Summary

Emmeline Pankhurst begins her speech “Freedom or Death” by arguing that she is not in the US to advocate women’s suffrage, but as a soldier who wants to explain how a civil war carried out by women works.

According to Pankhurst, people find it easier to understand a revolution organised by men than one organised by women, even though women are only trying to make men accept them as human beings.

She addresses the men of Hartford, describing how they would simply be able to vote for a new government if their complaints were ignored. She then suggests that if they were not able to vote, they could either resign themselves to their status or fight for their voting rights. Pankhurst argues this is what happened when American men started the American Revolution.

Pankhurst describes how British women came to be called militants after the British Members of Parliament refused to answer their questions and put them in prison.

The speaker compares politics with two crying babies...