‘They had no voice’: Tania Blanchard on the link between the US elections and a historical fight
There’s a clear link between the fight for women’s votes before World War I and current US politics, says Tania Blanchard – even if the election result wasn’t what you wanted
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It seems somehow serendipitous that my latest novel An Undeniable Voice was released just as the world entered the maelstrom of the US elections.
The plot is an exploration of women’s rights, focused on the suffrage movement – the fight for the vote for women in Britain through the early twentieth century – and all the hurdles that movement faced.
While it may be set more than a century ago, there are so many echoes in the novel to the present day, and particularly to events in the US right now.
In the period before World War I, women were not regarded as citizens in many countries. They had no voice.
Most of us would be familiar with Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, Christabel and Sylvia, who formed the famous Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) amid growing dissatisfaction with the repeated failure of the women’s suffrage bills that were put before Parliament. The WSPU motto was ‘Deeds not Words’: they believed in being active in the public arena to promote awareness of the cause. The desire to be heard, to peacefully protest, led to many suffragettes being harassed and beaten. The violence only escalated to imprisonment, hunger strikes and force-feeding.
As the suffrage message continued to fall on deaf ears, the movement responded with militant action: vocal demonstrations, window smashing, then to arson and bombings. There is a well-known photo of Emmeline being removed by police as she protests outside Buckingham Palace.
In the novel my main character, Hannah Rainforth, moves to London, to the heart of it all, and joins the WSPU – and it is not hard to see parallels with the present day.
After the Capitol riots in the wake of the last US election, there was a growing fear of political violence this time around – although, thankfully, it has so far not eventuated. Fear, intimidation and harassment were also employed to silence the suffragettes in their fight to be heard and physical violence used against them when they refused to cower.
Bodily autonomy continued to be a leading issue in this US election with the overturning of Roe v Wade and the policing of women’s bodies and reproductive rights. The fight for women’s suffrage was in part to address the legal rights to a woman’s body, and the rights of her family. In that era, a woman’s identity was consumed by her husband: she couldn’t even own property in her own name, an issue that Hannah contends with in An Undeniable Voice. Another character in my book is denied autonomy of her body when she is brutally force-fed while imprisoned.
Clementine and Esther are a same-sex couple in the book and the challenges they face to live freely are reflected in the homophobia that continues today with anti LGBTQI+ legislation, including drag queens being banned from performing in certain states.
Despite these worrying echoes of the past, there is hope. Women were granted the vote after the Great War. In the US today, we have the shining example of Kamala Harris, who has already risen to the second highest office as Vice President – the first woman in US history. For many, there was a very real hope that she could be the first female president in North America.
In a speech, Harris quoted her mother and said: ‘You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.’
Although America may not be ready to empower women to reach the highest office of the land, Harris has followed in the footsteps of the suffragettes with her fight for equal rights, and remains an inspiration to women all over the world.
An Undeniable Voice demonstrates that we’ve come a long way since the end of WWI, but we still have a long way to go. Writing historical fiction really emphasises the context of all things, and the way fundamental issues evolve. While we continue to wrestle with the issues that have endured, the fight isn’t just to be fought to change legislation – it’s a fight to change the hearts and minds of people, a fight to change outdated attitudes that are handed down generation to generation and are designed to keep women and other minorities disempowered.
Donald Trump will be president again – and the fight for equality will continue. And with that, there is hope for the future. Kamala Harris provides an example of what women can achieve and with more women striving for and achieving leadership positions within governance, we have the opportunity, responsibility and power to make the world a better place for everyone.
An Undeniable Voice by Tania Blanchard is out now, published by HarperCollins.
Tell us which novels help you make sense of real-world events – and act as a welcome distraction – at the Sunday Book Club group on Facebook.
Originally published as ‘They had no voice’: Tania Blanchard on the link between the US elections and a historical fight