"Social progress is made by disruption."
– Barbara Winslow, Personal Interview

Her Legacy

Just a few years after her death, Pankhurst was immortalized with a statue outside of Parliament, the first woman to  receive this honor. Her work in leading the suffragette movement, as well as her refusal to conform to the mold of the quiet Victorian woman made her an icon of the 20th century.
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Statue of Emmeline Pankhurst, Epsom and Ewell History Explorer
"I say with no fear of contradiction that whatever view posterity may take, Mrs. Pankhurst has won for herself a niche in the Temple of Fame which will last for all time.”
– Stanley Baldwin, 1930, at the unveiling of Emmeline Pankhurst’s statue
"While the transition from martyrdom to sculptured memorials is familiar, the process in Mrs Pankhurst's case has been unusually brief."
–New York Times
"Emmeline Goulden Pankhurst was the most remarkable political and social agitator of the early part of the twentieth century and the supreme protagonist of the campaign for the electoral enfranchisement of women."
– New York Herald Tribune
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The Pankhursts Welcomed, 1908, Hulton-Deutsch
Emmeline Pankhurst was "that weapon of will-power by which British women freed themselves from being classed with children and idiots in the matter of exercising the franchise"
– London Evening Standard
"We want to help women . . . We want to gain for them all the rights and protection that laws can give them. And, above all, we want the good influence of women to tell to its greatest extent in the social and moral questions of the time. But we cannot do this unless we have the vote and are recognized as citizens and voices to be listened to."
– Emmeline Pankhurst

Striving for Complete Equality 

Although Pankhurst helped women gain the vote in England, and many countries followed England's lead, women continue to be underrepresented politically. Major advances have been made, thanks to getting the vote, but that was only the first step.
"Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world. It is past time for women to take their rightful place, side by side with men, in the rooms where the fates of peoples, where their children's and grandchildren's fates, are decided."
– Hillary Clinton
Emmeline Pankhurst Relative: 'Still Much to Do for Women's Rights'
BBC News
"You must make women count as much as men; you must have an equal standard of morals; and the only way to enforce that is through giving women political power so that you can get that equal moral standard registered in the laws of the country."
– Emmeline Pankhurst, Freedom or Death
Click play to see the progression of female political involvement or drag the slider on the bottom.
Hover over a bar to see country names.
Click image to access interactive map.
The complete gender equality that Pankhurst strived for has not yet been achieved. But having the vote, partly as a result of Pankhurst's leadership, enables women to take matters into their own hands and advocate for themselves to fix the remaining problems of gender inequality.
"Some of us are fortunate enough to be equal to men in the eyes of the law, but that's just the start, isn't it?"
– Mary Talbot, Interview