Just in case you have second thoughts about voting this year.
The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, theywere barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden'sblessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of"obstructing sidewalk traffic."
They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head andleft her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurledDora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knockedher out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead andsuffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guardsgrabbing,dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the "Night of Terror" on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden atthe Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to thesuffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson'sWhite House for the right to vote.
For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--allofit colorless slop--was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, AlicePaul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tubedown her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She wastortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because--why,exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter?It's raining?
Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie "IronJawed Angels" It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged sothat I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamedto say I needed the reminder.
All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But theactual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, votingoften felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.
My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBOmovie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry.She was--with herself. "One thought kept coming back to me as I watched thatmovie," she said. "What would those women think of the way I use--or don'tuse--my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just youngerwomen, but those of us who did seek to learn." The right to vote, she said,had become valuable to her "all over again."
HBO will run the movie periodically before releasing it on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunko night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.
It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade apsychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanentlyinstitutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse.
Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy. Thedoctor admonished the men:"Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."
Please pass this on to all the women you know.We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard forby these very courageous women.
The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, theywere barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden'sblessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of"obstructing sidewalk traffic."
They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head andleft her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurledDora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knockedher out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead andsuffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guardsgrabbing,dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the "Night of Terror" on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden atthe Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to thesuffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson'sWhite House for the right to vote.
For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--allofit colorless slop--was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, AlicePaul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tubedown her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She wastortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because--why,exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter?It's raining?
Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie "IronJawed Angels" It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged sothat I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamedto say I needed the reminder.
All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But theactual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, votingoften felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.
My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBOmovie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry.She was--with herself. "One thought kept coming back to me as I watched thatmovie," she said. "What would those women think of the way I use--or don'tuse--my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just youngerwomen, but those of us who did seek to learn." The right to vote, she said,had become valuable to her "all over again."
HBO will run the movie periodically before releasing it on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunko night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.
It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade apsychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanentlyinstitutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse.
Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy. Thedoctor admonished the men:"Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."
Please pass this on to all the women you know.We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard forby these very courageous women.
posted by Jiru at
10:56 AM
