The ‘fighting years’ are recalled

The years 1907– 1914 were “the fighting years” for women, said Mrs. Alice Muxlow, Rushden’s first woman councillor and county councillor, at Rushden Business and Professional Women’s Club on Tuesday.

A suffragette herself, Mrs. Muxlow declared: “I was young and enthusiastic in those days and a good fighter.

“No one who didn’t live in those years knows what we were up against—not only from the men but from some of our sex too.

“As the battle got more bitter the women divided into two groups—the fighting ones and those who favoured ‘constitutional’ approach,” Mrs. Muxlow said.

“My sister and I belonged to the latter group and my sister has the banner to this day.

“We marched to cat-calls and cries of ‘try to get a husband.’ Some of the militant suffragettes worked and suffered terribly.”

Then came war

The First World War intervened, sho continued, and women were immediately required—even as chimney sweeps. Afterwards, it wasn’t logical that they shouldn’t have the vote, and it was granted to those who had turned 30. She was furious at being four months too young.

Asked by a member if she thought women were getting any nearer “equal pay,” Mrs. Muxlow replied “I hope so—it makes me mad when we hear men have got a rise of four shillings a week and women get three, etc.”

There was laughter when she said it was the age old argument of a man having a wife and family to support: Presumably he acquired them—nobody wished them on him. And many women had parents to support.

The president (Miss A. L. Walker) was in the chair and Mrs. M. A. White proposed the vote of thanks.