SuffraWHAT'S????

WE NEED MORE INTEREST, STUDY AND EDUCATION INTO THE HISTORY OF WOMEN
Don't believe me? First of all, on my first day of rehearsals for Ann Veronica, a boy in the ensemble held up his script and asked me what was meant by the term "suffrablooodeegetties"-
"No" I responded, "that says Suffra-bloody-gettes. It's suffragettes, with the word 'bloody' in the middle." "Oh." [2 minutes pass] "What is... suffragette?" [My face. Shock.]
Nobody in my cast knew what a suffragist was or in fact that the suffragettes were not the only women's group at the time campaigning for the vote. Or when women got the vote. Or why.
Last week on tour with Flan & Co. I was asked by a band-member that shall remain nameless if I'd had to burn my bra on stage. Several boys took a great deal of convincing that the suffragettes did not burn their bras- or indeed own bras, and seemed quite perplexed that there could have been two seperate occasions on which women asked for anything in the socio-political arena.
Anita Roddick, in a radio interview last month, commented that women's history is the least studied history of any people-group- and its OVER 50% of us!!! Realise how much I sound like a raving fembop right now but shouldn't we take the heritage of our own emancipation seriously?