Historian Amanda Vickery uncovers the 300 year-long campaign by women for political and sex equality in Britain, revealing the largely forgotten heroines (and a few heroes) who fought for the cause.

Amanda Vickery explores why, in the early 20th century, thousands of British women joined a violent militant organisation. In the struggle for women's political rights in Britain, the most iconic are the suffragettes - but for Vickery the story begins long before these Edwardian activists.

About the Suffragettes:

Suffragettes were members of women's organisation (right to vote) movements in the late 19th and early 20th century, particularly militants in Great Britain such as members of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Suffragist is a more general term for members of suffrage movement.

The term "suffragette" is particularly associated with activists in the British WSPU, led by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, who were influenced by Russian methods of protest such as hunger strikes. Other tactics employed by members of the WSPU included chaining themselves to railings to provoke an arrest, pouring harsh chemicals into mailboxes, breaking windows at prestige buildings, and night-time arson at unoccupied buildings. Many suffragettes were imprisoned in Holloway Prison in London, and were force-fed after going on hunger strike.