I wanted to tell you about my recent visit to the House of Commons to meet Professor Helen Pankhurst CBE at an event organised by Centenary Action for International Women's Day.
At the end of last year, in a quite incredible moment of serendipity, while I was browsing images of Suffragette artwork for inspiration for a new collection, I received an email from Helen asking if I would be interested in designing jewellery for Women MPs. The goal of Centenary Action, which she established in 2018 to mark the centenary of some women getting the right to vote, is to take action to deliver a gender equal parliament by 2028.
As Emmeline Pankhurst, her great-grandmother said, 'You must make women count as much as men; you must have an equal standard of morals; and the only way to enforce that is through giving women political power so that you can get that equal moral standard registered in the laws of the country. It is the only way.'
So, in what felt like life coming full circle, I created a brooch for Centenary Action, inspired by Suffragette jewellery, which had inspired me to create Wear and Resist in the first place.
Helen's grandmother, Sylvia Pankhurst, was an artist and designed many of the most well-known pieces, including the Angel of Freedom pin, the Holloway Brooch with the portcullis, and the Hunger Strike medal, which I based parts of my design on.
Though visually pleasing, this was jewellery with a purpose, worn to communicate a strong and serious message and signal solidarity with other women. It is easy to become complacent with 40% of Women MPs elected last year, but there have been just 639 female MPs in history, enough to fill the House of Commons only once. Centenary Action wants each female MP to know her number, so each 'Women Count' brooch comes with that MP's bespoke number.
Number 538, is a longtime shero of mine, the Labour MP for Pontypridd, Alex Davies-Jones, who has campaigned tirelessly and fearlessly for years to end male violence. She has been a Wear and Resist ambassador since 2019, wearing a Chopsy necklace often in Parliament, but as a recent Glamour article said, ‘with her appointment to Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Violence Against Women and Girls at the Ministry of Justice, Alex is no longer “Alex”; she's “the Minister”’. Her team is doing incredible, ground-breaking work in this area, and you can see by my face, just how chuffed I was to finally meet her in person.
And yes! I will soon be releasing a 'civilian' version on the website too, in support of Centenary Action, which will come with a signed card from Helen Pankhurst. You can see a sneak peak on my instagram post here.
Each International Women's Day I feel a strange mix of not knowing what or which bit to say, (as every day is Women’s Day at Wear and Resist), and a slight tinge of despair that women make up over 50% of the population, yet we are still fighting for equal representation and, I don’t know, small requests like to stop being killed. One day doesn’t seem like enough at all, and maybe another example of the quiet way we tend to go about being heard. And yet, even so, each year the message is interrupted by men online griping that for one day in March their timelines seem a little too unbalanced for their liking.
Having spent a lot of time reading about the Suffragettes lately, I have been reminded of how fearless and militant they were, and that this can be lost in old photographs of women in Edwardian dress. They smashed windows, were force-fed in prison and endured extreme violence, including sexual violence, from bystanders and the Met Police (as many today also remember Sarah Everard). Emily Davison may or may not given her life for the cause, but others were brutally beaten and died.
I was worried that Helen might not have seen my sweary jewellery when we first spoke on Zoom, but then she pointed out the suffragette pennies, with Votes for Women stamped over the King's face, and I realised she had chosen to work with me knowing all of it.
Watching the Democrats in the US hold up signs (?!) as Trump lies and dismantles the government, I have been internally, and actually, screaming that this is not a time for politeness. They could use a some of the bravery and sheer determination shown by the Suffragettes.
Deeds not words.
Sarah xx
