Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

Sounds,07 Mar 2025,49 mins,

The Suffragettes

Short History Of...
Contains scenes of sexual violence.

Available for over a year

While British women had been requesting the right to vote for decades, in the early 1900s, the Suffragettes refused to take no for an answer. But, despite their PR expertise, as their methods became more violent, theirs was a movement that divided the nation. But what radicalised them? Were they revolutionaries? Terrorists? Or simply an oppressed majority with no legitimate way to protest? This is a Short History of the Suffragettes. Written by Jo Furniss. With thanks to Helen Pankhurst, author of Deeds Not Words: The Story of Women’s Rights Then and Now, and to Dr Diane Atkinson, author of Rise Up Women: The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes.

Programme Website
More episodes