Gender, Media and Protest

Abstract

This article traces the ways in which the British suffragette Emily Wilding Davison was represented in national newspapers between 1913—the year she died—and 2013, the centenary of her death. We identify three key discourses through which Davison has been represented in four British newspapers throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first: delegitimisation, recuperation and trivialisation. In doing so, this paper provides original insights into the ways that the fight for women’s rights has been figured in different historical moments. A key argument is that over time, Davison’s militant actions—once cast as those of a hysterical lunatic—have slowly come to be recuperated and legitimised as part of the story of British democracy. However, this discursive shift cannot be straightforwardly celebrated as a progressive move in representations of women’s movements, as Davison is frequently invoked to delegitimise contemporary feminism. Our analysis charts the extent to which Davison has been visible (or not) in newspapers through different historical periods; the specific ways in which Davison’s image was transformed along with broader changes in women’s status; and it considers the political implications of these (in)visibilities and representations for contemporary feminism.