April patch: Strike!
April patch: Strike!
One of the most courageous and dangerous acts of suffrage militancy was hunger striking. Many suffragettes who were imprisoned went on hunger strike, to protest their incarceration as criminals rather than political prisoners. Forcible feeding was common practice in prison. Women’s bodies were a site of control, with women struggling to maintain physical autonomy in the face of force feeding, a brutal and damaging violation by the state. This violent abuse of women’s bodies led the WSPU to award bravery medals to suffragettes who went on hunger strike. Medals were inscribed with brief statements, ‘for valour’, ‘fed by force’ and ‘hunger striker’, sometimes with arrest dates, and some with multiple silver bars to denote multiple strikes.
The design of April’s patch is purposefully stark, featuring an abstracted force feeding funnel and pipe alongside the rallying cry to Strike!
4.5cm.
3 colourways:
Fluorescent yellow on grey felt
White on black drill
Black on white drill
To mark the centenary of the first women being given the vote in the U.K, I created a sew-on patch each month of 2018, marking a different element of this historic achievement. 30% of sales went to 3 charities working with women and gender equality: Bradford Women’s Aid, Birthrights and Gendered Intelligence.