Sufferage Suckotash!

Put your reading hats on. I thought it fitting to post this in light of the upcoming US and Canadian elections. Usually forward emails are lacking in any noteworthy, solid content. I mean, their forwards...come on...read this or you'll twist your ankle from tripping over a mangy possum resulting in someone driving by to laugh hysterically and loose control of their car and die in a horrific crash. But this one hit my "oooh something shiny" switch today. I am not sure who wrote this, it's American based but I have friends in America who read here so I thought I'd put it out here. It has really great old photos which I just love, and fair amount of licking HBO's ass (of which I am indifferent) However, there is one GLARINGLY SHINY omission, and in particular to the "PS" at the end of the message which makes notes on Canadian Women's Suffrage. I will explain after you read this with my own "PPS"...

This is the story of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, 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. 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.'

(Lucy Burns) 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 cellmate, 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, 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. 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. Remember to vote. PS. In Canada, women of Manitoba got the right to vote in 1916 thanks to the efforts of Nellie McClung and her colleagues. The rest of Canadian women were allowed to vote in federal elections when the Women's Franchise Act was passed in 1918. However, it was not until 1940 that the women of Quebec got the right to vote in provincial elections - the last province to accord them this right of suffrage.

My turn: PPS: It wasn't until 1960 in Canada that all Aboriginal men & women could vote without giving up their treaty rights and Indian status through a process defined in the Indian Act and known as "enfranchisement". The Universal Right to Vote didn't kick in till 1963 and the addition of the equality clause in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - that the right to vote could not be denied on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, mental or physical disability, or gender took until 1985. Uh, for a good read about the role of Aboriginal Women in Canadian Electoral Democracy: http://www.elections.ca/eca/eim/article_search/article.asp?id=26&lang=e&frmPageSize=&textonly=false So, I'll continue to vote, despite my resentment toward a body of power who doesn't care in the slightest about what I think, however at best I can tell them who I think sucks the least. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to exercise my first world aboriginal privilege to have a bubble bath.

Comments

[Mum]

In your own family:

My grandmother was a lifelong member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Behind her back we giggled at the old ladies and their anti-booze meetings. We had absolutely no idea how this organization had shaped our history and our lives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_Christian_Temperance_Union

Nellie McClung and other suffragettes found their political voices in the WCTU.

My mother was a lifelong member of the Women's Institute. Also not taken very seriously by the next generation. It was founded in Hamilton by a woman who lost her baby to contaminated unpasteurized milk. Its aim was to promote the education of women, particularly rural women and has grown into an international organization. The local chapters met once a month and meetings always included a speaker presenting some kind of interesting and educational material, often a view of life in another country. I sometimes secretly wished I could go to the meeting with my mother to hear the speaker. In our current life of internet connections, it's easy to get another point of view. The Women's Institute provided this for rural women for more than a century and is still alive and well today.

As a young college student I felt keenly a duty to make the world a better place. I helped found an organization that worked with the runaway kids that abounded in the sixties and early seventies. Some of them found themselves having babies and our organization went out on the streets to find them and try to provide information on baby care and places where they might find some help. That was just one of the things I did.

Once upon a time there was International Women's Year. The slogan - You've come a long way, baby! I think it appies here. We all stand on the shoulders of the women who came before us and should take seriously what they have given us.

[daxohol]

Thank you for posting this Mum...Four generations of women, working for women...so awesome.

In my own spiritual practice I honour those who came before me. I find purpose and comfort that my calling is founded by my own family.

[Cecelia]

Thank you for posting this! This is so very important to read about. I just watched Iron Jawed Angels for the first time a few weeks ago and it impacted me very much!