Don't waste Women's Right to Vote - Thanks Loth

hearts and roses

Mind Reader
I had to edit it & remove the pics for space but...
A Message for all women
and men. This is the story of our Grandmothers & Great grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago. I
t was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to vote.
The women were innocent & defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote. By the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs & their warden's blessing rampaged against the 33 women wrongly convicted of '
obstructing sidewalk traffic.' They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head & left her hanging for the night, bleeding & gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a cell, smashed her head against an iron bed & knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead & suffered a heart attack.
Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting & kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right
to vote. For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food, all of it colorless slop, was infested with worms. When Alice Paul embarked on a hunger strike they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat & poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured for weeks until word was smuggled to the press.



Some women won't vote this year because why? HBO's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels' is a depiction of the battle these women waged so we could pull the curtain at the polling booth & have our say. What would those women think of the way we use or don't use our right to vote? Many of us take it for granted now. HBO released the movie on VHS & DVD. I wish all history & gov't teachers would show the movie in their classes; everywhere women gather. It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson & his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized and it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, & brave. That didn't make her crazy. The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'
We need to get out & vote & use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote Democratic/Republican/Independent party, remember to vote.
 

klmno

Active Member
Thank you! I wonder if there is another way to watch this- we don't get HBO. difficult child is learning about this in civics (soc. studies) right now, so I'd like for him to see it.
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
You used to be able to buy a lot of HBO's movies on VHS a few years back. I assume you still can get them, probably just dvd's now.
 

totoro

Mom? What's a difficult child?
I just had to go down to Social Security and change my name with them, I had never been asked prior to moving to AZ!!! I have a Passport and have had 2 license in different states since getting married. But in AZ they make you prove your SS Card has been updated. So I have been hustling to get the name change, so I can have a current Drivers License... so I can vote!!!
Even if I don't like the outcome or live in a state where my vote really doesn't matter much I still vote!
I am going to look up this Documentary, Thanks.
 

WhymeMom?

No real answers to life..
What a haunting story.........sometimes in our rushing around we take it for granted that every citizen over 18 has this right........ I will be voting in the upcoming election and will be watching for "Iron Jawed Angels"......
 
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flutterbee

Guest
I believe it was Woodrow Wilson who said that "Women shouldn't muddy their skirts in the muck of partisan politics."

Get out there and vote, ladies.
 

klmno

Active Member
A little Occupational Therapist (OT) but, if a juvenile has been convicted of a crime "that would be a felony if committed by an adult" can they vote when they are grown?

If no one knows- how can I find out?
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Still pushing Nichole to get registered. hmph I'll drag her down there if necessary. We take voting seriously in this family. Got easy child's change of address all fixed at the booth at the country fair. :) And the rest of us are good to go.
 
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flutterbee

Guest
Lisa, have her watch that movie Iron Jawed Angels. (Hilary Swank plays Alice Paul, I believe.) You can probably rent it from the library. She'll never look at it the same again.
 

trinityroyal

Well-Known Member
Thanks for posting this Jo.
My family also takes voting very seriously, and we're having a federal election north of the border in October.

I was talking to difficult child's 1:1 staffer at the Residential Treatment Center (RTC) the other day. She said that she hates politics and doesn't vote. I was STUNNED. I told her about Nellie McClung and women's suffrage, but it didn't seem to sink in.

Nellie McClung was an activist who was instrumental in winning the right for women to vote in Canada.

I think I will encourage her to track down this HBO movie. I think that the extreme suffering and bravery of the Iron Jawed Women would resonate more with her than the stolid path taken by the Canadian women. She's from the U.S. so it might hit home for that reason as well.

Given my gender and skin colour, I can't not vote. Too many people have fought and died to earn me the right. It would be too disrespectful of me not to use it and use it well.

Makes me sad that so many people don't understand that.

Trinity
 

KTMom91

Well-Known Member
My standard response to those who don't vote is...If you don't vote, you can't b!tch. I take very seriously my right to vote AND to b!tch.

Think I'll forward the movie title to Miss KT's government teacher.
 

Lothlorien

Active Member
I didn't post it. Jo asked me if it was okay to post and I approved it. I haven't seen the movie, but I just requested it from the Library.

Growing up, I learned about sufferage in school. I never got the full scope of what these women did and what a gift they gave us. I didn't really appreciate it until I got older and realized how these women suffered what they did in order to give us that gift. I don't take it lightly. Except for a few minor votes in town (either I didn't know about them or just couldn't make it because I was gone all day) I have made every attempt to vote. I have a voice and I will be heard.
 
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