Talk:Suffrajitsu

Hoax/SYNTH
It would be greatly appreciated to address which area of the article is considered to be a hoax to amend it.TykeLass (talk) 00:36, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I'm largely responsible for reintroducing the term/concept/awareness of "Suffrajitsu" into the modern media. This article definitely isn't a hoax, but it is riddled with factual errors and confusions between fiction and reality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:C9D0:E020:10E3:9AAB:16FC:9BE7 (talk) 03:39, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Can you elaborate and provide your sources to amend the article?TykeLass (talk) 08:51, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

The factual errors are mostly in the form of suppositions unsupported by historical evidence, and/or are drawn from source material (especially recent online articles) that do the same thing.


 * Suffrajitsu.com is a website promoting the graphic novel "Suffrajitsu: Mrs. Pankhurst's Amazons". It does include a good deal of accurate historical information on the real-life inspirations behind the fiction, but it's probably confusing to list it here as an "official" website on this subject (and that listing may have been what sparked the "hoax" assumption, in that the word "suffrajitsu" was obscure in modern media prior to the release of the graphic novel in 2015).
 * The WSPU Bodyguard were trained in jujutsu and there is no evidence of their having used the portmanteau "suffrajitsu", which was tongue-in-cheek journalistic slang for physical resistance by suffragettes as a general phenomenon; it was not the name of a distinct martial art/self-defence style.
 * It was not taught alongside Bartitsu, which had ceased to exist as a defined style in mid-1902, some seven years before Edith Garrud started teaching her Suffragettes Self Defence Club and about eleven years before the WSPU instituted the Bodyguard.
 * Members of the Bodyguard did carry concealed Indian clubs for use as weapons but whereas individual suffragettes may have used "hatpins, handkerchiefs, neckties and parasols" as weapons of expedience, it's misleading to imply that their use was part of an organised system of study. We know virtually nothing about this subject other than the information appearing in Gert Harding's memoir, which refers only to the fact that WSPU Bodyguards were issued with Indian clubs. Edith Garrud *may* have trained them in how to use the clubs as weapons, but there's no actual evidence to that effect other than an anecdote that she once led a group of club-swinging suffragettes in warning back a party of police constables.
 * There is no evidence of WSPU Bodyguards training in boxing nor wrestling. Again, all we can state with certainty is that Edith Garrud trained members of the Bodyguard in jujutsu.  The "Suffrajitsu" graphic novel does portray members of the fictional Bodyguard team training in Bartitsu, which incorporated boxing etc. as well as jujutsu, but that was a matter of artistic licence.
 * Bartitsu did incorporate systematised training in the use of umbrellas, walking sticks and overcoats as weapons, but not hats. This error can be traced back to a 2009 article appearing on the Art of Manliness website, which conflated Bartitsu with other circa 1900 self-defence systems.
 * The word "kata" refers to a choreographed, formal set-play of Japanese martial arts techniques used as a training drill. It is not synonymous with "technique".
 * It isn't accurate to state that "suffragettes hid barbed wire inside bouquets to attack police" during the Battle of Glasgow. Strands of barbed wire were concealed behind elaborate floral decorations strung along the front of the stage, as a defensive delaying tactic on the assumption that police constables would try to climb onto the stage from that area.
 * Jujutsu was first demonstrated (not taught) in London by Tetsujirō Shidachi in 1892. Barton-Wright's lessons at the Bartitsu Club were not restricted to members of the upper classes and most of the people who can be positively identified as having trained there were middle-class.
 * The allegations against police eventuating from the Black Friday confrontations were, specifically, that men suspected of being plain clothes police agents were accused of committing "outrages" (Edwardian euphemism for sexual assault) during the affray. There were no such claims made against uniformed constables, though they were accused of "brutality" in the sense that many of the protesters were shoved back, physically restrained, fell to the ground, etc.
 * The suffragettes were not attempting to march past the House of Commons - the "raids" were so called because their (performative) aim was to gain access to the House. It's *likely* that the Black Friday raid turned unusually violent (as compared to the minor scuffles that had become common during many prior raids) because Winston Churchill had instructed the police not to make any arrests, leading inevitably to escalating physical conflicts as increasing numbers of suffragettes arrived on the scene, thus requiring police reinforcements to be brought in to defend the "bottleneck" at the main entrance.  I suspect that Churchill knew that this was a likely eventuality.
 * It's a minor point, but Suffragetto players represented either the police or the WSPU - players playing as the former had to outwit the latter as well as vice-versa.
 * The polemic playlet was titled "What Every Woman Ought to Know". "Ju-Jitsu as a Husband-Tamer" was the title of the 1911 Health and Strength article featuring photos from the play.
 * It may be worth noting that "Jiu-jitsu Downs the Footpads" was also released under the title "The Lady Athlete".
 * There's no known connection between either Emily (Diana) Watts or Toupie Lowther and the radical suffrage movement. Watts was an active instructor at the time but appears to have played no part in suffrage politics; Lowther was included in the fictional Bodyguard team featured in the "Suffrajitsu" graphic novel, but is not known to have had any connection to that group in real history.
 * "Suffragette Escapes and Adventures" was written by Katherine "Kitty" Marshall, not by Florence leMar (note spelling of her surname). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:C9D0:E020:8587:7C69:A041:999D (talk) 19:10, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Changes have been made as indicated. Please feel free to change the text as you see fit.TykeLass (talk) 14:40, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I have added a WP:SYNTH tag. It is clear that although some women in Edwardian England did learn Jujitsu, and that these women may have been associated with the Suffragist movment, there is no evidence for the central claim of the page, which is that the term "Suffrajitsu" was ever used outside of a single newspaper article in 1914. There is no evidence that it entered into common use, and no direct link to the 1914 article. What seems more likely is that Tony Wolf, the author of the graphic novel Suffrajitsu: Mrs. Pankhurst's Amazons, found or invented this term, and used it to spice up his novel. The least disruptive solution is to retitle the article to something more in keeping with the scholarly sources, and de-emphasize the term Suffrajitsu. Abductive  (reasoning) 03:44, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

There is no question that jujitsu was taught to members of the suffrage movement; Edith Garrud ran a "Suffragettes Self Defence Club" in London starting in 1909 and is widely documented as having trained members of the WSPU Bodyguard. It is correct that the term "Suffrajitsu" was coined in the 1914 article, was not recorded elsewhere during that period (other than in republications of the same article) and has subsequently been popularized by the title of the 2015 graphic novel. I believe that the original author of this entry intended to use it as a term of convenience to describe the phenomenon of Edwardian-era women learning Japanese martial arts.