WHAT would Emmeline Pankhurst think about calls to pardon the suffragettes?

The suffering faced by suffragettes is well documented, including being dragged away from their families and sent to jail, force fed while on hunger strike in prison, and shunned by sectors of their communities. Their plight is movingly portrayed in the 2015 film Suffragette, staring Meryl Streep as Mrs Pankhurst, the founder of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), the leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the UK.

For every person who gave the suffragettes their support, plenty of others thought of them as annoying upstarts and dangerous agitators.

The WSPU was active in York and the branch built up its membership and raised funds by hosting "at home" meetings, where suffragettes would invite friends and members of the public. They also held whist drives, tea parties, jumble sales and sewed goods to sell to raise funds.

They would chalk on pavements to alert supporters to public meetings – an activity that prompted this response from an irate York resident to the local press in 1911. "On Saturday morning about eight o'clock, I saw two women chalking something on the pavement. My curiosity led me to walk over to see what it was, and, to my surprise, I found that it was an advertisement that Mrs Pankhurst was to speak in York. Now, Mr Editor, why should the women be allowed to advertise in this way, defacing the pavement? If a poor tradesman or a theatrical company, or a small newsboy or, in fact, anyone else, did this the police would very soon be on their track, but these suffragettes seem allowed any liberty they like to take with public property. It is a very great eyesore, and I find the city is covered with these chalkings."

York's most prominent suffragette was Heworth mum-of-four Annie Seymour Pearson who served a spell in prison for her beliefs. She was part of a delegation of 16 local suffragettes who travelled to London in January 1913 ahead of a key debate on suffrage in Parliament. When the bill failed, Mrs Seymour Pearson joined a protest at the House of Commons, where along with 30 others, she was arrested and sentenced to two weeks in Holloway jail.

She only served two days before being bailed by her husband – a manager at the LNER and a suffragette sympathiser – but news of her imprisonment spread quickly and she was hailed as a suffragette celebrity on her return north. Her friends in the local WSPU sent her a wire that read: "Fearfully proud, love from all."

So should people like Mrs Seymour Pearson now be pardoned for their crimes of a century ago?

Home Secretary Amber Rudd said she would "take a look" at the issue, but added such a move would be "complicated".

Why not pardon the suffragettes? It seems the modern way, to make amends for what we have got wrong in the past.

But let's not spend too much time, thought and energy on the issue. There are a multitude of more pressing issues facing women that deserve our attention today, from fighting for equal pay and against violence, misogyny, harassment and sexism.

Two national institutions – the BBC and Tesco – have been publicly named and shamed over pay gaps between men and women at work. The BBC is now in the process of giving pay rises to women and pay cuts to men to make amends. Meanwhile, Tesco is facing Britain's largest ever equal pay challenge which could cost £4 billion. A law suit has been launched against the company on behalf of shop assistants who claim they are paid up to £3 an hour less than male warehouse workers.

We can expect to see more UK companies and organisations come under fire in the coming weeks, when a new law dictates that firms with 250 or more employees must publish their gender pay gap data by April 2018. About 9,000 firms will have to calculate their gender pay gap and publish it on a government website by April 4, or March 30 for the public sector.

Sexual harassment remains endemic, as the #MeToo movement has illustrated. What began with accusations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein has spread like wildfire and taken down many other powerful men, including British politicians. I hope campaigners continue to stand together and carry on their fight at the Oscar ceremony on Sunday, March 4.

Sadly, violence against women is still at intolerable levels. Domestic abuse affects one in four women in their lifetime and leads to, on average, two women being murdered each week in England and Wales. Each year, 85,000 women are raped in England and Wales and yet only 5.7 per cent of reported rape cases end in a conviction for the perpetrator.

And despite women having the vote for a century, they are still under represented in politics at every level, from local council through to Parliament. What's more, women in politics increasingly have to face harassment, abuse and threats from cowardly online trolls.

So what would Emmeline Pankhurst think about calls to pardon the suffragettes?

She'd probably echo my view: "Thanks, but there are more important struggles to win."