"The Ascent of Woman sets the high drama of the rise of the suffragettes against the moral and intellectual debates of the age, which fissured the women's movement. It chronicles not just the split between the constitutionally minded suffragists led by Millicent Fawcett and the militant suffragettes led by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, but the bitter divisions among the militants as women recoiled from the Pankhursts' despotic style. Phillips describes how the violence both hindered and helped the cause, and how it was the role of women in the First World War, that was crucial in finally securing them the vote." "This, though, is a drama of extraordinary ideas as much as a history of individuals and events. The Ascent of Woman reveals how female suffrage was seen as the way to elevate humanity on to a higher plane of existence through the taming and transformation of men. What emerges is a picture of a political force split on virtually everything: the role women in society; the balance to be struck between sexual freedom and family duties; and the relationship with men - arguments which to a startling extent prefigured contemporary debate over issues that remain unresolved."--BOOK JACKET.