The Suffragettes white Edwardian dresses and sashes were political genius. They were also racist.

We're all in a feminist rage over the Supreme Court leak that might overturn Roe vs Wade, but the Suffragette movement is not the feminist icon we should look to : the Suffragettes white feminism and racism showed through in their protest outfits of lacy Edwardian dresses and a distinctive striped sash. Fashion history isn't just pretty historical dresses, it's learning what clothes mean, and there is a whole lot of meaning and ugliness under all that lace.

Suffragette white is idolized as a form of womens' rights protest to the present day, but the Suffragette clothes we remember were carefully chosen political symbols. White Edwardian clothing was popular for everyone, so an Edwardian white dress or blouse made for an accessible and sometimes sneaky uniform. Suffragette dress was aggressively feminine, relying on Western gender norms of "pure" and "virtuous" and "delicate" femininity to subvert criticisms of the Votes for Women movement. As in the Suffragette movie, these women's rights protestors could be militant and aggressive, but leveraging gender roles changed the political narrative by showing that they had no intention to truly smash the patriarchy, they simply wanted to hold onto their own power as the social order changed.

The suffragette sash and colors had carefully chosen political messaging too. While the UK purple and green sash is slightly better recognized, the US Suffragette movement more often used purple and gold. The gold represented the Kansas sunflower and a failed womens' suffrage bill in 1867 where Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony worked with a racist politician who was supporting womens rights to keep Black people disenfranchised. Womens rights history is full of similar instances of intersectional feminism being ignored as white suffragettes touted limited women's suffrage in the South as a way to further racist political goals. The Suffragette sashes colors weren't chosen in spite of this, they were a reflection of this historical womens rights movement failing to fight for anyone but white, upper- or middle-class women who were largely comfortable in patriarchal gender roles. We cannot separate these Suffragette dresses from their meaning, from the amount of white feminism from the Suffragettes, and from the Suffragette movement's racism. Angry as we may be at the Supreme Court and this Roe v Wade news, we can find better forms of womens rights protest.

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Chapters
0:00 Votes for women! But not those women.
0:31 Should you protest in a Suffragette outfit?
1:01 The ironies of the historical "womens" rights movement
3:34 The roots of the Suffragette movement
4:28 Suffragette dress was a political move.
5:16 Suffrage, but we'll keep the patriarchal gender roles.
5:59 How the Suffragette outfit was designed
7:13 Using fashion to change the political narrative
9:08 Leveraging privilege-- or not?
9:53 The Suffragettes and white supremacy
11:47 White dresses and "white women tears"
13:14 The suffragettes shouldn't be our feminist icons.
14:44 Ask yourself this before you put on the sash.
15:11 Tell me about your favorite protest fashions!

[jacquelinelarden]

Did you hear about the Jewish community in Florida. They are using religious freedom against the ban. They are suing the state government saying it is against their religious freedoms to have this ban. Which from what I know about Jewish religious law it totally is. I am so proud and hope that the Muslim community will follow.

[kittling]

The colours used by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in the UK were actually Green, White and VIOLET - I know this seems picky of me to bring up, but they stood for something in particular - the first letters match to 'Give Women the Vote' as well as the colours having pre-established meanings Violet represents loyalty and dignity, white for purity, and green for hope.

The suffragette movement here was not confined to the WSPU / Pankhursts. One of the Pankhurst daughters, Sylvia, had real issues with the classest nature of her mothers group so left and moved to the Eastend of London (a very working class area) and lived and worked with the women there. She was know to the women she worked with as 'our Sylvie' There was also the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (an organisation that is still running under the name of The Fawcett Society) which courted much less controversy because it restricted itself to legal actions. However did most of the practical leg work of research, briefings, legal cases. Both were pivotal

The British movement had big problems with class, nationalism, and racism - the WSPU even suspended activities during the Great War/WW1 and many of its leaders switched to giving out white feathers to men who did not enlist (which is a pretty gruesome use of class privilege to guilt/pressure working class men into almost certain death)

Much is made of the forced feedings and brutality that British suffragettes endured, and while this is true the upper class women were often spared the worst of it were as the working class suffragettes took the brunt of it.

On a more fun not - The WSPU actually had an all female body guard unit with martial arts training - that's well worth a look!

[Abahple]

The green/gold, white, and violet also played on the acrostic for Give Women the Vote - G for either green or gold, W for white, and V for violet. This sort of acrostic play had become popular during the Georgian period in jewelry. For example, there are extant brooches and such containing a bar of ruby, emerald, garnet, amethyst, ruby, and diamond to spell REGARD.

[BelleChanson]

I briefly* went to an all-girls boarding school that was founded in 1911 and the school colors were very specifically purple and yellow to reflect the women's suffrage colors...graduates wore white dresses for commencement. It's so strange to think about how even a century+ later these sorts of things are still showing up in our modern world.

*I only attended a year there; it was not a good fit for a number of reasons.

[Chibihugs]

V, hearing you speak up and speak out about this was something I didnt know how much I needed to hear. I do indeed plan to have a lovely Juneteenth, thank you.

[hayden]

I think my personal favorite protest fashion, if you can call it that, is the afro. It always will be. A radical and incredibly loud way of expressing blackness, especially black femininity.

[ecwm]

I have been researching clothing protest of athletes dressing in more covering attire to protest sexualizing in sports. Also the topless protests for topless equality. That's how this video is relevant and interesting to me.

[a.munroe]

Here for fashion. I stayed for the social awareness and i love you for your determination to educate. ❤️Thank you😊

[charlespentrose]

ugh, while I did not know this I am utterly unsurprised. *sigh* far too many people only care about their own rights and privileges and not the humanity of others.
I agree one hundred percent that if a person's feminism isn't intersectional it's BS.

[missterryvintage]

“Until we are all of us free, we are none of us free.” If only more people remember that. There's so much exclusion still, even in the present days. If community excludes anyone, it's not community anymore. :(

[pheart]

The trouble in the U.k. was working class women (which black people largely fell into at that time) didnt have the time or oppertunity to participate in protests. It was mainly middle class women who took part. If an unsympathetic employer discovered you were a suffragette you could simply be dismissed from employment. Middle class women could do as they pleased.

[knotyourcupftea]

As someone raised in Kansas, the golden sunflower thing is fascinating and also very on brand. For a state that prides itself so much for being a Free State during the Civil War that there is a mural of John Brown standing on the corpse of a confederate soldier in the state capital, casual racism is practically a way of life (especially in the rural parts like where I’m from).

[Poqets]

I’m a huge fan of the barets and leather jackets of the black Panther party!
Not only did they provide for their community while championing black caused, but the goth in me just loves the aesthetic

[lauracarrolldebolt]

A note on privilege. I worked on the ERA in 2016. Too many white men and more than a few white women, including some in our own families, told us we were asking for too much. Some black women were very pointed that we weren’t doing enough. We won and I still went home and sobbed *in private* because being ground down on all sides left me wondering how to do this kind of work surrounded by hostile people on all sides. Maybe ironically, as a group, black male legislators were the only ones not telling us we were wrong. I would have died a madwoman after doing that over and over and losing for 60 years like Anthony did. Alice Paul also flawed, who was Uber-focused on getting that constitutional amendment came to a movement already more than 50 years old.

I don’t cosplay history, but I am a student of the suffrage movement. It involved thousands of women across more than 70 very tumultuous years doing things both big and small. There are stories about Ida B Wells as a suffragist that can only be found in the Chicago Defender. She was right there with the white suffragists, but the white papers ignored her. I am sure there are many other stories that have been lost to history. Like in almost all things, we can and do need to do better than the past, but remember they are imperfect people, with all the flaw and foibles of humanity and their own cultural limitations, not statues.

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson got to own actual human beings and are on our money, have holidays and states named after the and statue honoring them? Women like Susan B Anthony weren’t perfect but still light years ahead of where her society was in general. We spend far more ink talking about how Alice Paul and Susan B Anthony were racist-classists than criticizing the men running a country who *owned other human beings*

Again, I think suffragette cosplay is for amateurs, but I feel like these kind of takes include some internalized misogyny when we hold only historical women to today’s standards.

[lenabreijer]

Canada has "the famous five" who challenged the court that women were "persons" under the law. They are just as problematic, racists, bigots and into eugenics. Especially now with the residential school issues and unmarked graves of the native in the thousands. Oh and native women and men didn't get the vote until the 60s. Because native peoples weren't Canadian citizens....
History is difficult. The cannon fodder in the fight for equality is the ones with the most power, money and education. This happened in the 60s too. And in the 80s with LGBTQ rights. They get in and change the laws then the next group moves in. In politics you go with what will win. My mother, my grandfather were both into politics. My mother was more pragmatic than my grandfather. She joined the canadian liberal party and worked for them because she said she wanted to influence the winners even though her personal leanings were much farther left.
Basically politics is dirty.

[SibylleLeon]

As though this video wasn't perfect (and important) enough on its own, the description containing the line: "My pearls, which I bought specifically for moments that require pearl-clutching, ..." made the rest of my day, week, and month. Thank you :D <3

[barbara_LL]

kinda of an random innuendo, but I love that in Anne with an E they make VERY CLEAR that the suffragetes were racists, classist and down right cruel, like, sure their work was important but they were still really bigoted

[LDF]

You have taught me a lot, thank you. I took a class last semester about the civil rights movement and I found out why a majority of people do not know about these things. The individual states have the right to decide how much to teach to its students. Most states do not teach even 10% of the recommended material.

[kittling]

I forgot to mention that I really like this video. I think we need to be aware of how organisations (and people) were flawed and bring attention to it is brilliant. I also think we need to be careful not to just fall into the trap of thinking the past was bad and we're fine now. The truth is all the same issues are still rife in society and therefore in any organisation, so we need to stay aware of this and always try and do better. - this video is a great way of helping us do that I think.

[taranian]

Interesting details about the reasons behind those garments holding the symbolic significance that they did. Makes perfect sense.

It's certainly not the last time that respectability was used as a tool to gain more acceptance and rights. In the early aughts when marriage equality was still being proposed and fought for, a lot of more marginal people (drag queens, gogo boys, trans folks, etc.) were cast as being "those weirdos, whom we are totally not like" in a lot of discourse. A ton of trans and drag-adjacent queers were essentially told to sit down and shut up so as not to "ruin it for the rest of us". Luckily after about a decade of that apparently being enough, the next generation has come in and reinvigorated the movement!