Are we looking at some suffragettes or suffragists? The word “suffrage” means the right to vote. Therefore, anyone who advocates for the right to vote is a suffragist. When the 15th Amendment was ratified, giving the right to vote to African-American men, the term became exclusively associated with women like Susan B. Anthony. In 1906, a British male reporter began to call those pushy women “suffragettes”. Substituting the “ette” was meant to diminish them. Some of the women adopted the term so it is okay to use it when discussing the women’s suffrage movement in Great Britain. On the other hand, American suffragists despised the term because of what it implied. It was the anti-suffrage forces that used it. So, American History teachers – don’t use it! Unless you are against women having the right to vote.
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