But Emily Wilding Davison didn’t think the suffragettes were breaking new ground. For her, they were attacking a recent phenomenon of oppression. She wanted to return to an earlier time which she believed was populated by powerful women. In the medieval period she saw a model that challenged the pattern of misogyny embedded in the modern age.7 In fact, her view of the medieval world was one rich in diversity, with men and women as equals. In an essay published just one month before her death called ‘A Militant May Day’, she describes a crowd in an idealised medieval setting. It is
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