The movie Iron Jawed Angels is about a group of women who want to get the right to vote all over North America. The women use many different methods or tactics to get the men to notice them and support their cause, they set up a parade on the day of President Wilson’s Inauguration so that they would get a big crowd. During this parade, none of the men watching thought that it was right for them to be walking the streets trying to get people to change the law, they started to yell insults like “If you were my wife I would bash your head in!” and “Go back home to your mother!”. Soon after that, the men had gotten through the ropes that were holding them back and they started to beat the women which were walking in the parade. The police officers who were on patrol just walked away because before the parade was fully planned one of the girls went to the police station to ask them to patrol the parade and the police chief said that they would patrol the parade, but they wouldn’t help …show more content…
The two girls, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, formed a group of girls to help and the girls made banners and signs to hold in front of the white house gates. They would yell to the people walking by about their cause and hoped for them to listen, but they got something completely different. Once again, the men and people walking by started to beat them hoping that would make them stop trying and just give up. After a while, the President ordered them to be thrown in jail for blocking traffic because he had had enough of them going against the laws. While they were in jail, Alice Paul started a hunger strike because she said that some people would sit on someone's porch until the owner of the house would feed them/give them food. She said that she was doing the same thing except she was trying to get them to support her cause, women’s
These events were often talked about in the media, thus raising awareness for women’s suffrage (The Women’s Rights Movement). Alice Paul wasn’t alone in her efforts. Lucy Burns, also a member of the NWP, organized political campaigns, and was the editor of the Suffragist (Lucy Burns). Paul, Burns and the Silent Sentinels picketed in front of the White House (Alice Paul, 1885-1977). They were often harassed because of their progressive beliefs.
...st through a 22-day hunger strike. During this time, however, doctors tortured her and forcibly fed her. When reporters released stories regarding her situation and the many others who followed in her footsteps, the public was outraged and “the women received widespread sympathy from the public and politicians” (18). Though militant in her tactics, Alice Paul accomplished what she set out to do – gain the public’s attention by any means necessary.
Today, if a man hits a woman, he is less of a man and a disgrace, not praised and admired as in the past. Although Janie endures the beatings from her husbands, it is the denial of her self-expression that affects Janie the most; this oppression is nearly unheard of today.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Moody’s “nonviolent” sit-in at the Woolworth’s lunch counter may be her most famous act not just during the Movement, but possibly her life. The idea behind the sit-in was to request service at the segregated lunch counter of Woolworth’s. As the sit-in progressed, the white population became more aware of what was happening, and they started heckling and threatening Moody and her fellow activists. Nonviolence turned to violence when a white man rushed Memphis, one of the sit-in members. He was beaten up and arrested. Moody was dragged out by her hair, and her friend was taken from her seat by force. A few days after the sit-in, a group of Negro ministers went to the mayor with demands. The mayor ignored them. The nonviolent sit-in was supposed to be a message to the community and the country. Unfortunately, the sit-in, in the eyes of Anne Moody, was a failure because it had accomplished nothing. ...
...marches up and down certain streets in order to demonstrate how serious those involved were about change. Her participation in the numerous sit-ins, canvasses, church presentations and other activities immediately made her a frequent target of the white police. She was often recognized as being one of the leaders in the demonstration, and was immediately taken away to jail. Though, because of her experiences with Natchez, she was already used to the stifling feeling of prison life.
After the success of antislavery movement in the early nineteenth century, activist women in the United States took another step toward claiming themselves a voice in politics. They were known as the suffragists. It took those women a lot of efforts and some decades to seek for the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. In her essay “The Next Generation of Suffragists: Harriot Stanton Blatch and Grassroots Politics,” Ellen Carol Dubois notes some hardships American suffragists faced in order to achieve the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Along with that essay, the film Iron-Jawed Angels somehow helps to paint a vivid image of the obstacles in the fight for women’s suffrage. In the essay “Gender at Work: The Sexual Division of Labor during World War II,” Ruth Milkman highlights the segregation between men and women at works during wartime some decades after the success of women suffrage movement. Similarly, women in the Glamour Girls of 1943 were segregated by men that they could only do the jobs temporarily and would not able to go back to work once the war over. In other words, many American women did help to claim themselves a voice by voting and giving hands in World War II but they were not fully great enough to change the public eyes about women.
Mrs. Dove-Wilcox and Miss Hazel advocate for violence as one of the only tools left to them. The “strong militant” action that they call for is, according to Mrs. Dove-Wilcox’s speech, something that they will “have to adopt in the near future”; the language used leaves room for nothing but necessity. This necessity is echoed by historian June Purvis, who agrees that “militancy was a necessary step for winning the vote”, just as Mrs. Dove-Wilcox argues for the past failure of purely “constitutional”, peaceful methods. In a similar vein, Miss Hazel argues that women must be militant, because they cannot participate in any of the state forces levelled against the suffragettes, claiming that women are only “strong enough to attack public property…all we can do is talk and be
During the 1900’s, women were under the idea of the cult of domesticity. This meant that women’s place was in the home. They had jobs such as cooking, cleaning, and caring for the children. In the article “Why Women should Vote,” it is clear to see that Addams was biased and believed that women deserve the right to vote. She wrote an article saying why women should vote and why it was the responsibility of women to vote. Many women around the country felt oppressed. Different groups started to form as they fought for women’s rights.
In the book “The Triangle Fire: A Brief History with Documents” by Jo Ann E. Argersinger. In a short summary this book talks about the tragic factory fire that took lives of 146 workers in New York City, March 25, 1911. The tragedy happened during the great uprising of a women revolution, of many young females going to work to support their families. During this period many women wanted to be treated and work like how men worked. Having equal rights at jobs that were a risk to them, nothing stopped the uprising, until the fire became a change. Both sympathy and rage among all sectors of the American public got up to fight for a change. Argersinger examines in the context, trajectory, and impact of this Progressive Era event. During the Progressive Era, many big changes were being
While the women’s suffrage movement was none violent and mainly carried out by organized meetings, lobbying congressman, and picketing protests, the women that participated in it could do nothing to stop the violence of their oppressors from coming to them. In January 1917, the National Women’s Party, led by suffragists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, began to picket, six days a week, in front of the white house for their right to vote. At first largely ignored, they became under frequent attack with no help from the police. Then starting th...
The men demonstrate their authority over him and his classmates. A prime instance of this is the dancing woman. The ten fighters were positioned in the front of the ballroom. Then the woman was exhibited, all eyes were on her. She was completely naked, except for her makeup and a tattoo of the American flag. Her face was “heavily powdered and rouged… [her] eyes hollow and smeared a cool blue.” (1256). She represents America, and therefore freedom. The men in the audience even though they are just as fixated as the fighters, have more control. In their society, they are allowed to look at a white woman. The fighters however, are black, and therefore are supposed to suppress any thoughts regarding her so they do not get killed. This display also serves to rob them of some of their masculinity.
The deconstruction of gender roles is shown when the women are working and singing alongside the men. In an attempt to explain their empowerment Delano says that “These must be some of those Ashantee negresses that make such capital soldiers” (224). To explain why the women are able to perform the same tasks as the men, Delano labels them as being of the “Ashantee” tribe because according to his preconceptions, only the women of that tribe can do manual labor. Towards the end of the story it is revealed that the women were the driving force behind the slave revolt, showing that they held unthinkable power and influence. A moment of empowerment for the women is shown when during “…the various acts of murder, they sang songs and danced-not gaily, but solemnly; and […] they sang melancholy songs to the negroes, and that this melancholy tone was more inflaming than a different one would have been…” (252). In singing melancholy songs rather than lively tunes, they are able to inspire the black men to continue fighting and also are able to defy the romantic notion that slaves sing cheerful tunes as a sign of acceptance towards their enslaved life. When interrogated they admitted that “…had the negroes not restrained them, they would have tortured to death, instead
There was a white passenger that boarded the bus and due to the whites section being full Mrs.Parks and three other passengers was asked to move their seats to the back of the bus. The three other passengers complied with the bus driver but Mrs.Parks did not. Being that Mrs.Parks had put up with discrimination and prejudice her whole life she decided to answer the call and stand up for for herself. This was the start of a whole new
At one of Paul’s demonstrations in DC, they are speaking to women factory workers who are not aware that they should be able to vote for something like having a fire exit in the factory. Gaining the support from working class women was very important to the movement because these women are at the brunt of society’s negative views and are most affected by the societal hardships. Paul’s feminist movement received additional support from Ida B. Wells, an African American women rights activist, as long as they were allowed to march with the white women, not behind them. Although this minute aspect of the movie did not thoroughly discuss the racist issues also present at the time, it made me think about Sojourner Truth’s speech ‘Ain’t I a Woman?’ Representation from all races and social classes is imperative in the fight for women’s equality because African American women are women too, color does not matter.
First to understand why this story is critical to empowering women who wished to remain tied to their domestic roots, we need to look at the limitations imposed upon their resistance. Within the public sphere women had the option of peaceful protest which allowed for them to sway the political system that had oppressed them for so long. Unfortunately public protest could not change the oppression that took place in the private sphere of domesticity. We can see in the story that Mother has no intere...