Just Stop Oil aren’t like the suffragettes

What do Just Stop Oil protesters have in common with the suffragettes? Their antics of blocking motorways and chucking tomato soup at famous paintings might lead you to think there are few parallels. But Helen Pankhurst – great-granddaughter of Emmeline – thinks they do share some common ground.

Both groups, Pankhurst suggests, are on the right side of history. In an article for the Guardian, she claims that ‘the climate crisis is a feminist issue’.

‘I have absolutely no doubt that in 100 years’ time (climate activists) will be seen as the real heroes,’ she says.

Like Just Stop Oil, the suffragettes targeted museums, sports events and public buildings to raise the profile of their cause. But contrary to what Pankhurst suggests, the similarities stop there.

Take the decision to vandalise art. Unlike Just Stop Oil, the paintings attacked by the suffragettes had an ideological significance.