Latest / Ridiculous History / British Suffragettes Knew Jūjitsu

Transcript

British Suffragettes Knew Jūjitsu · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
0:30
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. The energy is great here
0:34
Speaker 1: today and we hope you are feeling a wonderful energy
0:37
Speaker 1: in your neck of the woods as well. Part of
0:39
Speaker 1: our great energy, as always, is due to the hard
0:42
Speaker 1: work and uh unrelenting coolness of our super producer, Mr
0:47
Speaker 1: Max Williams. They called me Ben No. We were talking
0:51
Speaker 1: off air. We were talking off air a little bit
0:54
Speaker 1: about martial arts, you me and Max, and uh you
0:58
Speaker 1: said that while you have not tried jiu jitsu as
1:02
Speaker 1: if yet, you were for a time a karate kid. Well,
1:07
Speaker 1: you know, I did study the ancient art of karate briefly.
1:12
Speaker 1: I believe I made it so far as the brown
1:14
Speaker 1: belt is now brown belts first? Now your white belt,
1:17
Speaker 1: white belt, yellow belt? What what order to see? Obviously,
1:20
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm talking to start off with
1:22
Speaker 1: the white belt. I think I know that you started
1:24
Speaker 1: with a white belt, but then I think it's brown belt.
1:26
Speaker 1: I think it's brown belt, and then maybe yellow belts.
1:28
Speaker 1: I think purple is like what second to the last
1:31
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, purple is definitely up there. Okay, okay,
1:35
Speaker 1: that was right. It's white, yellow, orange. Okay, it was not.
1:39
Speaker 1: I did not get brown. Brown is before black brown
1:41
Speaker 1: is a big deal? Yeah, yellow, orange, blue, purple, purple
1:44
Speaker 1: with a stripe, green, green with a stripe, red, red
1:48
Speaker 1: with a stripe, brown, brown with a stripe, and black.
1:50
Speaker 1: Um yeah, pretty sure. I only made it so far
1:52
Speaker 1: as yellow. And your mileage may vary. You know who
1:57
Speaker 1: you study with and Max, you were to all you
2:00
Speaker 1: know us that while you yourself are not a practitioner
2:03
Speaker 1: of jiu jitsu, you had some close friends who are
2:06
Speaker 1: super into it. Yeah. Yeah, Actually my dad was really
2:09
Speaker 1: into a belief haie kwon do and he was like
2:12
Speaker 1: a brown belt in that in his younger days. But
2:15
Speaker 1: I had two roommates at time, and one of them
2:17
Speaker 1: wanted to become a um m m a guy, so
2:21
Speaker 1: he studied a lot of jiu jitsu and stuff, and
2:23
Speaker 1: the other guy, he um, he studied the one that's
2:26
Speaker 1: like basically like dancing. I want to say it's cappy Barra,
2:29
Speaker 1: but I know that's a cappy barra. Is that an
2:34
Speaker 1: adorable marsupial? Uh? Yeah. I was talking with you guys
2:37
Speaker 1: in a minute ago about the episode of Bob's Burger's
2:40
Speaker 1: where Tina takes capawara from Jarro, who has a luxurious
2:44
Speaker 1: ponytail which he uses as a weapon while saying ponytail
2:46
Speaker 1: party dail ponytal. Jiujitsu is interesting though, I mean, I
2:50
Speaker 1: think it's it's probably elements of this and a lot
2:52
Speaker 1: of martial arts, but you know, the idea is to
2:54
Speaker 1: sort of weaponize your opponent's momentum, So it's it's a
2:58
Speaker 1: it's a great self defense technique for people that maybe
3:01
Speaker 1: aren't like the M M A type, you know, or
3:04
Speaker 1: like bruisers, and you can easily kind of misdirect or
3:07
Speaker 1: redirect the energy of your attacker and use it against them.
3:11
Speaker 1: So it's all about kind of movement and certain you
3:13
Speaker 1: know tricks that kind of will harness that momentum and
3:16
Speaker 1: actually use it to disable your opponent and like actually
3:20
Speaker 1: you know, besting them in hand to hand combat. Person.
3:24
Speaker 1: It's so cool too, because the translation, if you look
3:28
Speaker 1: at what it means in English, is beautiful. So this
3:30
Speaker 1: is a Japanese martial art upon which a lot of
3:33
Speaker 1: other martial arts and combat sports have been informed. You
3:36
Speaker 1: can find elements of jiu jitsu and so many other things.
3:39
Speaker 1: If you look at the translation, uh, jew ju means gentle, soft, supple, flexible,
3:47
Speaker 1: or yielding, and jutsu can be kind of translated as
3:51
Speaker 1: like technique or art. So jiu jitsu then roughly means
3:55
Speaker 1: the yielding art and it's exactly as you describe Noll
3:59
Speaker 1: redirection of someone else's energy. So you might ask, if
4:04
Speaker 1: you read the title of today's episode, you might ask,
4:07
Speaker 1: what on earth does the push for voting rights have
4:11
Speaker 1: to do with jiu jitsu? Well, this is in part
4:14
Speaker 1: of incredibly inspiring story. Let's travel back to Britain for
4:21
Speaker 1: you know, much of its history. Britain, like many other
4:24
Speaker 1: places in the world, only allowed certain demographics of people
4:28
Speaker 1: to vote, and they did not believe that women or
4:31
Speaker 1: female identifying individuals should be allowed to vote. So they
4:35
Speaker 1: took to the streets and they were called suffragettes, individual
4:39
Speaker 1: women fighting for voting rights for women. And if you
4:43
Speaker 1: look at there's a great, all that's interesting article that
4:46
Speaker 1: we wanted to start off with here that describes the
4:49
Speaker 1: suffragettes thus lead It says a lot of these British
4:52
Speaker 1: suffragettes were smaller, older women. They were you know, wearing
4:56
Speaker 1: long dresses, big flower covered hats, because we know hats
4:59
Speaker 1: have be fancy at this time, and uh, they meant
5:03
Speaker 1: to look like proper, somewhat posh, established women. But they
5:10
Speaker 1: were also you know, they were civil activists. This is
5:13
Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds. They didn't want to make a
5:15
Speaker 1: violent movement, but they were confronted by at times brutal
5:21
Speaker 1: police forces and law enforcement. So what can they do
5:25
Speaker 1: to protect themselves against these people who are you know,
5:28
Speaker 1: professionally trained to win fights, you know what I mean. Yeah,
5:33
Speaker 1: And it's not like history has like done away with
5:36
Speaker 1: police brutality or you know, kind of redirecting the narrative
5:40
Speaker 1: when it comes to dealing with protesters, you know, or
5:43
Speaker 1: or like recasting them as like terrorists or you know,
5:47
Speaker 1: agitators or what have. You've certainly seen a lot of
5:49
Speaker 1: that recently, and you do have to protect yourself from
5:53
Speaker 1: the police, unfortunately. Uh, and this was no exception. Oftentimes
5:57
Speaker 1: suffragettes were arrested, beat you know, man handled literally by
6:03
Speaker 1: brutish you know men, groped and actually there were a
6:06
Speaker 1: few situations where during hunger strikes, Uh, they were like
6:11
Speaker 1: forcibly fed through rubber tubes, which is just about the
6:16
Speaker 1: most invasive, awful thing I can imagine. Um Black Friday.
6:22
Speaker 1: It was a very very um dark day for the
6:25
Speaker 1: Suffragette movement November eighth, nineteen ten. Two marchers were actually
6:30
Speaker 1: killed by police and this led to basically what we've
6:34
Speaker 1: been describing leading up to, a need to have a
6:37
Speaker 1: way of defending yourself while also protecting yourself from prosecution
6:42
Speaker 1: by let's say, handling illegal weapons. As you know, for example,
6:46
Speaker 1: I believe you know, Britain has always largely been a
6:48
Speaker 1: gun free society. Even the police is used like clubs
6:52
Speaker 1: and truncheons or whatever to beat people up, but at
6:55
Speaker 1: the very least you don't see a lot of police shootings.
6:58
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean you can't kill somebody by beating
7:01
Speaker 1: the too hard, because that's what we saw with those
7:03
Speaker 1: deaths on Black Friday. Enter a very important figure in
7:08
Speaker 1: the suffragette movement, a slight, middle aged woman kind of
7:14
Speaker 1: perfectly fit the bill of that classic suffragette kind of look.
7:18
Speaker 1: A woman named Edith Margaret Jerrud who was described in
7:23
Speaker 1: that All Things Interesting article as being tiny yet tenacious. Uh.
7:28
Speaker 1: And she was the person who brought jiu jitsu to
7:33
Speaker 1: the women of the suffrage movement. Yes, yes, she is
7:37
Speaker 1: the protagonist of our story today. Edith was born in Bath,
7:43
Speaker 1: Somerset in eighteen seventy two, and she didn't have an
7:46
Speaker 1: easy start at life. Quite candidly, her parents were unmarried
7:51
Speaker 1: and that was a big, big no no at the
7:54
Speaker 1: time in that society, so she was sent away to
7:57
Speaker 1: live with her aunt. She didn't really fit in with
8:01
Speaker 1: any cliques at school and didn't feel like she belonged,
8:05
Speaker 1: so she found refuge in the world of athletics and
8:09
Speaker 1: pursued that as a hobby. Fast forward to she becomes
8:15
Speaker 1: a she has become rather a teacher at a school
8:18
Speaker 1: where she helps the kids learn physical education, and she
8:24
Speaker 1: meets this guy named William, she marries William, and then
8:29
Speaker 1: in eight the Groad couple sees a demonstration by this
8:36
Speaker 1: guy named Edward Barton. Right now, usually when we hear
8:39
Speaker 1: the word demonstration here in modern day society, we think
8:43
Speaker 1: of something like a protest. There was a demonstration for
8:47
Speaker 1: or against a given social issue. But back in the day,
8:51
Speaker 1: in this period of time, a demonstration would be much
8:55
Speaker 1: more like a show like come see this amazing, you know,
8:59
Speaker 1: like to like ex yeah, exactly, And this guy. This
9:05
Speaker 1: guy went on stage, Edward Barton right, and he said,
9:09
Speaker 1: I have developed my own proprietary style of grappling and
9:16
Speaker 1: then striking. I call it in a burst of striking. Well,
9:21
Speaker 1: he called it Bartitsu because he's part of right. Yeah,
9:26
Speaker 1: I'll grapple strikes a strong second, I would argue, Yeah,
9:29
Speaker 1: I would say, I would say, honestly, it's always questionable
9:32
Speaker 1: when somebody names something after themselves. So anyway, people were
9:37
Speaker 1: into this idea. They watched these demonstrations. Folks knew about
9:41
Speaker 1: Edward Barton right, and his style became so well known
9:47
Speaker 1: that Sherlock Holmes actually mentions it in a nineteen o
9:51
Speaker 1: three story by Arthur Conan Doyle. So it was in
9:55
Speaker 1: the zeitgeist. You could say, it's kind of funny that
9:58
Speaker 1: if you think about it, I mean, this dude, like
10:00
Speaker 1: you said, naming something after yourself, it's usually a good
10:03
Speaker 1: sign of some mild form of megalomania. But it's also like,
10:07
Speaker 1: you know, this was a form of jiu jitsu that
10:10
Speaker 1: he was demonstrating, and he basically culturally appropriated it and
10:13
Speaker 1: named it after himself. Yeah, and the Garrets we know
10:19
Speaker 1: from this point were very interested in this concept. One
10:23
Speaker 1: of the most poetic and beautiful things about martial arts
10:28
Speaker 1: is the idea that we described earlier, which is, uh,
10:32
Speaker 1: there's a hip hop song that puts it perfectly by
10:35
Speaker 1: dead Press. It's the idea that a poor man's empty
10:38
Speaker 1: hand as a weapon. And the Garrets were fascinated. They
10:43
Speaker 1: went on to study with a Japanese jiu jitsu instructor
10:49
Speaker 1: who knew Barton right. His name Sada Kosu Yanishi, and
10:54
Speaker 1: when u Yanishi left in nineteen o eight, they actually
10:57
Speaker 1: took over his dojo. Edith would teach the women and
11:02
Speaker 1: children's classes, and one of the things that she always
11:05
Speaker 1: emphasized to these populations or to her students, was hey, look,
11:10
Speaker 1: you don't have to be bigger than your foe or
11:14
Speaker 1: your opponent. As a matter of fact, you can use
11:16
Speaker 1: the leverage of jiu jitsu to overpower them. And people
11:21
Speaker 1: found this tremendously inspiring. I want to shout out. Jake
11:24
Speaker 1: Rawson wrote an excellent Mental Floss article on this great
11:28
Speaker 1: title to the female jiu jitsu crew that defended women's rights.
11:31
Speaker 1: I say that and like you know kung fu movie
11:34
Speaker 1: dub voice, Oh there it is, Yeah, yeah, this is
11:37
Speaker 1: this is great though. I mean, like you know, remember
11:39
Speaker 1: the children's classes. I mean, this is dangerous time, you know.
11:43
Speaker 1: You like, you know, there were pickpockets and thieves and
11:46
Speaker 1: you know, rippers around every corner, you know, and you
11:49
Speaker 1: had to be able to defend yourself against all those rippers, um,
11:53
Speaker 1: you know, and if you're a kid, the best way
11:56
Speaker 1: to be able to do that kid or a small
11:58
Speaker 1: smallish person you know, or or someone that's not maybe
12:01
Speaker 1: as powerful jiu jitsu is perfect it really does, you know,
12:05
Speaker 1: kind of used your opponent's weaknesses against them. So, you know,
12:09
Speaker 1: the Druids obviously, like we're they wanted to go deep
12:12
Speaker 1: with this. Obviously Barton right was their kind of inroad
12:15
Speaker 1: into the deeper study of of true Japanese jiu jitsu. UM.
12:20
Speaker 1: But they want they were was it Bartsu wasn't enough
12:24
Speaker 1: for them. They wanted to go all the way. So,
12:25
Speaker 1: like you said, they actually took over that jiu jitsu
12:28
Speaker 1: dojo from a unishi there in Golden Square in London,
12:32
Speaker 1: and they made a big go of it, and and
12:36
Speaker 1: it was very successful. So Garrett achieved some further notoriety
12:41
Speaker 1: UM when she released a short film UH in nineteen
12:46
Speaker 1: o seven which would have been you know, no, no
12:48
Speaker 1: small feat. It was not exactly the most democratized technology
12:52
Speaker 1: at the time. It would have been something you would
12:53
Speaker 1: have had to pay a pretty penny to do. And
12:56
Speaker 1: you know, it made the rounds. And it was a
12:58
Speaker 1: film as opposed to like, you know, one of those
13:00
Speaker 1: exposed we talked about. It was a film obviously able
13:03
Speaker 1: to be much more widely distributed, that showed off her technique,
13:06
Speaker 1: you know, and how she could take down a much
13:08
Speaker 1: larger opponent and a very important figurehead and leader of
13:12
Speaker 1: the women's suffrage movement, Emmeline Pankhurst, invited her to appear
13:17
Speaker 1: at the Women's Social and Political Union meeting in nineteen
13:21
Speaker 1: o nine, and she made a real impact on the suffragettes.
13:26
Speaker 1: They were just so impressed with her poise and her
13:29
Speaker 1: passion about this technique and they wanted to be a
13:32
Speaker 1: part of it. They asked if she would do regular
13:35
Speaker 1: training sessions for the Suffragettes. By December of that year,
13:38
Speaker 1: Jared had a exclusive contract almost essentially with the Suffragettes
13:44
Speaker 1: and then started something called Suffragettes Self Defense Club. And
13:48
Speaker 1: this is exactly what it sounded like. It was just
13:50
Speaker 1: a way of kind of teaching these women to defend
13:54
Speaker 1: themselves using the techniques of of jiu jitsu, and this
14:05
Speaker 1: escalated in step with the push against equal voting rights.
14:10
Speaker 1: So Edith started holding self defense classes for suffragettes, essentially saying,
14:17
Speaker 1: here's what happens if you have to deal with Heckler's
14:21
Speaker 1: at a protest, specifically to dance school nearby. When those
14:26
Speaker 1: protests at this dance school on Argylls Street began to
14:31
Speaker 1: run into increasingly violent opposition, not just from regular jerk
14:36
Speaker 1: civilian dudes, but from the actual police, she said, Okay,
14:40
Speaker 1: self defense is all well and good, but now I
14:43
Speaker 1: am going to teach you how to fight back. And
14:46
Speaker 1: a lot of this information comes from Jared's great nephew,
14:50
Speaker 1: Martin Williams. Martin says that Edith would sometimes use the
14:56
Speaker 1: former dojo as a hiding place for or her fellow activists.
15:02
Speaker 1: She didn't want people to know Golden Square was a dojo,
15:05
Speaker 1: and she was very for anybody's unfamiliar with the layout
15:09
Speaker 1: of the area. At the time, this was in the
15:11
Speaker 1: nice part of town, so she was happy that the
15:14
Speaker 1: dojo was in Golden Square because people were less likely
15:18
Speaker 1: to suspect something wasn't on the up and up. In
15:22
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve, Martin tells the Islington Tribune quote the
15:27
Speaker 1: suffragettes would create a disturbance in Oxford Street, but then
15:30
Speaker 1: they'd run back to the dojo and hide their clubs
15:33
Speaker 1: and bats under the floor. By the time the cops arrived,
15:36
Speaker 1: they'd be pretending they were in the middle of their
15:38
Speaker 1: exercise class. So imagine you're you know, you're the police force.
15:42
Speaker 1: You're trying to track down some with what you're told
15:47
Speaker 1: is like a mob of you know, yeah, and then no,
15:54
Speaker 1: just just us office of just getting in our movements
15:58
Speaker 1: now one and to want and can I help you?
16:04
Speaker 1: We are in the middle of a course. Yeah, this
16:07
Speaker 1: and this worked, gentleman, call us gymnasium. So by nineteen ten,
16:15
Speaker 1: think about how quickly is happening. By nineteen ten, she
16:18
Speaker 1: is constantly conducting classes exclusively for the Suffragette movement and
16:24
Speaker 1: as publicity as wait for a demonstration. She had an
16:29
Speaker 1: open call for any curious men to challenge her. And
16:34
Speaker 1: all she asked is, she said, show up any time.
16:37
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, get at me. All I
16:41
Speaker 1: ask is that you put on a police hat before
16:44
Speaker 1: I wax you in front of my students, and she
16:47
Speaker 1: give me, give me something to focus my rage towards,
16:50
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, and she even talks about this like
16:54
Speaker 1: she went on to talk about this for many years.
16:56
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty five, as she relayed the same anecdote
17:00
Speaker 1: where a policeman had said, now, then maybe the one
17:04
Speaker 1: you can't causing an obstruction here, and then she said,
17:08
Speaker 1: excuse me, it's you who are making an obstruction, and
17:11
Speaker 1: then she shoulder flipped them, introduced them to the ground. Yeah,
17:17
Speaker 1: and let's not forget too. I don't know if we
17:18
Speaker 1: we we really hit this home. But they're not like
17:21
Speaker 1: wearing like you know, geese or something, like, they're wearing
17:24
Speaker 1: their petticoats. And oftentimes they would use those big ruffles
17:28
Speaker 1: and and those you know, very wide hoop skirts to
17:31
Speaker 1: hide weapons underneath, so they could like you know again,
17:35
Speaker 1: kind of quickly like stick them down there and make
17:37
Speaker 1: a run for it and and kind of like you know,
17:39
Speaker 1: be completely incognito. Uh really really cool. Um, I love that.
17:45
Speaker 1: Just excuse me, So it is you who is making
17:48
Speaker 1: an obstruction to the floor. It's like it's such a badass,
17:53
Speaker 1: like you know, uh, give me back my son or something,
17:57
Speaker 1: you know, what I mean. That's like that would be
17:58
Speaker 1: the line from the movie Train or you know before
18:01
Speaker 1: the name of the movie would be called Suffragettes, right, Suffragetts.
18:05
Speaker 1: And then maybe we do like maybe we do that
18:07
Speaker 1: cool late eighties early nineties thing where you see two
18:10
Speaker 1: different fonts, so it's suffragettes hits the screen, and then
18:13
Speaker 1: in like cursive or crazy writing, it says jiu jitsu
18:19
Speaker 1: or or as it was actually coined at the time.
18:21
Speaker 1: I believe it was suffrage jiu jitsu because it suffragets
18:27
Speaker 1: it became and I don't know if it was meant
18:28
Speaker 1: to be, like you know what I mean, Like sometimes
18:30
Speaker 1: when the pressed or whomever coined little phrase like that,
18:33
Speaker 1: they do it with sort of like a I roll
18:35
Speaker 1: or like a sort of flippant attitude. But it's pretty cool.
18:38
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, exactly would be suffering and that would be
18:41
Speaker 1: in the like, you know, more like kind of fancy
18:43
Speaker 1: calligraphy font and then jitsu would be like in like
18:46
Speaker 1: blood red, you know, um like Japanese kind of like
18:49
Speaker 1: calligraphy strokes of it. Yeah, So that's that's not ericant
18:56
Speaker 1: to say. So. Uh So there's something else that happens
19:00
Speaker 1: that's really important with the role of jiu jitsu and
19:04
Speaker 1: how the public perceived it in Britain at the time.
19:07
Speaker 1: So as we discussed it means like the art of yielding. Roughly,
19:10
Speaker 1: it's it's redirecting energy. When it first hit Britain in
19:16
Speaker 1: people considered it quote suitable for women because they thought
19:20
Speaker 1: it was somewhat elegant and feminine. It wasn't about overpowering
19:24
Speaker 1: people with force. You read the room of where your
19:27
Speaker 1: opponent's moving and then you just kind of help them
19:30
Speaker 1: get where they're going. All right, ladies, you can do
19:33
Speaker 1: two things. You can go forage for a seaweed at
19:37
Speaker 1: the shore um or you can learn the art of yielding.
19:42
Speaker 1: Just don't because yeah, because even I mean, isn't that funny?
19:46
Speaker 1: It required that kind of like it's such a like
19:49
Speaker 1: pernicious thing and in a good way. Like the same
19:52
Speaker 1: with the seaweed. You know, it was sort of like
19:53
Speaker 1: seaweed was science that was okay for women too, but
19:56
Speaker 1: it was really, you know, still very interesting work and
20:00
Speaker 1: it was something that they could really like you know,
20:01
Speaker 1: chew on in terms of like being creative, in terms
20:04
Speaker 1: of like doing discovering nature and all that stuff. This
20:07
Speaker 1: is the same and this is like, you know, you
20:09
Speaker 1: look at it and not reading too far into it,
20:11
Speaker 1: you know, as a dumb man, and you're like, oh, yeah,
20:14
Speaker 1: it's the art of yielding, like it's about like it's
20:16
Speaker 1: graceful movements. You know, it's basically like jazz or size.
20:20
Speaker 1: But it actually is a way to take down a man,
20:23
Speaker 1: you know, to take down a police force if you
20:26
Speaker 1: have enough women that are armed with these techniques. Yeah.
20:29
Speaker 1: And Tony Wolf, who is one of the world class
20:34
Speaker 1: experts on older martial arts, had a really interesting meta
20:40
Speaker 1: analysis of this. He said that the tactics used by
20:44
Speaker 1: the protesters, even when they weren't physically practicing jiu jitsu,
20:49
Speaker 1: they were still sort of philosophically practicing some of the
20:53
Speaker 1: precepts of that art. Because they were a radical movement,
20:56
Speaker 1: they were relatively small in their numbers, they had to
20:59
Speaker 1: rely on skill, on leverage, and at times on trickery
21:04
Speaker 1: or deception. They wouldn't have expected that women could respond
21:10
Speaker 1: physically to violent action, let alone put up an effective resistance.
21:14
Speaker 1: That line is from Martin Dixon, who's chairman of the
21:17
Speaker 1: British Jiu Jitsu Association. So it was an ideal way
21:20
Speaker 1: for them to handle someone who's grabbing them and expecting
21:23
Speaker 1: them to instantly just freeze up or wilt or comply.
21:27
Speaker 1: Let me introduce you to my good friend the floor.
21:30
Speaker 1: I like the point you make about the philosophical aspects
21:33
Speaker 1: of jiu jitsu. You know, you often hear the term
21:34
Speaker 1: like mental jiu jitsu thrown around. It's sort of a
21:37
Speaker 1: way of, you know, playing chess with an opponent, you know,
21:40
Speaker 1: of like kind of outsmarting somebody or using their own
21:44
Speaker 1: ideology against them, or using their words against them. This
21:48
Speaker 1: was a war of minds just as much as it
21:51
Speaker 1: was a war of you know, fists in the streets.
21:55
Speaker 1: I guess right. So this you know tradition really could
21:58
Speaker 1: have added a layer of craftiness, you know to the
22:02
Speaker 1: types of you know plays that these women were making
22:06
Speaker 1: and uh, and could have really helped them in that
22:08
Speaker 1: aspect of it as well. M Now, it may sound wild, fellow,
22:13
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians to think that once upon a time, the
22:18
Speaker 1: idea of everybody having the right to vote would seem
22:22
Speaker 1: so controversial that state powers would attempt to violently suppress
22:28
Speaker 1: that concept. And the reason it seems so crazy is
22:32
Speaker 1: because a great many, very very brave, very intelligent. Dare
22:38
Speaker 1: I say, very noble people fought for this, for this
22:42
Speaker 1: human right. And you know, I've been in protest in
22:46
Speaker 1: a number of different countries, and the ones that are
22:50
Speaker 1: often really successful without turning into riots and so on,
22:55
Speaker 1: are ones where the protesters know a couple of things
22:58
Speaker 1: that are suffragettes in today's EPISO. So we're well aware
23:01
Speaker 1: of property damage can get you headlines, right, property damage
23:07
Speaker 1: gets you into the paper and the conversation. But you
23:10
Speaker 1: need to win hearts and minds of the neutral observer,
23:14
Speaker 1: which means you don't want to look like the bad guys.
23:17
Speaker 1: You don't want to look like the batties, as they
23:19
Speaker 1: would say. So no, the suffragette said, okay, we're not
23:23
Speaker 1: going to actually hurt anybody. We're not going to damage
23:26
Speaker 1: a factory or other workplace such that people are gonna
23:30
Speaker 1: lose their jobs. For instance, one time Edith was with
23:35
Speaker 1: a gathering of women there on Oxford Street and they
23:39
Speaker 1: coordinated this. She blew a whistle, and when she did,
23:43
Speaker 1: everybody pulled hammers and rocks from beneath their clothes. Like
23:47
Speaker 1: you mentioned, all those big clothes served a purpose, and
23:51
Speaker 1: then they threw them through shop windows. This was seen
23:56
Speaker 1: as a justified action for protesting. It wasn't seen as
24:01
Speaker 1: like empty vandalism. She defended it pretty well. But if
24:05
Speaker 1: you go over to a great article on a website
24:09
Speaker 1: I had just found. I don't know about you guys,
24:11
Speaker 1: but it's called bad Reputation dot org dot UK. Yeah
24:16
Speaker 1: it's it's great. Yeah, yeah, it's um. There was one
24:22
Speaker 1: article there from two thousand eleven by Stephen B which
24:26
Speaker 1: talks about this protest. You know, we know any any
24:31
Speaker 1: protest is going to be somewhat controversial on some level.
24:36
Speaker 1: That's why it's a protest. People are protesting, to think.
24:39
Speaker 1: But there were other acts too, you know, there was
24:42
Speaker 1: there was a different group that was considered more radical.
24:45
Speaker 1: They set mailboxes on fire, They threw flower bombs at
24:49
Speaker 1: the Prime minister. If shopkeepers refused to support suffrage, they
24:52
Speaker 1: would smash windows. And then you didn't see this guy
24:57
Speaker 1: coming in this story, I bet. But here's our unexpected cameo.
25:01
Speaker 1: Mahatma Gandhi shows up, played of course by Sir Bin
25:04
Speaker 1: Kingsley in Ours and Mines, Yes for all for all time.
25:11
Speaker 1: I gotta you know, I always yeah, I think you
25:14
Speaker 1: and I both are probably big fans of like classic
25:17
Speaker 1: fighting games, like side scrolling fighting games like Fighting, Mortal
25:20
Speaker 1: Kombat and all that. Wouldn't it be cool if there
25:22
Speaker 1: was one made up entirely of historical figures, uh and
25:25
Speaker 1: Mahatma Gandhi in particular, was like rocking some serious jiu jitsu.
25:30
Speaker 1: That's perfect. Yeah, there was one game that had deities
25:34
Speaker 1: fighting in a street fighter of I'll send it to
25:37
Speaker 1: you off air if if I can find it. But yet, no,
25:39
Speaker 1: that's a brilliant idea. I am a hundred percent on board.
25:42
Speaker 1: Here's what Here's what the real, non nonfighting Gandhi said,
25:46
Speaker 1: because you know, Gandhi in a fighting game is interesting
25:50
Speaker 1: because he's really famous for not fighting anyway. Gandhi says,
25:53
Speaker 1: look in nine he tells an assembly of British suffragettes,
25:59
Speaker 1: your cause is correct, your causes just, but your tactics
26:02
Speaker 1: are unacceptable. And he was very like, I'm not mad,
26:06
Speaker 1: I'm disappointed, kind of tut tutting and shaking his head.
26:10
Speaker 1: But the police, their response to this was to crack down,
26:14
Speaker 1: and we see this often in response to protest right.
26:19
Speaker 1: The struggle becomes increasingly acrimonious in the years leading up
26:25
Speaker 1: to World War One women are arrested when they go
26:29
Speaker 1: on hunger strike, like you said, nol, they were force fed,
26:33
Speaker 1: and when they're out on marches they're getting man handled,
26:36
Speaker 1: they're getting knocked to the ground. And then we get
26:39
Speaker 1: to an event on the eighteenth of November nineteen ten
26:43
Speaker 1: known as Black Friday. Yes, Black Friday, what we alluded
26:48
Speaker 1: to early on in the episode, where in a group
26:52
Speaker 1: of around three hundred suffragettes were um essentially bum rushed
26:59
Speaker 1: by a blanks of police officers outside Parliament. They were
27:04
Speaker 1: in fact entirely outnumbered, um and they were essentially just
27:11
Speaker 1: beaten by the police and uh M, insulted injury. Yeah,
27:17
Speaker 1: random dudes, insults injury. You know, as if they didn't
27:19
Speaker 1: have it covered with just the bobbies with you know, bludgeons,
27:23
Speaker 1: they they had these bros coming in to to swing
27:26
Speaker 1: their clubs and fists as well. Really really gross, absolute
27:30
Speaker 1: targeting of a peaceful protest and no wonder they decided
27:34
Speaker 1: they wanted to to be able to to you know,
27:37
Speaker 1: fight back. Some serious injuries. We talked about two deaths,
27:40
Speaker 1: more than a hundred arrests, and Elizabeth Crawford, who wrote
27:44
Speaker 1: the Women's Suffrage Movement a Reference Guide had this to say. Uh,
27:48
Speaker 1: A lot said they had been groped by the police
27:51
Speaker 1: and mail bystanders after that. Women didn't go to these
27:55
Speaker 1: demonstrations unprepared. So again, it's not like they has wanted
27:59
Speaker 1: to fight. Like you said from the top end, this
28:01
Speaker 1: was not, uh an inherently violent movement. It was a
28:05
Speaker 1: peaceful protest um, you know, based movement. It wasn't until
28:09
Speaker 1: they were pushed and pushed and pushed they decided they
28:12
Speaker 1: needed to push back. Um. It's been a while since
28:14
Speaker 1: I've seen it, but if I remember correctly, I believe
28:17
Speaker 1: the mom in Mary Poppins is a suffragist, yes, and
28:21
Speaker 1: it's like having like suffrage women suffrage meetings in their
28:25
Speaker 1: home and they they'd all definitely appear in this kind
28:29
Speaker 1: of dress that we're talking about. So um, probably a
28:31
Speaker 1: little bit of an idealized version of this, but it
28:33
Speaker 1: definitely is around the time that we're talking about, where
28:35
Speaker 1: Mary Poppins and you know, cartoon penguins were just all
28:39
Speaker 1: over the place. I loved it for a time. I
28:41
Speaker 1: wanted to be a chimney sweep and uh, Mary Poppins
28:45
Speaker 1: as both the at least the film adaptation makes a
28:49
Speaker 1: great point about the evils of banking. So I will
28:55
Speaker 1: say I'm glad that I'm glad that you shows a
28:56
Speaker 1: different course of for your for your your life's trajectory, Ben,
29:00
Speaker 1: because it turns out it's not nearly as cheery, uh
29:03
Speaker 1: and and dancy as as one might think. Episode. Yes, yeah,
29:09
Speaker 1: it was often like children too. They suffocated and chimneys
29:13
Speaker 1: when they got which they I think is in the
29:16
Speaker 1: criterion version of Mary Poppins. Uh So exactly. Let us know.
29:20
Speaker 1: So this ends up, this tragedy ends up with as
29:24
Speaker 1: you said, people dead and a lot of people imprisoned.
29:27
Speaker 1: You see Garrett climbing atop the prison walls trying to
29:32
Speaker 1: boost morale. She's singing, she's waving flags. And when people
29:37
Speaker 1: are freed, they go to her and she teaches them
29:41
Speaker 1: how to do basic throws aggressive policeman and then also
29:45
Speaker 1: how to avoid bludgeon injuries by wrapping cotton and cardboard
29:50
Speaker 1: around your ribs, sort of a mcgever kind of armor
29:55
Speaker 1: or body protection. And yeah, and the Suffragettes appreciate Garrett.
29:59
Speaker 1: They see and Edith a tremendous gift, a secret weapon,
30:03
Speaker 1: and you know, and and and and they were very
30:05
Speaker 1: protective of her too. They didn't want to risk her,
30:07
Speaker 1: you know, their secret what secret weapon, being arrested or
30:10
Speaker 1: you know, separated from them. So oftentimes, you know, she
30:13
Speaker 1: would be back at the dojo and uh, that would
30:16
Speaker 1: be sort of a home base, and she always was
30:18
Speaker 1: able to kind of like carry out these uh, sort
30:20
Speaker 1: of subterfuge as when the cops came looking for the women,
30:24
Speaker 1: you know who smashed all the shop windows, they'd come
30:27
Speaker 1: running back, and you know, she would like stash their
30:29
Speaker 1: street clothes in these secret compartments we talked about earlier.
30:32
Speaker 1: We all movements offices, yes, yes, And the escalation just
30:37
Speaker 1: continued though, because it became clear that the suffragette forces
30:43
Speaker 1: knew they had a righteous cause and they were not
30:45
Speaker 1: going to be intimidated. They were not going to fold.
30:48
Speaker 1: And so authorities kicked things up another terrible notch and
30:52
Speaker 1: they passed the law that was officially known as the
30:56
Speaker 1: Prisoners Temporary Discharge for Ill Health Active Night Team thirteen.
31:01
Speaker 1: It's street name the Cat and Mouse Act. It was
31:05
Speaker 1: part of an intense information propaganda war between feminist forces
31:10
Speaker 1: and law enforcement. Uh. You know, I'm gonna say a
31:13
Speaker 1: team feminist here, because they had things that aren't particularly
31:16
Speaker 1: hot takes. They said force feeding us as an active torture,
31:20
Speaker 1: and the government. The government is responding by releasing protesters
31:29
Speaker 1: who were on hunger strike while imprisoned, just long enough
31:33
Speaker 1: for them to get a little bit healthier, and then
31:37
Speaker 1: they tracked them back down, rearrest them, re imprison them.
31:41
Speaker 1: So they let you go out to eat, and then
31:44
Speaker 1: they arrest catch and release is what they call it,
31:47
Speaker 1: and then catch again. Uh. And it was probably a
31:49
Speaker 1: way to keep eyes on them as well. Right, if
31:53
Speaker 1: you release them and then you like surveil them, then
31:56
Speaker 1: you get intel into what's going on with the movement
31:58
Speaker 1: if you play your cards exactly. And we should mention
32:02
Speaker 1: while we've spent a lot of time focusing on Edith,
32:06
Speaker 1: she's working in concert with the organizer of the United
32:11
Speaker 1: Kingdom Suffragette Movement, Emilyne Pankhurst. And Emilyn Pankhurst is repeatedly captured,
32:19
Speaker 1: she's repeatedly harassed, She's leading a lot of these protests
32:23
Speaker 1: that law enforcement objects to. Eventually, people active in the
32:28
Speaker 1: movement realized that Pankhurst cannot be captured again. She is
32:33
Speaker 1: too important and law enforcement also knows she's important, so
32:37
Speaker 1: she might spend years just be moved from one jail
32:41
Speaker 1: cell to the next, which is tough for me to
32:43
Speaker 1: stay with a Tennessee accident jail cell. Okay, got there, juror. Yeah, Um,
32:52
Speaker 1: this is so neat because they you know, they take
32:55
Speaker 1: it to the next level. Um. They organized essentially like
33:00
Speaker 1: a group, an elite squad of suffragettes, uh that they
33:04
Speaker 1: refer to as the Bodyguard, which I love that. It's like,
33:08
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's not just one bodyguard. They're almost
33:11
Speaker 1: like an army, but they're called the Bodyguard. Starry Whitney
33:14
Speaker 1: Houston and Kevin Costner. Yeah, and I want to just
33:16
Speaker 1: jump in here real quick about like pank Hurst. Uh.
33:20
Speaker 1: It should also be a point of she's in the
33:21
Speaker 1: mid fifties by this point. Yeah, exactly, so they're like, Okay,
33:25
Speaker 1: we gotta definitely protect her. We don't want her of
33:26
Speaker 1: just being you know everything that she she represents so much,
33:31
Speaker 1: you know, like just symbolically, it's important to have her
33:35
Speaker 1: for the you know, for the women of the movement
33:37
Speaker 1: to rally behind the media. Once again doing some kind
33:41
Speaker 1: of tongue in cheek, I rolle kind of uh nicknaming
33:47
Speaker 1: referred to them not as the bodyguard, but as the Amazons,
33:50
Speaker 1: which is now a little problematic, A bit, yeah, maybe
33:54
Speaker 1: a bit, No, it is very much a bit problematic.
33:57
Speaker 1: So their mission. The bodyguard saw their mission as keeping
34:04
Speaker 1: paying curses prison breaks as long as possible. These were
34:09
Speaker 1: also people who were in very good shape. They were
34:13
Speaker 1: willing to risk their own freedom and their own personal
34:15
Speaker 1: safety and health. They were almost always single, because it
34:20
Speaker 1: was considered unfair for mothers to be thrown in jail.
34:24
Speaker 1: These were not just the most physically active folks. They
34:27
Speaker 1: also had the most advanced knowledge of jiu jitsu in
34:32
Speaker 1: a network of secret locations. How cool is that they
34:35
Speaker 1: also came from the ranks of the most radical suffragettes.
34:38
Speaker 1: They used code names, they used like disguises and stuff.
34:42
Speaker 1: They hid bowling pin shaped clubs, flower pots and other
34:47
Speaker 1: weapons in their dresses. They made that armor talked about
34:51
Speaker 1: earlier card cardboard and cotton padding, and they were prepared
34:56
Speaker 1: at any time. They were just always on call. And
34:59
Speaker 1: some times all they would get is a ring that says, hey,
35:05
Speaker 1: there's a car that looks like this, you need to
35:07
Speaker 1: follow it, get on it, and you know, they would
35:10
Speaker 1: put this stuff there, you know, strap on the cardboard,
35:12
Speaker 1: the cotton, and they're off to the races. Uh. And
35:15
Speaker 1: hopefully one day the I am is to be off
35:18
Speaker 1: to the ballot box as well. So they were fighting
35:20
Speaker 1: again for a good reason, and eventually they became even
35:25
Speaker 1: more organized. They were not backing down in front of
35:28
Speaker 1: the police. Uh. The police were aware of this, and
35:31
Speaker 1: they tried to spy on Garrett's jiu jitsu lessons from
35:37
Speaker 1: the skylights of the dojo. So pictures, Yeah, I'm right right,
35:42
Speaker 1: the peeping Tom squad. So in our film here, picture
35:46
Speaker 1: picture some kind of bumbling Keystone cop esque figures, just
35:52
Speaker 1: maybe slipping and falling off the skylight or a Wilhelm
35:57
Speaker 1: screen maybe, Max, Yes, exactly. So that's my impression of
36:03
Speaker 1: the Wilhelm screen. It's a tough one. It's tough to
36:08
Speaker 1: do that one. So let's go to February. It's just
36:13
Speaker 1: a month before another big event that we'll get to
36:17
Speaker 1: in a second called the Battle of Glasgow. Uh. The
36:20
Speaker 1: bodyguard ak the Amazons had another tough pickle in front
36:26
Speaker 1: of them. Pankhurst is delivering a a barn storming speech
36:31
Speaker 1: off this balcony at someone's house in Camden Square. She
36:36
Speaker 1: is wearing a veil and she has members of the
36:39
Speaker 1: bodyguard at her side on the balcony and the police
36:43
Speaker 1: are down below, like because they're thinking, as soon as
36:49
Speaker 1: she's done, we're gonna rearrest her. And then she said,
36:53
Speaker 1: I am coming down and I dare you just stop me?
36:59
Speaker 1: Come at me bro yet again, but they pulled kind of.
37:03
Speaker 1: Probably one of the only memorable or useful things from
37:06
Speaker 1: The Phantom Menace was the body double for Natalie Portman's character, um,
37:12
Speaker 1: which I believe was did we talk about this the
37:14
Speaker 1: other day? Was it us? Yeah? Two different people, you heard,
37:21
Speaker 1: two different people, but used to great effect in that
37:24
Speaker 1: body double scenario in uh in the movie. I mean
37:29
Speaker 1: it's that makes one of us. It's not a good movie.
37:32
Speaker 1: That's fine. I mean, nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
37:36
Speaker 1: I will say that. I yeah, you can like something
37:41
Speaker 1: and not think it's good. You know, I agree, I
37:44
Speaker 1: agree most people say about this podcast, but I mean,
37:46
Speaker 1: jar Jar Binks has not aged well to say the least.
37:49
Speaker 1: Let's just say that you hear the series the theory
37:51
Speaker 1: that Lucas wanted him to be a sith lord. This
37:54
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, but look at maybe he'd be a little
37:58
Speaker 1: more reserved as a lord. I don't think he'd be
38:01
Speaker 1: like babbling and coherently in a vaguely petoid accent, yeah yeah,
38:08
Speaker 1: pinks thing and let me know. But you're right about
38:12
Speaker 1: the body double. You're right about the body double. They
38:14
Speaker 1: pulled a they pulled a phantom menace. They pulled an
38:17
Speaker 1: amadalas with cherou here um and uh. And there was
38:22
Speaker 1: another woman wearing a veil that they sent down instead. Right, yeah, exactly,
38:29
Speaker 1: brilliant plan and it worked. But now we have to
38:32
Speaker 1: go to the Battle of Glasgow. So tension has continued
38:45
Speaker 1: and continue to ratchet it up and things are reaching
38:48
Speaker 1: even more of a breaking point. So there's this assembly
38:53
Speaker 1: hall in Glasgow, Scotland, and on March nineteen, local police
38:59
Speaker 1: officers swarmed the area to arrest Pankhurst. Again. She's one
39:05
Speaker 1: of the loudest voices in this movement and she had
39:08
Speaker 1: traveled from London to rally support. Again. The stuff she's
39:13
Speaker 1: asking for does not sound like any kind of hot
39:17
Speaker 1: take at all. It sounds like basic human rights for people.
39:20
Speaker 1: She says, You know what, women should be able to vote,
39:24
Speaker 1: They should be able to get divorced if they want to,
39:27
Speaker 1: and they should be able to inherit Land. These are
39:30
Speaker 1: all things the dudes can already do, so why not.
39:34
Speaker 1: She also anticipated a fight. She anticipated the man coming
39:38
Speaker 1: down hard, so she arrived with the bodyguard. The bodyguard
39:42
Speaker 1: at this time is about individuals that were trained in
39:46
Speaker 1: jiu jitsu club fighting sabotage by Edith. Uh. They weren't
39:51
Speaker 1: preparing for hypothetical threats. You know, as we said, they
39:54
Speaker 1: had been beaten and assaulted by police before. The police
39:57
Speaker 1: already had a grudge with her now by the time
40:01
Speaker 1: she gets to Scotland, because she made them look really
40:03
Speaker 1: dumb when the body double thing worked. So she also
40:09
Speaker 1: made them look dumb in Scotland because when she shows
40:13
Speaker 1: up to her own rally, she just buys a ticket
40:16
Speaker 1: and walks in. Do they not know what she looks like? Like?
40:21
Speaker 1: Imagine that's like that's like Kanye excuse me ya, waiting
40:26
Speaker 1: in line for his own concert and just having to
40:29
Speaker 1: pay the bucks or whatever. I don't know how much.
40:32
Speaker 1: It's the thing you run into a lot in like
40:34
Speaker 1: period pieces or like you know, kind of costume mystery
40:38
Speaker 1: type dramas, there often is like a lack of like
40:42
Speaker 1: awareness by the authorities as to what somebody who what
40:45
Speaker 1: somebody looks like? You know what I mean, Like I think,
40:48
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it was just a matter of like
40:49
Speaker 1: it was. I mean, there was photography, of course, but
40:52
Speaker 1: it wasn't very sharp, you know, I guess, and it
40:54
Speaker 1: was almost more like an artist rendering. Um. So it
40:58
Speaker 1: does seem like it may have been more common are
41:00
Speaker 1: folks to not know exactly what someone looked like? Yeah, no,
41:04
Speaker 1: that's a very good point, man, And it works to
41:07
Speaker 1: paying cursed advantage at this at this juncture. So she
41:11
Speaker 1: comes up and they go, oh, I'm going, hey, let
41:15
Speaker 1: heron or whatever. And the police are a mob. They
41:20
Speaker 1: outnumber the bodyguards, like think of we said twenty five bodyguards,
41:24
Speaker 1: think of like fifty plus police officers. But according to
41:28
Speaker 1: this story, pank Hurst gets about thirty words out before
41:34
Speaker 1: someone reacts to the police encroachment. A suffragette takes out
41:37
Speaker 1: a pistol, takes aim and fires. They fire blanks, but
41:41
Speaker 1: it stuns the officer. They didn't know, you know, they like,
41:44
Speaker 1: who thought this would turn into a gunfight. Other officers
41:48
Speaker 1: get tossed just picture them to and throw fo boom
41:51
Speaker 1: fo boom foo boom. Welcome to the floor. Welcome to
41:53
Speaker 1: the floor. May I introduced not only not only welcome
41:57
Speaker 1: to the floor, welcome to these like easer wire filled
42:01
Speaker 1: flower bouquets that were everywhere, and they were throwing the
42:05
Speaker 1: cops like straight into those things. So they were getting
42:08
Speaker 1: like all sliced up. Uh serious, Like you know, they're
42:12
Speaker 1: really taking to the next level of this point in
42:14
Speaker 1: terms of their planning, in terms of their you know,
42:17
Speaker 1: it's just there's their their willingness to kind of do
42:20
Speaker 1: whatever it took the Suffragettes, I mean, um like so
42:22
Speaker 1: they had these like you know, razor wire laced flower
42:26
Speaker 1: bouquets that they were using to their advantage, and the
42:29
Speaker 1: cops were completely unaware of. Yeah. Now picture this picture this.
42:33
Speaker 1: This has the climactic scene right towards the beginning of
42:37
Speaker 1: the our third act in our film, there is an
42:41
Speaker 1: all out brawl. Like Vince McMahon would be envious of
42:47
Speaker 1: the spectacle that occurs here. And it's very dangerous because
42:50
Speaker 1: it's real. They are taking out these clubs at when
42:55
Speaker 1: we say clubs, they were called Indian clubs at the time.
42:57
Speaker 1: Picture of bowling pin uh act. Then they were used
43:01
Speaker 1: a lot in exercise classes, right, and now they become
43:05
Speaker 1: a weapon. So the suffragettes have their bowling pins out. Uh.
43:10
Speaker 1: The police didn't expect to be met with a bunch
43:14
Speaker 1: of martial artists who by this time we're quite skilled.
43:18
Speaker 1: So they pull out their clubs, the police pull out
43:20
Speaker 1: their batons and their truncheons, and then they go at it.
43:23
Speaker 1: And also the bodyguard, like you said, well they catch
43:26
Speaker 1: people in barbed wire. Then this brawl happens in front
43:31
Speaker 1: of four thousand folks before pink Hurst finally gets moved away. Epic,
43:39
Speaker 1: totally epic. I mean, yeah, nothing quite like it in
43:43
Speaker 1: history as far as I'm aware, in terms of like
43:45
Speaker 1: this very gendered clash in the streets, you know, with
43:51
Speaker 1: what many in those days might have called the fairer
43:54
Speaker 1: sex getting the upper hand in a very big way.
43:57
Speaker 1: And that was that was of the climactic battles of
44:02
Speaker 1: the suffrage movement in the United Kingdom. But there was
44:07
Speaker 1: a another battle. It was bigger than the local police,
44:10
Speaker 1: and it was bigger than the United Kingdom itself, and
44:14
Speaker 1: it was on the horizon. It was the outbreak of
44:17
Speaker 1: what we call World War One today. Back then, of course,
44:20
Speaker 1: they just called it, you know, the Great War or
44:22
Speaker 1: World War horrific, horrific thing. The suffragette forces concentrated on
44:29
Speaker 1: helping the war effort. In fact, Emmiline Pankhurst, according again
44:34
Speaker 1: to a couple of different citations, she essentially decided that, hey,
44:39
Speaker 1: women's rights aren't going to be of much use to
44:42
Speaker 1: us if Germany occupies Great Britain, so we need we
44:47
Speaker 1: need to keep the country we want to vote in free.
44:50
Speaker 1: That was that was her calculus. And then as the
44:54
Speaker 1: world descended into pandemonium and chaos, the Bodyguard, whom the
45:00
Speaker 1: press called the Amazons, and Edith Garrett were almost entirely forgotten,
45:07
Speaker 1: almost but not not entirely. Um, but yeah, I was
45:13
Speaker 1: very very much unaware of this period or at least
45:16
Speaker 1: the specifics, and certainly with the badass uh, you know,
45:20
Speaker 1: hand to hand combat angle. I mean, this is really
45:22
Speaker 1: really fascinating. But of course, as we know, um, there
45:26
Speaker 1: is a happy ending. This is this is a movement
45:28
Speaker 1: that results in over time, the goal that they set
45:32
Speaker 1: out to achieve. And at the end of the war
45:34
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighteen, there was a renewed kind of interest
45:39
Speaker 1: in the suffrage movement, but the attitude had changed to
45:44
Speaker 1: a degree in terms of like the the government's approach
45:48
Speaker 1: to you know, the suffrage movement, and so there wasn't
45:51
Speaker 1: quite the same need to you know, be militaristic in
45:55
Speaker 1: the same way as it had been before. UM And
45:59
Speaker 1: pretty quickly after the war, around eight million women got
46:02
Speaker 1: the right to vote thanks to an act called the
46:05
Speaker 1: Representation of the People Act UM by everyone else in
46:12
Speaker 1: Britain was also granted the right. DIVI I'm not quite
46:14
Speaker 1: sure what the distinction was with the eight million women
46:19
Speaker 1: that were given the right so quickly and why it
46:22
Speaker 1: took ten more years. Yeah, let's hear Max with the
46:26
Speaker 1: facts on this one. I was looking on Wikipedia reading it.
46:29
Speaker 1: It was like in nineteen twenty is when they extended
46:33
Speaker 1: it to all women age twenty one or older were
46:37
Speaker 1: able to vote. So might have been something similar to
46:40
Speaker 1: like you know, early on in America, like if you
46:42
Speaker 1: owned land you could vote. It might have just been
46:45
Speaker 1: like that eight million was just a subsect women. It
46:48
Speaker 1: wasn't until twenty that everyone yeah, because this right that
46:52
Speaker 1: everyone had Yeah. For the first ten years. The People
46:54
Speaker 1: Act required voters. Female voters typically to own property, but
47:02
Speaker 1: it did not require men to own property. It gave
47:07
Speaker 1: the right to vote to all men regardless of race
47:10
Speaker 1: or class. And then it wasn't until the representation of
47:13
Speaker 1: the people that that property requirements for women were done
47:17
Speaker 1: away with, So that was that was the big thing.
47:19
Speaker 1: And so we're gonna let poor people vote too, now
47:21
Speaker 1: that we had ten years to get a running start.
47:24
Speaker 1: So so it's a hard victory. Yeah, it is a
47:28
Speaker 1: hard one victory and a hard fought victory, I mean,
47:30
Speaker 1: super super interesting. Um and another example of just like
47:35
Speaker 1: stick tuitiveness and resolve, you know, oh, ultimately ending up
47:40
Speaker 1: getting you know, getting the right result. Um here, yeah,
47:45
Speaker 1: a million percent. Man. Earlier, it was sort of making
47:48
Speaker 1: the joke or you and I were both sort of
47:49
Speaker 1: like spitballing what this movie would be, and I think
47:52
Speaker 1: I said Suffragett, and then we the jiu jitsu or
47:55
Speaker 1: stuff for jiu jitsu. But yeah, there is a movie
47:58
Speaker 1: called Suffragett, and it's the first time that the suffragist
48:02
Speaker 1: movement has really been highlighted in mainstream type of the culture.
48:07
Speaker 1: Although I will say I think that some of these
48:10
Speaker 1: accounts are forgetting about that scene in Mary Poppins, not
48:13
Speaker 1: that that's like the central focus of the movie obviously,
48:16
Speaker 1: but they do address it, and you see them carrying
48:18
Speaker 1: their science and stuff. But this is an entire film.
48:21
Speaker 1: And also I believe there's ay I've read this one,
48:25
Speaker 1: Suffrage Suffragetsu. Yeah, it's cool. It's a trio or it's
48:29
Speaker 1: a trilogy rather, so check that out. I should be
48:31
Speaker 1: recommending more graphic novels. But but I I know we're
48:34
Speaker 1: going a little bit long on this one. But we
48:37
Speaker 1: hope you found this story as exciting, as inspiring, and
48:40
Speaker 1: as compelling as the three of us did. You will
48:43
Speaker 1: be happy to know that Edith continue to run the
48:48
Speaker 1: dojo well until she retired in She lived to the
48:53
Speaker 1: ripe old age of nine, and she even in her
48:58
Speaker 1: last year of life. Gay Eve one one final interview
49:03
Speaker 1: where she talked about talked about this period. Uh. And
49:09
Speaker 1: the picture on the interview is is her locking the
49:14
Speaker 1: journalist down, getting him in a wrist locker wrist hold. Uh.
49:19
Speaker 1: One thing this shows us is you, guys, we gotta
49:22
Speaker 1: start going to the gym. I think that's a secret
49:24
Speaker 1: to longevity. We gotta start going back to the gym.
49:26
Speaker 1: Because I sure used the pandemic as an excuse. Yeah,
49:29
Speaker 1: I've I've been I've been slacking off the last couple
49:32
Speaker 1: of weeks, but I did get a Planet Fitness membership
49:34
Speaker 1: and you know what, I'm gonna go today and I'm
49:36
Speaker 1: gonna do a little circuit training. Um in honor of Edith. Uh. Yeah,
49:40
Speaker 1: there's a really great like photo kind of set uh
49:44
Speaker 1: in Health and Strength magazine. I think, um where she's
49:47
Speaker 1: just given the beat down to somebody. Uh. It's it's
49:50
Speaker 1: almost cartoonish, you know, as you would say, ben um.
49:53
Speaker 1: But the uh, I believe she wrote a play that
49:56
Speaker 1: this was highlighting and it was called Jiu Jitsu as
49:58
Speaker 1: a husband Tamer. It's any fantastic yep. And you want
50:03
Speaker 1: to see that photos series, just google What every Woman
50:06
Speaker 1: Ought to Know, uh, and put Edith Garrett's name in there.
50:11
Speaker 1: You will see the pictures. We hope you enjoy them.
50:15
Speaker 1: So we thought about making this a two parter because
50:18
Speaker 1: I knew it was going to run a little long,
50:20
Speaker 1: but it feels like just one cohesive audio film to us,
50:24
Speaker 1: and we do hope you agree. Thanks, as always, so
50:28
Speaker 1: much to Mr Max Williams, the man, the myth of
50:31
Speaker 1: the legend. Thank you to the hard working and incredibly
50:36
Speaker 1: courageous people of years gone by who have won these
50:41
Speaker 1: invaluable human rights for people across the world today. Uh.
50:45
Speaker 1: And then you know, just because I like him having
50:48
Speaker 1: a hard act of following all thanks to Jonathan Strickland,
50:52
Speaker 1: you know, so always. Yeah, I'm starting to warm back
50:56
Speaker 1: up to that guy. He's he's sort of like, uh,
50:59
Speaker 1: he's sort of like that the mosquito by you know,
51:02
Speaker 1: where it's sort of annoying, but then when you scratch it,
51:04
Speaker 1: it feels so good. You know. That's that's what's strictly
51:07
Speaker 1: I've never scratched them, but I'll take your word for it.
51:09
Speaker 1: Oh it feels good, but Devin it thanks to you.
51:13
Speaker 1: I like, like we said last episode, I think we're
51:15
Speaker 1: gonna try to get him on more of like a
51:18
Speaker 1: predictable cadence, as they might say, for our own mental
51:22
Speaker 1: podcast bis for our own mental health, because man, when
51:25
Speaker 1: he just pops up out of nowhere, I feel like
51:26
Speaker 1: I'm about to have a panic attack or like some
51:29
Speaker 1: sort of you know, brain fuke PTSD. Dude, I saw
51:33
Speaker 1: it in the street one time and I was like,
51:34
Speaker 1: don't ask me questions. Uh. And thanks to you know,
51:39
Speaker 1: this was this is one of the ones I really enjoy,
51:41
Speaker 1: you know, this is this is a story I think
51:43
Speaker 1: more people should know what. I'm just tremendously grateful that
51:47
Speaker 1: the three of us are able to do this every week.
51:50
Speaker 1: Same We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts
52:02
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
52:05
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.