I’m feeling overwhelmed with emotion reading the many posts here. I am so proud of all the women here. You make me proud to be a woman. I haven’t found the words yet to describe how I feel, so I’m sharing with you some quotes from Iron-Jawed Angels, an HBO film about brave, extraordinary women who fought so you and I could have the right to vote. That’s a right, by the way, that many at Free Republic would like to take away. (I haven’t been to Free Republic in a couple years, even to scoff at their idiocy, so appalled and terrified was I by seeing several threads on taking away women’s right to vote.)
Alice Paul: We’re legitimate citizens. We’re taxed without representation. We’re not allowed to serve on juries so we’re not tried by our peers. It’s unconscionable, not to mention unconstitutional. We don’t make the laws but we have to obey them like children.
Carrie Chapman Catt: This will get out to the foreign press. You can tell the President that he can look like a damn fool or he can deal me in.
Alice Paul: I’m not a man.
Inez Mulholland: Ever wish you were?
Alice Paul: Once, when I saw my brother peeing his name in the snow.
Alice Paul: I was put in a straight jacket and taken to the psychopathic ward. I could not see my family or friends, council was denied me. I saw no other prisoners and heard nothing of them. I could see no papers. Today I was force fed for the third time, I refuse to open my mouth. My left nostril, throat, and muscles of my neck are very sore. I vomit continuously during the process.
I had the great pleasure recently of watching “Iron Jawed Angels” with my 15yo stepson. As demoralizing as the weekend meltdown was at dkos, I think of my feminist foremothers’ struggle and realize how much of the “important shit” (to re-appropriate a very ill-chosen phrase) has already been accomplished, and how very much my life has benefited from those victories. Nothing less than inspiring, and that is not a word I throw around lightly or often.
Ahh Susan, I can always count on you to go to the heart of things. Thanks for these reminders and wasn’t that HBO film something to just make you weep with pride and the pain that they suffered for us. Our ancestors were really made of some strong stuff!
It is wonderful to see the Women Warriors arrive here in numbers. What a fabulous addition to our Boo home.
Women of Boo:
I’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with any of you on any line about any issue any day. Tell me the place and the time and you can count on me being their.
Welcome everyone. . .and I am not for a moment discounting the great caring and understanding guys that populate this place too.
I have to say, today has been my favorite day here at the Frog Pond. There’s alot of hurt feelings due to the Kos meltdown, but at the same time I see alot of hopeful passion for issues that matter to everyone regardless of gender. I’m glad to see this site grow. Where’s the bood to make us a photoshop image of a frog with wings?
I like that susan and think that may also be the difference between Kos and Bootrib right now…we are all passionate here but we don’t take our passionate feelings and opinions and try and destroy people who don’t agree with us or our opinions.
Bood’s out tonight. And Ductape too. He’s missing all the new ladies. He’ll be disappointed 🙂
call it coincidence, or not, but you mentioned that you would like to see a 40/60 Senate with a female majority; well now that’s what your poll is reflecting here tonight. I will be amused if they make some type of grand entrance.
Bood and DoodAbides are one and the same, non?
Anyway, I don’t have his photoshop ability, but I thought I’d add this – because, well, because it is great imagery. Pic is a little big to post direct though. Enjoy.
thoroughly enjoyed the pic, thx for sharing. Bood is one and the same.
Cool pix-now there’s a frog that looks like she’d say more than ribbit.
I don’t have HBO so I had to wait till Iron-Jawed Angels came out on DVD…and you’re so right. That movie made me feel great about women(weaker sex, my ass) and so pissed me off at the same time. I hate to admit it but I was just pissed off for days at men in general after watching that movie and I know that that isn’t right but I was.
To think that that was such a short while ago and now people don’t get out and vote-women and men-is rather heartbreaking isn’t it. And that most young women aren’t even aware of the huge struggle over many years by so many strong and dedicated women to ‘win the right’ to vote is a crying shame.
Didn’t Hilary Swank win an Emmy for her portrayal? I know she was nominated.
Delivered a speech in Ohio in 1851. There are several different versions of the speech and some dispute as to which is accurate. Accurate or not, I’ve always been fond of this part —
“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?”
Agree…one of my favorite parts also.
That quote is worth a 12. .
And wasn’t she a woman though! What a woman!
Just….a thanks to you all for simply being here. Once again, not until back in the company of other powerful women, did I realize how much this mess had affected me. I’ve been working very hard, I realize now, to not allow the stuff going on over there to practically give me flashbacks.
Being here tonight, and spending some time at the other Kossack women site, has allowed me to relax, and to remember that together, there is simply not much women cannot do. But oh yes, we do need each other, badly, as well as the company of our strong, gentle brothers who can see us for who we are.
Now maybe I can get some sleep!
I loved that movie, to the point of dreaming of standing at the WH gate with a sign – ’till I realized I couldn’t afford the trip.
I recommend a book that will give you a totally different perspective on our history. “American Women” by Gail Collins covers everything from the very first settlers to the sixties. The ‘women’s studies’ I wish I’d had. It’s a fascinating read at this time. Just when you think it can’t get any worse, you’ll know that it can!
To put the timeframe of our getting the vote in perspective, I always try to remember that when my father was born, his mother (my grandmother of course) was not yet allowed to vote.
It wasn’t that long ago that Susan B. Anthony was arrested in Rochester, NY, for attempting to vote.
I recommend a visit to Women’s Rights National Park (in Seneca Falls) if you ever get to western New York.
I managed to miss the whole incident due to a migraine, and perhaps the migraine was the lesser of the evils! Yes, Susan B! I’m from that neck of the woods and it’s an inspiration to think of her here. Lot’s of good history in upstate.
I too, am very touched by the frankly powerful women here.Never apologize,never explain.
There are certain arguments that I do not get into anymore because in my mind there is no debate. It would be unrealistic to think that the fight for women’s equality has been won though.
If you want to find a strong person, find a single mother who has raised her children well. The struggle to put food on the table while running a household. The struggle of being the ‘only one’ the kids can go to for their problems. Eventually, I met other single mothers like me and we supported each other by phone, by trade, by job tips. Most of all by laughing together.
It’s harder for single mothers to get by because we still have not won the war for equal opportunity and equal pay.
When my obsessive-compulsive boss was down on me and I couldn’t stand it, I had to hang in because I had just sent my son to the orthodontist for a $3000. smile. Ah those were the days and I’m so proud that I survived and that it was all worth it.
Congratulations to all the single mothers out there, survivors, warriors all.
I believe that Sojourner Truth’s speech was the first recorded example of an American (man or woman, any race) laying the smack down.
Rather than the term “powerful woman” I prefer Empowered women”. It means to me that there has been struggle in that woman’s life and she overcame the obstacles put in path. It means she took a difficulty or negative situation and turned it into a positive. At each turn in the road she forged forward because she was able to gain her own power from the lesson. Many of us grew up in the 50/60s era where we were to be seen and not heard. I know for me it took until my thirties to find my voice AND learn the difference between assertive and aggresive. That it wasn’t so much what I said that would get me into a fix but HOW I said it and/or the tone of voice. Each time I got the lesson I became more empowered.