Christabel Pankhurst: a Conservative suffragette?

This chapter explores the commonly stated claim that Christabel Pankhurst was a Conservative. The claim, made by her socialist-feminist sister Sylvia in her influential book The suffragette movement, first published in 1931, has become part of the dominant narrative about the suffragette movement in Edwardian Britain. Such a claim is challenged and an alternative interpretation offered. It is suggested that we should see Christabel Pankhurst as a pioneer to what in the 1970s became known as ‘radical feminism’. For Christabel the subordinate position of women in Edwardian society was due to the power that men, including socialist men, exercised over women. She saw the struggle for the enfranchisement of women as a ‘sex war’ rather than a class struggle.