An email from Amy's Grandma about why Women should vote.

[diaci13]

This is what our Democracy is all about!

A Message for all women

THIS IS MOVING. HOW QUICKLY WE FORGET.....IF ....WE EVER KNEW......

WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE

This is the story of our Grandmothers an d 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.

(Lucy Burns)
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.

(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--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 ... soners.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 DV D . 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.


p.s. Charlotte and Ida, could we watch the 'Iron Jawed Angels' for the following Monday, after 'Blue Betty'?

[amelia]

Yes. It is the sysytem that needs to be changed but while it is there it is the only system in place so it does matter that we use the only thing offered to us...

In Australia, both Woman and the Native Australian or Aboriginal (the originals), were declared people and afforded that legal construct word only in 1967.

More on this when I've finished a book - that I incidentally ( but is it?) got when last there - just up the road from the elephant house with all the belly dancing clothes and instruments in the window- interesting books in that shop.

[milk]

according to one of the speakers at the Edinburgh Humanist Society talk on the suffrage movement a few months ago, next year there's to be a 100 year anniversary march of the 1909 pageant from Embankment to Albert Hall in which 13,000 protesters took part. can't find any more details of this via google yet, though it was mentioned it was only in the planning stages at said talk.

relating to sex and the upcoming US elections; The Daily Show - Sarah Palin Gender Card (video)

[simone]

yes, but you should not vote for the sake of voting, if there is no party that you want to put your name to then that is another political statement and one that needs to be addressed ie get a candidate in that you want to vote for.
men should also be encouraged to vote, and young people, and make more of an effort to take the ballot boxes to those that cannot get to them like the elderly and sick.
i totally respect everything that women have done for my rights and freedom that i have now but i do feel strongly that women should not be made to feel bad for not using their vote if they feel it would cause more harm than good by doing so...

[amelia]

The system must count votes. I believe everyone should vote for this reason. Knowledge is one thing but it is the application of Knowledge that is the greatest wisdom.

How a non vote is interpreted is also our responsiblity.

Disgust, annoyance, disrespect or lack of trust causing a non vote to be cast, will be interpreted as apathy. It actually gives them strength.

As votes reduce, it makes it all the easier for a sytem of government that has NO connection to the people, to come about. There is NO argument for this not to occur. Far less likely when there are lots of consistent reliable voters.

A government has never improved itself in reaction to less people voting.

Make a day of it. Pack a forest picnic. Have a forest voting get together 'drop in' with only political verse and song. Easy for you guys to get one of you who knows 'minimal impact' voting (meaning environmental, best all round social justice) to have how to vote cards at the cafe.

I used to be very active in the Greens and these days can be fun - if you let them.

Lois Lane, on location...