I’ve never understood this. Isn’t it in the interest of people in power or people jailing you to watch you starve to death? Yet in prisons and detention centers, it’s always the go-to. Why do they work?
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As a counterpoint to a few of these comments – one issue where it absolutely did have an effect was the fight for women’s suffrage in Britain. Though it didn’t lead directly to success, it had a big impact in the narrative the public were seeing, which ultimately will always create progress.
Votes for Women was (unsurprisingly) treated by many public figures and much of the media as silly women saying things. Lots of narratives painted them as not to be taken seriously, or else raging harpies who just hated men and were acting out of spite. The hunger strikes were begun by Marion Wallace Dunlop, who acted as an individual, but were quickly adopted as highly coordinated collective action.
The authorities were petrified of women dying in prison. Though the suffragettes were a tough lot and literally went around committing arson and throwing rocks at Churchill, they were still women, and the optics of women dying in the hands of the state has always been a very difficult one for the public to stomach. There’s no clear, rational reason for this, the vibe just feels worse and that can be very powerful (the execution of two women in quick succession had a big impact in ending the death penalty in the UK as well).
The notion that women (especially ‘women’ as the Victorian middle class constructed them) would put themselves in such danger, coupled with some of the shocking reports of brutal forcefeeding, had a big impact on public perception. The Women’s Social and Political Union issued graphic illustrations and descriptions of women struggling and being restrained whilst a tube was forced down their throat or up their nose. These revelations caused considerable public concern at such brutal treatment by the authorities on vulnerable women. Some men also went on hunger strike in solidarity, including members of the Men’s Political Union for Women’s Enfranchisement, which lent a legitimacy and seriousness to what women were doing in the public eye. It made them noble and committed, rather than vindictive or mad.
As a lot of other commenters have said, some chap going hungry in a cell by himself isn’t usually very effective. But when hunger strikes are used carefully as a collective action, and then used a way of shifting narratives in your favour, they can be very powerful.
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