Why you should watch ... Suffragette

We break windows, we burn things. Cause war's the only thing men listen to.

Where would we be without those courageous women knows as suffragettes?

In the film of the same title we watch them struggle to achieve the same rights as their husbands and brothers, incarcerations prevailing over little victories.

The film focuses on the life of Maud Watts, a young wife and mother who works in a laundry. At first, she is very reluctant to be called a suffragette but slowly she begins to hope for a better life and when she sees the young daughter of one of her fellow workers get raped by her employer she decides to stand up for herself and women in general.

The stunning cast is certainly one of the highlights, although Meryl Streep as Emmeline Pankhurst is more or less in the background except for a short motivational speech ("Never surrender. Never give up."). Helena Bonham Carter, however, has a bigger role and I believe Carey Mulligan is one of the rising stars in the sky of actors. On the other side we have the police, politicians and especially Inspector Steed portrayed by Brendan Gleeson with a lovely Irish accent and one of my favourite characters actually. He seems to be a man who is true to the law but does doubt the very cruel measures that are used e.g. the force-feeding of the female prisoners on hunger strike.

The film was obviously very sad and gloomy but the light-hearted golden moments Maud got to share with her son were very beautiful and although the ending was shadowed by a tragedy it was full of hope and aspirations.

Everybody knows that there were these women called suffragettes and that they wanted to vote but after this film you have a much better impression of what it must have been like for them. How much they suffered. How much will and determination they must have had. 

In addition, discussing the film after brought up a question: was the violence used by the women justified? Even if it weren't I would still have to ask: where would we be if they hadn't used these measures? Would women even be able to vote? It is clear that we still live in a man-dominated world where girls and women have to worry about thigh and pay gaps but we have to admit, we have certainly made progress since 1912.

What do you think?

Watch the film and form your opinion.

Au revoir, little biscuits *aggressively holding up a sign with Votes For Women*