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Moms View Message Board: General Discussion: Archive September 2008: 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.  (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 Lewis) 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.  (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. http://www.youtube.com/watch?=StF3_Mj0tBg&feature=related 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 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. Read more: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/tactics.html http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/brftime3.html
bump
Amen, Bea, Amen.
Sending to my neice
What a moving and couragous story!
Wow. I always go vote, especially for president.
I've been able to vote these past 15 soon to be 16 years of my life. I have never missed a vote for any reasonrain shine or snow. I have always knwo that it is a privledge for me (as a woman) to be able to vote ( school teachers adn mother drum that (dont' man that in a bad way) into my head. But I too have and do fell that it is my duty as a citizen to voice my opnion and it's a way that I do feel liek I am being heard wether the person I vote for or not is elected. I gave my opnion i just see it as there where other with more different opnions then mines. But i will be there with bells on, I was there for primiary vote in the sleet with my 4 year old on the bus but we where there.
Been voting since I was able to. And me, too. Dandjmom, I take my kids with me so they could see how important it is to cast your opinion.
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