[Vision2020] vote

Wed Oct 15 09:50:09 PDT 2008

Amen!  

There are some who, even today, would deny the vote to women in the belief that it divides the household and weakens the headship of the husband -- I hope all of us, religious or not, continue to honor these sisters by voting, agitating, working for causes, and rebutting the voices of those patriarchs who would deny us.

Thanks, Margaret.

Keely
http://keely-prevailingwinds.blogspot.com/

From: edc at moscow.com
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:36:07 -0700
Subject: [Vision2020] vote

    ---  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. 

    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.' 

    [See the attached file]

    (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 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.

    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. 

_________________________________________________________________
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