This book was published in 2018 on re-reading parts of it, I wonder how she would have written it in 2021. Helen Pankhurst has a chapter on Power, where she doesn’t award marks, as it is an issue which pervades all the previous topics. Helen Pankhurst: Deeds not words, Topics (chapter headings) as marks out of 5 awarded by the author: Identity: including marriage, sexual rights, motherhood rights, Image and make-up, hair, clothes, adverts, female illnesses,Ĭulture: magazines, children’s books, media, social media and internet, theatre, film, art, sport, women’s organisations, religion, However, a wide-ranging analysis in Helen Pankhurst’s 2018 book reminds us to see the broader picture and be optimistic on some counts.

The voices of both pioneers and ordinary women are woven into the analysis which ends with suggestions about how to better understand and strengthen feminist campaigning and with aims for the future.Ĭombining historical insight with inspiring argument, Deeds Not Words reveals how far women have come since the suffragettes, how far we still have to go, and how we might get there.With the recent increase in violence against women, and two particularly bad years during Covid, with evidence coming out that women took on the bulk of homeschooling, and views that women working from home may well miss out on promotion at work, we might well think everything was going backwards in society for women. Each of the five chapters within the book explores a different theme politics, money, family & identity, violence and culture. In 2018, on the centenary of one of the most significant steps forward for women – the Fourth Reform Act (6 February), which saw propertied women over 30 gain the vote for the first time – Helen Pankhurst charts how women’s lives have changed over the last century, and offers a new way forward in her new book. Helen is the great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst and granddaughter of Sylvia Pankhurst, leaders of the British suffragette movement. She also leads CARE International’s #March4Women event in London on the 4th March. In the UK she is a public speaker and writer on feminist issues. Her work in Ethiopia includes support to program development across different sectors, focused on the interests and needs of women and girls. She has extensive media experience including national and international radio and print interviews, and was involved in the 2015 film Suffragette. Dr Helen Pankhurst is a women’s rights activist and senior advisor to CARE International, based in the UK and in Ethiopia.

Deeds Not Words by Helen Pankhurst