The Story of Women and Power

Historian Amanda Vickery explores why in the early 20th century thousands of British women joined a violent militant organization. In the struggle for women's political rights in Britain, the most iconic are the Suffragettes, but for Vickery the story begins long before these Edwardian activists.

In this second episode, Vickery describes the paradox for British women of a female Queen who thought women's rights campaigners deserved a good whipping. But during Victoria's reign extraordinary women gradually changed the lives and opportunities of their sex despite successive governments furiously resisting giving women the vote.

In the final episode of her story of British women's fight for power, historian Amanda Vickery explores how the Edwardian Suffragette movement became a quasi-terrorist organization.   She asks what they achieved with their violent campaign and argues they are best understood as part of a war still going on today.