Assignment 3: Iron Jawed Angels

I was fascinated to learn how much women had to go through to gain the right to vote. It is a right that I have always been able to take for granted, just one of the many privileges I gained on turning 18—and yet it is a right that women have had for less than 90 years. Although it has been such a short time since then, some of the ways portrayed in the movie in which women were treated are incomprehensible to me—like how Senator Leighton cuts off his wife’s allowance exactly as if she is a disobedient child, or the blatantly false charge under which the protesting suffragettes are arrested, or most of all the inhumane force feeding of the women who went on hunger strikes.

The women experience various tensions amongst themselves in the course of the film—racial and generational tensions, and tension over whether it would be necessary to sacrifice romantic relationships for the sake of the cause. Alice Paul eventually leaves the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which is run by an older generation of feminists, and forms her own party, and she also chooses not to become romantically involved with Weissman. But her stubbornness eventually pays off; when news is leaked to the public of how the suffragettes are treated in prison, popular opinion turns in their favor, and the 19th amendment is finally passed in 1920.

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Especially in light of the film, the statistic presented in chapter 4 for The F Word that only 35 percent of women ages 18 to 24 voted in the 2000 presidential election is downright depressing. At first glance it doesn’t seem to make any sense, especially when these young women have so many issues they feel strongly about—from equal pay to reproductive rights to violence against women—and yet I can sympathize with the sense of dissatisfaction one student mentions. Although I did vote in the 2008 presidential election, the first election for which I was old enough, I can’t help but feel a little cynical about the whole process. It’s not just that I don’t feel like my vote counts for much—more than that, I’ve heard about so much corruption in the government over the years that I have a hard time putting my faith in any politician. I will continue to exercise my right to vote but, like so many other women of my generation, I feel like there are other ways to make a difference which are also extremely important and should not be ignored.