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I include it in this blog as an outstanding example of the institutional violence displayed towards women in the period. As historians, we tend to overlook institutional violence in favour of the criminal sort. I think that the memoirs of Constance Lytton are a reminder to us of a time when it was legal for the state to torture a woman by force feeding her, but not for that same women to express a democratic opinion.

To my mind this serves as a general reminder that a history of violence cannot be limited simply to the sphere of criminal violence, but must include any and all acts of force or coercion as they appear across societal inter-relations. Any act where force or the threat of force us a factor is ultimately an act of violence. More specifically, this particular blog provides important perspective on the need for the Suffragette Bodyguard, led by Mrs. Edith Garrud and on the development of police restraint techniques as they employed more sophisticated methods of control.
Prison memoirs of a suffragette – http://www.prisonvoices.org/?p=2691

It was originally published on the Prison Voices Blog