Today is Women’s Equality Day and it’s as good a time as any to remind everyone of just how difficult it was for women to get the right to vote. This fun guest post by Amy Simon of She’s History over atNicole Sandler’s place is a nice overview of the fight for women’s rights through the ages.
The Pankhursts were very militant and smashed windows and used hunger strikes to get attention, which worked well in England but not so much in America where Alice Paul tried hunger striking. She and a bunch of gals were arrested for LEGALLY and PEACEFULLY protesting – picketing in front of The White House for the right to vote. We were at war then (WWI) and the gals’ protest was seen as un-patriotic – and of course Wilson was still pissed off about the Parade.
Now Alice Paul and her gal pals had been trying for years and years to get President Wilson to address the issue of suffrage. She was polite at first but grew weary and frustrated and like Glen Close in Fatal Attraction, she would not be ignored. It galled her and her gal pals that the President was so willing, as she put it – and she put it on banners everywhere – to go to war to fight for liberty – but not for the women! “How long Mr. President must women wait for liberty?”
The gals were arrested, charged with “obstructing sidewalk traffic” and literally, physically THROWN in jail – the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia. It was November 15th 1917, The Night of Terror. There is a wonderful movie called Iron jawed Angelsstarring Hilary Swank as Alice Paul, which tells this story. They were served food with worms, dirty water – and worse. Many of the women were viciously brutalized, including Alice Paul’s pal Lucy Burns who was beaten, chained and left hanging all night. What a disgraceful chapter in our history.
Alice Paul went on a hunger strike. For three weeks, three times a day, they stuck tubes down her throat – and force-fed her raw eggs. Then the government hired a shrink to say she was insane – ‘cause that’s what we did with our women back then when they got out of hand. We just threw ‘em in the psych ward. But this shrink – he said, “No this woman is NOT insane.”
“Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity”.
Lots of courageous women went to jail. And what a cool shrink! But the Night Of Terror backfired on Wilson when word got out about how brutally the women were treated. How they had applied for political prisoner status and were denied. Throwing old ladies against the wall and beating them with their broken banners is NOT good publicity. There was a hearing and a lot of press, which helped the movement. The torch was passed and The Nineteenth Amendment (Susan B. Anthony Amendment) was FINALLY passed.
Although the amendment had passed comfortably through Congress with the requisite two-thirds majority in 1919 (the vote was 304–89 in the House of Representatives on May 21, 1919, and 56–25 in the Senate on June 4, 1919), there was considerable doubt as to whether or not it would be able to garner the 36 states necessary to secure ratification. Legislators in many Southern states were opposed to the amendment (it was rejected in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Mississippi, and Louisiana), and its fate appeared to hinge on Tennessee. As Cheryl Hiers writes in “War of the Roses,” when suffragists counted its supporters in Nashville when the Tennessee legislature was to cast its votes on August 18, 1919, they …
knew they were in trouble. By the roses [suffragists wore yellow roses while anti-suffragists donned red ones], it appeared the amendment would be defeated 47 for and 49 against. In the first roll call, however, Rep. Banks Turner came over to the Suffragist’s side and the vote was deadlocked at 48 for and 48 against. The second roll was taken and the vote remained 48 to 48.
With wilted collars and frayed nerves, the legislators squared off for the third roll call. A blatant red rose on his breast, Harry Burn–the youngest member of the legislature–suddenly broke the deadlock. Despite his red rose, he voted in favor of the bill and the house erupted into pandemonium. With his “yea,” Burn had delivered universal suffrage to all American women. The outraged opponents to the bill began chasing Representative Burn around the room. In order to escape the angry mob, Burn climbed out one of the third-floor windows of the Capitol. Making his way along a ledge, he was able to save himself by hiding in the Capitol attic.
When tempers had cooled, Burn was asked to explain the red rose on his lapel and his “yellow-rose” vote. He responded that while it was true he was wearing a red rose, what people couldn’t see was that his breast pocket contained a telegram from his mother in East Tennessee. She urged him to do the right thing and vote in favor of the amendment.
Every man has a mother …
In case you were wondering, they used the states’ rights argument then too.
Update: Not that this issue is settled, mind you:
If the beyotches couldn’t vote, we wouldn’t have had to put up with Ike or Hoover much less Johnson, Carter, Clinton and Obama. Think how much better things would be!
