British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst towers large in feminist history.
In the early 1900s, she led a group of women in a guerrilla-style campaign, fighting for the vote.
Now, she and the members of her movement are the focus of a new movie, Suffragette.
It depicts their struggle as they bombed postboxes, cut telegraph wires and planted bombs in a fight so little-known today.
British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, circa 1911, being jeered by a crowd in New York. Source: Getty Images
Ms Pankhurst was jailed and went on a hunger strike in her crusade for equal suffrage.
Her great-granddaughter, Ethiopian-born and now British-based Helen Pankhurst, says the women were fed up with decades of peaceful rallying that achieved nothing.
"She felt that the slowly, slowly, be nice about how you ask for change was just not getting anywhere and they just got fed up. They got fed up with one set of inequalities after another," she said.
The storyline centres on a working wife and mother named Maud, whose life is changed forever when she is recruited to the suffragette movement led by Emmeline Pankhurst.
Helen Pankhurst says she is confident the movie, to be released in Australia on Boxing Day, will inspire a new generation of feminists.
Carey Mulligan portrays Maud Watts in the film 'Suffragette'. Source: Focus Films
"I hope that the film will galvanise people to think about how they behave, what they do and that it will be part of that movement of social change," she said.
Helen Pankhurst is continuing on her great-grandmother's mission, working with Care International to improve women's rights.
"We are increasingly a globalised community and injustice anywhere affects us all," she said.
But there is much left to achieve.
"I hope that it increases the debate about feminism and the importance of continuing social change," she said. "We can't stand still."
Helen Pankhurst, the great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the Suffragette movement, during her visit to Sydney. Source: AAP
