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It's what the suffragettes would have wanted: the construction of the suffragists and suffragettes on Mumsnet.

Pedersen, Sarah

Authors



Abstract

The image of the historical campaign for votes for women is continually reinvigorated and reinvested with meaning by later feminists. An investigation into the ways in which the campaign is framed on the UK online parenting forum Mumsnet demonstrates clearly how women in the 21st century use their feminist foremothers to support their own political purposes. In particular, gender-critical feminists on Mumsnet are able to performatively invoke their suffragette heritage as militant, radical feminists, and imbue their cause with legitimacy. Use of suffragette pen names and WSPU colours allows gender-critical posters to identify each other both on and offline. Discussion of the campaign on Mumsnet demonstrates a good amount of knowledge, including distinctions between the contributions of militant and constitutional campaigners. Nonetheless, when the discussion turns to the necessity for women to vote, the dominance of the image of the suffering suffragette becomes clear. However, the suffragettes can also be used as justification for women not using their vote: as long as this is framed as a thoughtful decision, made out of anger at the political choices available, it can be presented as 'what the suffragettes would have wanted'.

Citation

PEDERSEN, S. 2023. It's what the suffragettes would have wanted: the construction of the suffragists and suffragettes on Mumsnet. Feminist media studies [online], 23(4), pages 1543-1558. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2022.2032788

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jan 18, 2022
Online Publication Date Jan 31, 2022
Publication Date Nov 15, 2023
Deposit Date Jan 20, 2022
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Feminist media studies
Print ISSN 1468-0777
Electronic ISSN 1471-5902
Publisher Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 23
Issue 7
Pages 1543-1558
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2022.2032788
Keywords Suffragette; Suffragist; Mumsnet; Politics; Gender-critical feminism
Public URL https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1575296

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PEDERSEN 2023 Its what the suffragettes (VOR) (654 Kb)
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Publisher Licence URL
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Version
Final VOR uploaded 2023.11.30




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