JOY Interview Highlights

Sonja Hammer from Second Breakfast, Sci-Fi and Squeam and Queer Geeks of Oz, has the great honour to interview Dr Helen Pankhurst, a direct descendant of Emmeline Pankhurst, the steely Edwardian matriarch famously photographed being hoisted away from a protest at the gates of Buckingham Palace by a policeman. Emmeline was Helen’s great-grandmother. Sylvia Pankhurst, who joined the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), the pro-suffrage group Emmeline founded in 1903, was her grandmother and suffragette leaders Christabel and Adela were her great-aunts.

Helen Pankhurst is in Australia to travel with the very first screening previews of Suffragette, the new movie based on the suffragette feminist movement in the UK from the early 20th century. It’s a film with a female director, writer and producers; very rare even today for a Hollywood movie.

Dr Helen Pankhurst is senior advisor for the Water Team of CARE USA and ambassador for CARE International.