Evelyn had woken up that morning with a single goal in mind: to engage in peaceful protest and demand equal pay for women. She was a great admirer of Emmeline Pankhurst, the activist famed for having led the Suffragette movement in the UK, winning women the right to vote. Pankhurst had shaken society to its core, and sometimes their rallies would erupt into clashes with police. It had not been easy to make themselves heard by those brutes, but the prize was worth the struggle, and turning back was out of the question. Now, Evelyn thought to herself, it was 1954 and women had helped to win the war. They had proven their worth. They had shown that they could indeed take on the same tasks as men – like the Rosies in Canada who had built bombs in factories, like the secretaries who had worked switchboards, like all those nurses who had treated the injured on the front, and like all those resistance fighters who had helped to track and observe enemy movements. “About time!” sighed Evelyn. It was high time that society changed once again.
Evelyn met with five of her female friends and John Turbolt, a socialist activist, on the streets of Manchester. They held their banners high and went to join the other protesters. Women should not be content with so little; society needed to look farther, for women were the future of mankind. John Turbolt was an atheist. He did not believe in one word of the Old Testament’s claim that God had made woman from one of Adam’s ribs, or that man was made from dust, and unto dust he would return. Codswallop, all of it. “Equal pay for men and women!” he hollered at a passing car. They beeped their horns in support. They cheered for Evelyn’s sign and her broad, determined grin. The rally made its way slowly along the city streets. People waved at them, and smiled sympathetically. Evelyn was proud of her activism, and knowing that she could still cause a stir at sixty years of age.
If Emmeline Pankhurst were still alive, she’d have stirred up all the youth of Manchester to disturb the peace, throw stones at the police, break the windows of banks who only hired men, lay siege to the underground stations and provoke the conductors. Evelyn Pankhurst and her Suffragettes would have wreaked havoc across Manchester and the UK. The capitalists felt they could do as they pleased. They hired men whenever they could, and paid women less when they had to pay them at all. All that money they made, yet the idea of giving women just a little more was anathema. “If only Emmeline were here, she’d take a match to the whole powder keg!” thought Evelyn. “And about time, too!” she said aloud.
The group had now been marching through the streets for around five hours. The locals seemed to agree with their demands for “Equal pay for all!” The afternoon was waning, and Evelyn invited her companions back to her apartment for tea and lemon cake.
Fighting for a more equal society left her glowing with pride.
Alan Alfredo Geday