[extropy-chat] Women and Voting - A bit of History

[natashavita at earthlink.net]

A short history lesson on the "privilege" of voting —

"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 women wrongly convicted of 
"obstructing sidewalk traffic." They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to 
the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding 
and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her 
head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, 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. 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. So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year 
because--why, exactly? We have car-pool 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. Sometimes it
was inconvenient. My friend Wendy, 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
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 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."

(anonymous)

Natasha


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