"Deeds, not Words"

It was on October 10, 1903 that I invited a number of women to my house in Nelson Street, Manchester, for purposes of organisation. We voted to call our new society the Women's Social and Political Union, partly to emphasize its democracy, and partly to define its object as political rather than propagandist. We resolved to limit our membership exclusively to women, to keep ourselves absolutely free from party affiliation, and to be satisfied with nothing but action on our question. "Deeds, not Words" was to be our permanent motto.
-Emmeline Pankhurst

Although the 3rd of October 1903 is often quoted to be the "birthday of Suffragettes", the move for women to have the vote had really started in 1897, when Millicent Fawcett founded the National Union of Women's Suffrage. "Suffrage" means the right to vote and that is women wanted - hence its inclusion in Fawcett's title.



Women today have finally nearly worldwide a right vote.

But most men still behave like the 'gentlemen' more than 100 years ago - a very interesting article is Reasons For and Against the Enfranchisement of Women (1872) - only on slightly different subjects (e.g. wages).