admirable circle of Christian Socialists was the reformer Octavia Hill, a co-founder of the National Trust, which preserves Britain’s architectural and landscape heritage. Hill, who taught slum children, believed that there should be open spaces for poor people, but I wonder if today’s National Trust has rather strayed away from her original vision.
James Delingpole, writing in the Daily Mail, called the current National Trust “achingly politically correct” under the stewardship of its current director, Dame Helen Ghosh. Among its programmes this year has been a special LGBT project, identifying houses where lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender toffs have lived: one such programme was named “Sutton House Queered”.
And last week, the National Trust drew criticism from the Church of England, and the heirs of Cadbury, by omitting all mention of the purpose of Easter from its seasonal “Cadbury Egg hunt”. Dame Helen is described as a committed Catholic, and her critics say she “should know better” than to delete Easter references. Indeed.
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I regret the passing of the Easter bonnet, the traditional new hat at Eastertide, so blithely celebrated in that old Judy Garland song Easter Parade.
But the change of seasons does usually indicate a change of seasonal garments, and one of the minor joys of ferreting out clothes unused over the winter is finding stuff in the pockets that you thought you’d mislaid: a spare key, a pair of remembered gloves, and – nice surprise – a forgotten fiver you put aside for a coffee emergency.
The Gospel story of the widow sweeping through her household forthat lost coin, and the satisfaction she experienced in recovering it comes to mind – as I unearth the lighter apparel of spring…
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