Monday, October 18, 2010

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

I cannot remember when I was not for equal rights for women - even as a young man.

Recently was looking into the History of Women's Suffrage and of course the names of Anthony and Stanton were prominent, along with others. But these women both died in the early years of the 20th Century, years before the 19the Amendment which finally gave women the right to vote in any state of the nation.

Maybe I missed something that is prominent, but recently I watched a movie on a disc which depicted the lives of Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, among others. These women, and others, staged a kind of civil disobedience before the White House (Wilson was President at the time, toward the end of WW I) protesting the lack of women's suffrage in the U.S.

They were never violent themselves apparently, but the movie graphically showed, among other things, their being jailed more than once, and later going on a hunger strike. They were physically brutalized, including being subjected to a crude kind of forced feeding. I couldn't believe it! The women "won" in the end, but this had to be Hollywood making it up, I thought.

Much to my surprise when I "googled" these names, I found that what the movie depicted actually happened! So far as I know -- which is little enough -- such never happened to Anthony or Stanton in the 19th Century. They were certainly flawed women in some ways perhaps, but they were very, very brave for decades, and their work was finally effective to be sure. Still, physical torture they did not have to endure!

So, I suppose people more knowledgeable than I about all of this know of Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, but I doubt that the so-called "man-in-the-street" knows -- especially these days. But he should!

Further, I doubt very much that the 19th Amendment would have come about when it did without the incredible courage of these two women!

How could intelligent and educated men, especially the leaders, be so dumb for so long?