OT: Remember How Women Got The Vote

[Guest guest]

I am actually posting an OT forwarded email... Nobody fall off their

chair please!

http://www.hbo.com/films/ironjawedangels/

Remember How Women Got The Vote

The women were innocent and defenseless. 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 helpless women wrongly convicted of

" obstructing sidewalk traffic. " They beat Lucy Burn, chained her

hands

to the cell bar above her head and left her hanging for the night,

bleeding and gasping for air. 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 slops--was infested with worms. 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.

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. There was a

time when I knew these women well. I met them in college--not in my

required American history courses, which barely mentioned them, but

in

women's history class. That's where I found the irrepressibly brave

Alice . Her large, brooding eyes seemed fixed on my own as she

stared out from the page. " Remember! " she silently beckoned.

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 even 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 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 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. " --

[Guest guest]

Thanks for the OT post, I really enjoyed reading it.

Hugs

June

----- Original Message -----

From: Jennie G

I am actually posting an OT forwarded email... Nobody fall off their

chair please!

http://www.hbo.com/films/ironjawedangels/

Remember How Women Got The Vote

The women were innocent and defenseless. 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 helpless women wrongly convicted of

" obstructing sidewalk traffic. " They beat Lucy Burn, chained her

hands

to the cell bar above her head and left her hanging for the night,

bleeding and gasping for air. 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 slops--was infested with worms. 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.

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. There was a

time when I knew these women well. I met them in college--not in my

required American history courses, which barely mentioned them, but

in

women's history class. That's where I found the irrepressibly brave

Alice . Her large, brooding eyes seemed fixed on my own as she

stared out from the page. " Remember! " she silently beckoned.

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 even 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 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 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. " --

[Guest guest]

Thanks for the OT post, I really enjoyed reading it.

Hugs

June

----- Original Message -----

From: Jennie G

I am actually posting an OT forwarded email... Nobody fall off their

chair please!

http://www.hbo.com/films/ironjawedangels/

Remember How Women Got The Vote

The women were innocent and defenseless. 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 helpless women wrongly convicted of

" obstructing sidewalk traffic. " They beat Lucy Burn, chained her

hands

to the cell bar above her head and left her hanging for the night,

bleeding and gasping for air. 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 slops--was infested with worms. 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.

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. There was a

time when I knew these women well. I met them in college--not in my

required American history courses, which barely mentioned them, but

in

women's history class. That's where I found the irrepressibly brave

Alice . Her large, brooding eyes seemed fixed on my own as she

stared out from the page. " Remember! " she silently beckoned.

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 even 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 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 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. " --