The Spinster and Her Enemies - Feminish

CHAPTER 8
The Decline of Militant Feminism
The face of feminism in the 1920s was very different from that
of the militant suffrage movement before the First World War.
The politics of direct action and the campaign to change men’s
sexual behaviour were replaced by a form of equal rights
feminism which offered no direct challenge to men’s dominance
and had by the late 1920s acquired many of the characteristics
of the Havelock Ellis ideal of ‘new feminism’.
The Women’s Social and Political Union of Emmeline and
Christabel Pankhurst had split at the beginning of the war when
Christabel made her dramatic conversion to nationalism and
militarism. At the opening of the war the Suffragette viewed
the war as an example of men’s aggression. The feminist
perspective disappeared almost immediately and WSPU energies
were directed to supporting the war effort. Pacifists left the WSPU
to join with the majority of other suffragettes who worked for
peace in organisations such as the Women’s International League
for Peace and Freedom. During the war the WSPU transformed
itself into the Women’s Party to fight for parliamentary
legislation. The Party was short-lived.
The war was an event of such magnitude that feminists were
forced into a response and could not simply ignore it. In a
somewhat similar way the issue of nuclear war has galvanised
many feminists today, who have felt compelled to divert much
of their energies into campaigning for nuclear disarmament.
The phenomenon of mass male aggression seems consistently
to drive women, feminist or otherwise, into a defensive position
where they must struggle to maintain such principles as the
continued existence of human life on earth. Directly feminist
concerns which are aimed at increasing women’s status and
opportunities vis-à-vis men are at such times forced into
abeyance.
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