Sydney R - Iron Jawed Angels

As much as women's suffrage is one of the greatest moments in American history, this film highlights very early on that they were far from fighting for the suffrage of all women.  The film's two main protagonists are white, educated, presumably middle class women and they end up fighting for the rights of those like them.  As the film progresses, we see that most of the other women fall into these same categories.  They are all white and most belong to the middle to upper class.  The most diversity that the main group of women seemed to have was the one immigrant character who, although she was still white, was not a native-born American.  Even with their socioeconomic power, they still faced many challenges when confronting the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).  The NAWSA women were clearly all upper class and they had the advantage of being older and having more connections than the younger suffragists.  Within the first twenty minutes, we see the first (and nearly only) interaction between Alice Paul and Ida B. Wells.  What was ironic to me was that I am more familiar with Ida B. Wells and had never heard of Alice Paul nor Lucy Burns until watching this movie.  I expected her to play a pretty big role in this story and was surprised to see that that was her only action of substance throughout the rest of the film.  The interaction that the two women had perfectly displayed how even though the white suffragists were marketing their campaign as the act of securing the right to vote for all women, what they really meant was securing the vote for white women.  For educated women.  For wealthy women.

Based on the readings, it seems as though women's late invitation to the political conversation has had lasting impacts.  We certainly do not have the representation that Alice Paul had hoped for and I believe we are still a long ways away from electing our first woman president.  Having Vice President, Kamala Harris in the White House has been a big step but I am not sure how much of a lasting impact it will have in the long run.  I have heard the argument that Barack Obama's presidency unintentionally ushered in the Trump-era of bigotry and hatred because America was not ready to have a Black president and therefore, extreme stances were taken to push back against this.  I can only hope that Kamala Harris's vice-presidency does not have the same effect for women.