WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE
This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they
lived only 90 years ago.
Remember, it was not until 1920
that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.
The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed
nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking
for the vote.
And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.
Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing
went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of
'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'
(Lucy Burns)
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above
her head and! left he r hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping
for air.
(Dora Lewis)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her
head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate,
Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.
Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging,
beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and 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.
(Alice Paul)
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they
tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid
into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks
until word was smuggled out to the press.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf
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 'Iron Jawed Angels.' 
It is a graphic depiction of the battle
these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling
booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.
All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the
actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote.
Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege.
Some! times it was inconvenient.
My friend Wendy, who is my age and s tudied women's history,
saw the HBO movie, 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 that movie,' she said.
'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use,
my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just
younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The
right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'
HBO released the movie 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 Bunco 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
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, and brave. That didn't make
her crazy.
The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for
insanity.'
Please, if you are so inclined, 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 for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic,
republican or independent party - remember to vote.
History is being made.
When you put your hand to the plow, you can't put it down until you get to the end of the row.
-Alice Paul recalling the advice of her mother
Nyana - Office Manager, Barbara Kehl Realty
Barbara Kehl Yuma Arizona Real Estate
;)
;)
Thanks for this great post on the suffragettes!
There's so much talk now about the 'women's vote,' but it is just a myth.
Senator Clinton and Governor Palin are proof that women can and do diverge on important issues.
Even on the question of whether women should vote!
Most people are totally in the dark about HOW the suffragettes won votes for women, and what life was REALLY like for women before they did.
Suffragettes were opposed by many women who were what was known as 'anti.'
The most influential 'anti' lived in the White House. First Lady Edith Wilson was a wealthy Washington widow who married President Wilson in 1915.
Her role in Wilson's decision to jail and torture Alice Paul and hundreds of other suffragettes will never be fully known, but she was outraged that these women picketed her husband's White House.
"The Privilege of Voting" is a new free e-mail series that follows eight great women from 1912 - 1920 to reveal ALL that happened to set the stage for women to win the vote.
It's a real-life soap opera! ALL true!
Suffragettes Alice Paul and Emmeline Pankhurst are featured, along with TWO gorgeous presidential mistresses, First Lady Edith Wilson, Edith Wharton, Isadora Duncan and Alice Roosevelt.
There are tons of heartache on the rocky road to the ballot box, but in the end, women WIN!
Thanks to the success of the suffragettes, women can support the candidates and cause we choose -- left, right, in-between or GREEN!
Exciting, sequential episodes are perfect to read on coffeebreaks, or anytime.
Subscribe free at
www.CoffeebreakReaders.com/subscribe.html