The King's Horse

I want to create a moment that will change everything. To date, I have been unsuccessful. I don't give up hope. I will never give up hope. It is the raw material around which the steel of my armour has been wrought. It is at the core of my resolve, it is the fabric of my purpose, my goal to gain a clearer voice for women, and I will not relinquish it.

Never.

I knew that it would be a battle. They underestimate us, men. And they fear us. I am not declaring that all men are like that but there is an established order and those that hold it, those male politicians and governors, those lords and kings, they grasp it closely to themselves - hands tight, knuckles white - and they fight - oh yes, they fight! - to keep that power, that presence, that right to rule over others.

They sit, they believe, above us, austere with authority and protected in their righteousness.

But my anger is righteous and I will NOT have it lightly dismissed. I WILL NOT.

I find it wearing, wearisome, frustrating. Women are not seeking to take that power away from them but are merely eager to share it, to be able to voice opinions about it, even to offer a perspective that's different so that a full picture can be given, like spinning a globe: if you perceive it from only one angle, then that is all you will ever see, but if you just move it, tilt it, approach it differently, there is a whole lot more to see. Territory untravelled, you could say, to continue the metaphor and oh, what vistas we could see! And see them together!

But no. One view only please. Through the eyes of men. Patriarchal rule must remain. What on Earth could you offer as a woman? Why on Earth would you think to vote? You're just a woman! Your place is not here! Women, please step aside and let us men decide.

Just what would you decide? To deny half a society a voice? To relegate ideas to the kitchen, the bedroom and the nursery? To stifle new thinking because you have an unguarded disrespect for its source?

How arrogant you are! How narrow! I have ideas! I am educated, to the same level as you in all but a paper docket and letters after my name to prove it! I am articulate and capable and my views count and are the equal of yours!

I want the right to decide who speaks for me. I want to choose my own mouthpiece to represent who I am and I deserve that as an intelligent being regardless of my sex.

Oh, it angers me, this restriction, this pride!

I feel the fervour of my actions. I will not fold. I will not let your denial cripple me! I will fight for the right to be heard and for my voice to be counted in the decision of who shall govern.

I have always been, what my mother would call, rash. Hasty. Impatient. I would argue it's all a matter of perspective. I will agree to wanting to hasten change. In this, I am not alone. I will agree that my ways are not the ways of everyone fighting for suffrage. My actions, which some would deem provocative, even illegal, I see as necessary. Channels of clemency where discussion could widen have been narrowed and shrunk, blocked and shuttered so no light can penetrate. They, those channels, and us women have been reduced, belittled down to roles and attributes that decry our true qualities.

"Hysteria!" the papers cry but there is no madcap wailing here nor tearing of hair. My strategy is disruption, to make their masculine world shake and to topple them down and crack them open to show the selfish, self-interested blackness at their core. Humpties, they are though they will be put back together by the King's Men, I will warrant.

I wonder if their mothers are ashamed of the boys they birthed and how they exclude the bodies that nurtured them, the minds that moulded them, the care that made them thrive and grow.

I know that I am becoming unpopular within the movement. I am considered too fiery, too much of a renegade. I bring trouble to the cause with my "unregulated behaviour". I find this attitude to be a product of those who would control us. This is another manifestation of suppression. I have handed out enough pamphlets to see that paper does not make a difference. Reading and learning is only effective if the receiver is receptive; if there is no openness, then the brain remains sealed, like a tightly screwed jar, and as vacuous.

It is action that leaves the mark. It is directness that propels change. It is confrontation that sears itself on the consciousness of those who are challenged.

You can shut a door in my face but I will still try to enter. It is in the shutting out that my determination grows. Each time you block me, it only raises the stakes higher.

You may shut me away but I will not choose to comply to the conditions that you lay down for my incarceration. I will starve or drown before you diminish me and I will stain your history with my death for all to see.

Broken windows on parliament buildings, the glass that holds us out whilst offering the chance to look in? They deserve to be smashed! There should be no barriers. Let those inside clean it up!

My passion drives me but do not think that I am a militant by nature. I do not want to hurt if I can help it. I am an educated woman, not the banshee or the harridan that people would have you believe.

I hurt too.

I hurt. I think back occasionally, when I allow my mind to wander, to my days in gaol. It is a blisteringly dark place. Brutal. When I think of my hunger, of the food forced, their power to force me to live on their terms when I had determined to die... I hurt too but I am not frail.

I will not willingly go back there but the time has come for the grandest gesture. It is time to aim for the top of the tree, for the one who bears the crown.

I have a plan. It is risky and I will not share it. I will act though, and pin to the King's Colours my badge so the patriarchy will parade the badge of women's suffrage and take us over the finishing line! It is an apt metaphor for the change we seek and will rattle, I know it!

I may face death again today. I may yet depart with it, its skeletal hand at the base of my back as I am finally ushered out. Let us see. Let us have a day at the races and let us see.

*I dedicate this to the memory of Emily Wilding Davison and all suffragettes. Thank you.