OT - An Important Reminder

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Attached to this message you will find a sobering reminder of the stuggle that women endured in gaining the right to vote. I thought about sending it just to students, but, finally, I decided it is important for faculty to find a way to engage students in really thinking and acting on this. Hillary Clinton talked about cracking the glass ceiling, but she didn't break it. It doesn't look like it will be broken anytime in the near future, but perhaps now is an opportune time to consider the nature of our stuggle—how far we have come or how far we have to go. I was NEVER exposed to this information in college. Even the History of Women in the US looked at the accomplishments of women as opposed to the nature of the struggle they endured. I think we take our right to vote for granted, because we don't know any better. I know this email has inspired me to get involved this fall, and I do want to see the movie. Thank you for your time, Frieda

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A Message for all women

WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTEThis 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.

(Lucy Burns)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.' They beat Lucy Burns,chained

her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her

hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

(Dora ) They hurled Dora into a dark cell, smashed her

head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought 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 '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 ) When one of the leaders, Alice , 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.

ly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend , who is my age and studied 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 and his cronies try to persuade

a psychiatrist to declare Alice insane so that she could be permanently

institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice

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.

Read more:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/tactics.html

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/brftime3.html

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