Pipers English Society Club Welcomes University of Reading Speaker

As part of the enrichment and super-curricular programme available at Pipers, the English Society were pleased to welcome Dr Mary Morrissey from the University of Reading, who delivered a presentation to the students on Monday 25 November about the Campaign for Women’s Suffrage. 

During a fascinating forty-minute lecture, she first defined the political theory of the ‘Overton Window’ before exploring the many propaganda techniques - primarily visual and text based - used by the suffrage movement to move public opinion in favour of women’s voting rights. She compared the pro and anti-suffrage campaigning and even looked at the darker side of propaganda noting how the suffragettes contrasted themselves favourably with working class male groups who already had the vote. The interactive discussion culminated in an open forum where the Sixth Form students asked a series of probing questions debating whether the suffragette campaign of civil disobedience had helped or hindered the cause.

The talk was a perfect fit for the Society’s aim to challenge students to think beyond the curriculum while exposing them to breadth of fields open to study and the nature of undergraduate style lecturing.