SUFFRAGETTE

A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organization in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections. The term refers in particular to members of the British Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), a women-only movement founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, which engaged in direct action and civil disobedience . In 1906, a reporter writing in the Daily Mail coined the term suffragette for the WSPU, from suffragist,α to belittle the women advocating women's suffrage. The militants embraced the new name, even adopting it for use as the title of the newspaper published by the WSPU.

Women had won the right to vote in several countries by the end of the 19th century; in 1893, New Zealand became the first self-governing country to grant the vote to all women over the age of 21.

The suffragette campaign was suspended when World War I broke out in 1914. After the war, the Representation of the People Act 1918 gave the vote to women over the age of 30 who met certain property qualifications. Ten years later, women gained electoral equality with men when the 1928 gave all women the vote at age 21.

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