Recounting the trials and tribulations of the women fighting for the right to vote, Joyce Marlow’s Suffragettes is, unfortunately, far less successful than its namesake. A strange anthology of quotes and phrases mixed in with legislation and meeting minutes, the structure and organisation of this book leaves a lot to be desired, even for the most interested of readers.
A (mostly) chronological exploration of the period from the early 1900s to full enfranchisement of women, the book lacks a sense of continuous pace, with 1900-1918 covered in 300 pages, with the remaining period up until the 1930s filling only the final forty. Whilst in-depth coverage of the starting years of the suffragist and suffragette movement is appreciated, and largely well detailed, readers can’t help but feel as if Marlow felt bored by the end – if the final forty pages had been replaced with “and the rest is history”, it would feel not too dissimilar.
I did enjoy the spotlight given to the individuals behind the movements, as well as the internal strife’s and struggles the suffragette cause encountered, particularly regarding methodologies, as well as the light shone particularly on the Pankhurst family. Whilst many, rightly, remember the Pankhurst’s as the face of the suffragette movement, it is interesting to note the level of involvement that they had (or didn’t!) with the final days of the movement, particularly in regard to the securing of legislation. Clearly, the Pankhurst’s had a key role in the entire movement, but having these details spelled out does change a reader’s perspective on the ‘deity-like’ status the family have acquired.
The structure of this tome, this amalgamation of letters, speech extracts, legislation and a myriad of other formats works well in principle but means around a quarter of this book is contextual information, titles and other details that don’t progress understanding, except leading you to realise when different date formats emerged. Instead of solid interconnecting dialogue that the author could have provided, the use of extracts is akin to simply cutting up existing content and pasting it together, and calling it a book. It doesn’t read well and is a major limiting factor for Marlow’s work.
The potential for Suffragettes is there, and there are elements of this book that work very well, but the overall structure and organisation of Marlow’s work leaves a lot to be desired. A great way to get the story beginning to end if you can make it through the pages, Suffragettes needs the connective tissue of an author’s work to piece together this barebones work.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Suffragettes (ISBN: 978-0-349-00774-8) was published in 2015
