Humour as Anti-Ideological Weapon in the British Women's Suffrage Struggle: the Early Journalism of Rebecca West
Humour as Anti-Ideological Weapon in the British Women's Suffrage Struggle: the Early Journalism of Rebecca West

Summary/Abstract: Women campaigning for the vote in Britain, c.1900-14, faced ideological constructions about the nature of womanhood and appropriate female behaviour. Suffrage authors adopted a range of rhetorical and generic strategies. They advanced direct critique of dominant ideas about woman's nature and place in society, but also employed more oblique strategies, ranging from allegory and melodrama to humour. Much of the humour used was gentle, to weaken the defences of an audience (rather than alienate them), and leave them more open to persuasion. This article contrasts such humour with the early journalism of the suffragist and socialist Rebecca West (1892-1983). Writing for the radical press (including The Clarion and The Freewoman), she used sharper and more polemical humour. Her literary techniques may be compared with the photomontages of John Heartfield, aiming to generate 'semantic explosions' through which new insight might become possible.

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