The Mouths of the Suffragists

Controlling women's mouths has been a concern across time and culture. This is often done most powerfully through visual culture, though it is enacted in a variety of ways (including infamous devices like the scold's bridle). Never was the struggle for sovereignty versus control of the female mouth more urgent than when women demanded a political voice in the early 20th century in the United States and England. Suffrage was the demand to exist in the body and with a voice. This performed presentation will explore the way the female mouth appeared (and at times didn't) in the struggle for suffrage. In the actions and imagery of both the suffragists and the anti-suffrage campaigners the female mouth is a literal and symbolic battleground. From the visual and material culture of kitsch and propaganda souvenirs and mementos to performance and even punishment, this short, performative and visual musing will explore the way women's mouths became metaphors and synecdoches for the female body and the struggle for sovereignty and presence.