Suffragist/Suffragette - What's the difference?

Suffragists

Those involved in the first wave of the campaign for women’s votes are known as suffragists.

Suffragists believed in peaceful, legal methods of persuasion such as petitions, public campaigns, making appointments to talk to politicians, giving speeches and holding fundraisers. The South Australians who successfully campaigned for votes for women were suffragists.

Suffragettes

Suffragettes were members of women's organisations in the late-1800s and early-1900s who took direct, sometimes violent, action to achieve women's suffrage, especially in the United Kingdom.

The name refers in particular to members of the British Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), a women-only movement founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst. The suffragettes were known for such actions as noisy protests, hunger strikes, heckling politicians during political events, blocking roads and vandalism.

Sources

Start of the Suffragette Movement - UK Parliament

Australian Feminism and the British Militant Suffragettes - Barbara Caine for Parliament of Australia