Q2

How effectively are you personally exploring and developing your role/s?

In order to create my character, I began researching real-life events centred on police corruption; recently this has become a reoccurring topic on the news which intrigued me to discover more about it. Through doing this, I found many news articles and clips detailing some form of corrupt police officers, each including components of either racism and sexism. As feminism has always been of great interest to me, I started searching the history of the suffragettes: women in the late 19^th century and early 20^th century who protested for the rights of women. From this I conjured an idea for a feminist character, perhaps who got wrongly arrested for her involvement in a peaceful protest as this combines both police corruption and sexism.  To get more of a historical insight onto suffragettes and police misconduct, I watched a documentary about a suffrage event called Black Friday which occurred on the 18^th of November, 1910. Here the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), better known as the suffragettes, sent over 300 women to the House of Commons led by Emmeline Pankhurst. The protest was a reaction to parliamentary proceedings regarding the Conciliation Bill – only affluent, property-owning, middle-aged women could vote in Britain and Ireland. During the 6 hour onslaught, over 200 unarmed women were assaulted (physically and sexually) and manhandled by police officers as well as 119 being arrested and 2 dying from the abuse. This incident was one of the first examples of police violence and corruption. Learning about Emmeline Pankhurst’s involvement in the protest, spurred me to find out more about her.  In 1903 Pankhurst founded the WSPU, after experiencing numerous accounts of unfair treatment due to her gender throughout her life, and has often been referred to as one of the most important woman regarding women’s rights.  By exploring other famous women in history, I came across Ruth Ellis – the last woman to be hung in Britain on July the 13^th, 1955. Through watching a documentary and a film named ‘Dance with a Stranger’ (a movie based on Ellis’ life), I was able to discover more about her background and the incident that got her sentenced to death. As a young child, she was parented by her depressed mum and a father who would often sexually abuse her. The constant assault that she experienced from her father led to her having multiple bad relationships with men who were physically abusive and mostly drunks that she met at the club she worked at, posing as a prostitute. Eventually here she met David Blakely. In their one and a half year relationship, Ellis was the victim of a domestically violent partner who consistently manipulated her feelings for him, resulting in Ellis feeling very confused and heartbroken from time and time again. When Ellis told Blakely that she was pregnant with his child, he pushed her down the stairs and left her alone to deal with the fact that she had a miscarriage. Sometime later, Ellis tracked down Blakely and shot him mercilessly five times with a revolver, claiming ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’. This served as great inspiration for my character. My character is to be based in the time period of the 1950’s, a time rife with sexism and unfair treatment of females.  I decided that my character also was to have a miscarriage, like Ellis, but instead of being pushed down the stairs, I am to of been involved in a violent mugging (inspired by the forceful scenes that Emmeline Pankhurst experienced at the protest) in which the mugger turns to be my partner as he believes the child isn’t his. This shows how males were very domineering in the mid-20^th century and were able to overpower women as it was seen as the norm. Representative of this is also the fact that my partner is abusive and not loyal to me because I know of his affairs with several other women.