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 Dr. Helen Pankhurst atBroadcasting House, London duringBBC 100 Women 2016 | |
| Born | Helen Pankhurst 1964 (age 60–61) |
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Helen Sylvia PankhurstCBE (born 1964)[citation needed] is aBritish women's rights activist, scholar and writer. She is currentlyCARE International's senior advisor working in the UK and Ethiopia.[1][2] She is the great-granddaughter ofEmmeline Pankhurst and granddaughter ofSylvia Pankhurst, who were both leaders in thesuffragette movement. In 2018 Pankhurst convened Centenary Action, a cross-party coalition of over 100 activists, politicians and women's rights organisations campaigning to end barriers to women's political participation.[3]
Helen Sylvia Pankhurst was brought up in Ethiopia until the age of 12, the daughter of historianRichard and Romanian-born librarianRita Pankhurst.[4] Richard and his motherSylvia Pankhurst, the former suffragette, had settled in that country in the 1950s. Her paternal grandfather wasSilvio Corio, an Italian chef and anarchist. Helen's mother was Rita Eldon Pankhurst, academic and activist.[5] Helen has one sibling,Alula Pankhurst, like both their parents ascholar of Ethiopia.[6]
She began her studies, in French, at theLycée Guebre-Mariam in Addis Ababa. The family moved to London following thecoup d'etat of 1974 which overthrew EmperorHaile Selassie and began theEthiopian Civil War.[6] She continued her schooling at theLycée Charles de Gaulle before going on to theAtlantic College in Wales, the first of theUnited World Colleges. She then studied atSussex University in England,Vassar College in New York, and finallyEdinburgh University, Scotland, where she gained a PhD degree in social science.[7] Her thesis was published byZed Press in 1992 asGender Development and Identity: An Ethiopian Study.
Helen Pankhurst has worked for a range of international development organisations includingACORD,Womankind Worldwide andCARE International, primarily in Ethiopia. Her focus has been on programme and policy in urban and rural development, water hygiene and sanitation, and women's rights.
Pankhurst has been a trustee ofWater Aid,Farm Africa andAction Aid[8] and has been a visiting senior fellow at theLondon School of Economics (LSE) and a visiting professor atManchester Metropolitan University.
At the2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, Pankhurst appeared alongside her daughter, Laura. The pair have since formed a group called Olympic Suffragettes, which campaigns on a number of women's rights issues. She also leads and speaks at the London march each year on 8 March forInternational Women's Day.[9] She was interviewed by theHuffington Post in 2017 as part of three generations of Pankhursts, with her motherRita and daughter Laura. Her mother said that feminism for her was “more of a curve or a climb - a growing awareness”. Helen said it was about seeing women in Ethiopia who were expected to carry water every day, whereas Laura said it wasn't so apparent until she was older because of the family where she had grown up.[10]
In 2018 Pankhurst established Centenary Action, a cross-party coalition of over 100 activists, politicians and women's rights organisations campaigning to end barriers to women's political participation; as of October 2024[update] she is its convener.[11][12] Centenary Action has campaigned on issues ranging from increased transparency in political party candidate selections to an end to the violence and abuse of women.[13]
Pankhurst leads and sits on the steering committee of GM4women2028, a charity created in 2018 to deliver change for the women of Manchester.[14] Other committee members include ProfFrancesca Gains, Eva Herman, Omolade Femi-Ajao, ProfsJackie Carter andJill Rubery.[14] In February 2021 Pankhurst led "a virtual score card reveal" witnessed byAndy Burnham, themayor of Manchester. The GM4Women2028 score cards are keeping track of gender equality as Manchester approaches 2028 - the centenary of theRepresentation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928, which gave all British women the right to vote on equal terms to men.[15]
During theCOVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, she led lobbying on behalf of childcare providers to ensure that they were treated fairly by the government's Job Retention Scheme.[16]
She has an honorary PhD fromEdge Hill University. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the2019 New Year Honours for services togender equality. In October 2018, she was appointed the firstchancellor of the University of Suffolk,[17] a largely ceremonial role.
In 1992 her bookGender, Development, and Identity: An Ethiopian Study was published byZed Books.[18] Pankhurst's bookDeeds not Words: The Story Of Women's Rights Then And Now was published in February 2018.[19]
Pankhurst is the great granddaughter ofEmmeline Pankhurst, political activist and leader of the Britishsuffragette movement and granddaughter ofSylvia Pankhurst, campaigner for the suffragette movement in the United Kingdom. She is the daughter of historianRichard Pankhurst and librarianRita (née Eldon) Pankhurst; her brother isAlula Pankhurst. Suffragette leadersChristabel andAdela were her great-aunts.[20] She married David Loakes (retaining her maiden name) and has two adult children.[21]
Pankhurst advised on and had a cameo role in the 2015 filmSuffragette alongside her daughter.[20] She promoted the film around the world, visiting Australia, Japan, USA and throughout the UK.
established by Professor Helen Pankhurst
Helen Pankhurst: Convener
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