Rise Up Women

On February 6th 1918, after campaigning for over 50 years, British women were finally granted the vote. In November 1919, the first woman MP, Lady Nancy Astor, was elected to the House of Commons. History was made. 100 years on, it is time to reflect on the daring and painful struggle women undertook to break into a political system that excluded them. In the voices of key suffragettes, 'Rise Up Women!' chronicles the founding of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies in the 1860s, led by Millicent Garrett Fawcett, and the formation of the more militant Women's Social and Political Union in 1903. 'Deeds not words!' was their slogan and they took increasingly violent action, enduring police brutality, imprisonment and force-feeding. Diane Atkinson depicts a truly national and international struggle.