September 8, 2008
by: Martha Nebel
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.'
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.
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--was infested with worms.
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.
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."
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.