However, if justice requires steadfastness, then it also presupposes resistance, backlash, and fatigue. Pankhurst’s own campaigns provoked harsh responses from authorities who saw women’s suffrage as a threat to social order. Similarly, modern movements for racial, environmental, or economic justice often face pushback, disinformation, and strategic delay. By insisting on standing firm, the quote addresses precisely these moments when progress seems stalled or reversed. It encourages activists to interpret setbacks not as final verdicts, but as expected turbulence along a long moral trajectory. [...]
