It may be that the folk in Extinction Rebellion don’t care if they win friends and influence people. Perhaps they believe that a small group of activists can disrupt society so much and for so long that everyone decides to acquiesce to their demands? The Suffragettes, for example, didn’t mess about. They chained themselves to railings, smashed windows and threw themselves in front of horses in a bid to win women the right to vote. If they’d played nicey-nicey, the male establishment might just have shrugged. But there’s one important difference between these two movements. Campaigners for women’s suffrage were addressing a specific and fundamental injustice that could potentially be corrected through legislation. By 1928, women had the same voting rights as men by law. There was a focused goal and after a generation of struggle, it was achieved. That very basic demand was a platform on which later feminists would build. Suffrage on its own, after all, doesn’t deliver equali
Phil Woodford co-hosts Colourful Radio's weekly news review show from London. He previously stood on two occasions as a Labour Parliamentary candidate.