The Bodyguard Unit: Edith Garrud, Women's Suffrage, and Jujitsu

Written by Clément Xavier, Lisa Lugrin and Albertine Ralenti  |  Translated by Edward Gauvin
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In the early twentieth century, women in England demanded the right to vote—and faced violent retaliation. Rather than back down, the suffragist group Women’s Social and Political Union formed its own security unit. Edith Garrud, a pioneering self-defense instructor, trained them to fight back against abuse and arrest while pursuing long-overdue rights.

This graphic retelling of Garrud’s life reveals the resilience and (often physical) resistance of her era’s voting-rights activists. Featuring an introduction from Elsa Dorlin (Self-Defense: A Philosophy of Violence), The Bodyguard Unit explores an explosive stage of the fight for suffrage.