In the next scene, Alice, who is in mid-shot, sits behind an oak desk and tears open some mail. There is a knock and Emily enters beaming with pride and hands the letter to Alice. Their positing in space is much like that of employer and employee. Emily stands at the foot of the desk and looks ready for dictation. There is a shot-reverse-shot sequence :. A : reading over the letter : Did you sign up for training?
We need volunteers to lobby for the amendment? E : calmly I love my husband and see no reason to publicly embarrass him. A : takes a deep breath and refills the ink of her fountain pen. Women like you are worse than anti-suffragists. You perpetuate the lie every day at breakfast.
E : dumbfounded I beg your pardon. However, judgment functions differently in this scene than the interaction with Ida W. Whereas in that scene, Ida is constructed as a judge, in this scene, through the use of time, editing, and narrative, the audience is placed in a unique position as bearers of privileged knowledge. We also know that her husband is a Senator who voted against proposed suffrage amendments.
We learn later, however that, convinced that the law is on his side, he has threatened to take her children away. Consequently, the scene positions viewers to judge Alice Paul in her treatment of Emily. Maternal feminism, associated with more conservative understanding of gender roles, favored policies and structures that would enable women to remain committed to home and family, and to exercise their moral influence over the men in their lives within the private sphere.
At the same time, their money and connections were necessary to advancing those achievements, including suffrage. This reading is informed by an idealism to call out orthodox feminists to be mindful of their social and political power.
I am of the belief, however, that the film also articulates something else. Her method of resisting conditions of constraint is non-confrontational, sentimental perhaps but certainly within an ethos of care for her family and for the suffrage movement.
Emily will, in the end, support the movement, picket alongside Alice; she will also be arrested with the other suffragists. However, her public engagement with the movement will only occur after her husband wields his economic advantage and legal status, threatening to leave her destitute.
It is unsurprisingly then that Iron Jawed Angels circulates contradictory messages at times. Indeed, the screenplay may suggest a less empowering image of Alice Paul by insisting that she has a heterosexual love interest, albeit a single father and leftist ally. It attempts to promote and reproduce new understandings of women's equality, of gender roles, and of strategic coalitions. It is a rich and complex site where gendered meanings about law and justice continue to be circulated today.
Each of these devices and choices carries contradictory feminist messages, critiques, and understandings about equality. These contradictions permit Iron Jawed Angels to work as a contemporary feminist reappropriation and critical engagement of the suffragist movement. Civil Rights Act, Pub. Hill , New York : Ballantine, Lippincott Company, Wells , Chicago : University of Chicago Press, The Accused. Jonathan Kaplan. Kelly McGillis, Jodie Foster. Paramount, Kimberly Peirce. Hilary Swank, Chloe Sevigny.
Fox Searchlight Pictures, Iron Jawed Angels. Katja von Garnier. Hilary Swank, Frances O'Connor. HBO, Million Dollar Baby. Clint Eastwood. Warner Bros Pictures, October 15, It is horrible. I spent a bad, restless night, but otherwise I am all right. The poor soul who fed me got liberally besprinkled during the process.
I heard myself making the most hideous sounds The violent methods used to punish passive resistance and force feedings provided the shock factor needed to persuade others to support their cause as well as acknowledge the injustices being done to these women. The torturous experience of force-feeding included incidents of cruel methods such as when Lucy Burns was force fed with the tube being forced up her nose, which proceeded with bleeding and injury. What these women endured provided the "shock factor" they needed to win the attention and sympathy of many Americans, including in time, President Wilson.
Meanwhile other NWP activists were organizing that shock factor. The Woman's Party chartered a special train, dubbed the "Prison Special. The press coverage, telegrams, and letters weighed on Wilson. First, he ordered an investigation, then in December he order that Paul, Burns, and the remaining prisoners be released. As soon as Alice Paul and her fellow NWP members were released from prison, they shared their horror stories. The harsh prison conditions earned them public sympathy for the suffrage movement — thousands gathered to hear their stories when they went on a speaking tour dressed in prison attire — and increased pressure on President Wilson to act.
Their dogged attempts finally led to success in , when President Wilson announced his support for national woman suffrage. Though the U. Another interesting aspect of the NWP was their tie to global politics, especially socialism.
In March , the D. The lobbying, press coverage, pledged commitments, and political victories made the NWP once again confident before the Senate vote. Anthony resolution launched a determined filibuster. Wadsworth even made an appearance, attempting to defend her husband and shaking hands with the NWP members.
The suffragists were ultimately sentenced to 10 days in jail, 17 of them receiving an additional five for climbing on a statue of General Lafayette. January 17, Page January 31, February 17, Lanham, MD: U of America, American Memory.
Thoroughly explain your position. Why did Alice Paul go on a hunger strike? Why did the prison respond by bringing her to the mental ward to speak to a doctor? What does the prison start doing to Alice when her followers join her in the hunger strike? What is your reaction to this? Allied with the Democratic party and the new president, Woodrow Wilson, Catt continues to support a gradual state-by-state campaign.
She is portrayed as traditional, stuffy, and arrogant compared to the playful, optimistic, and impatient Paul who launches public demonstrations, supports a federal suffrage amendment, demands immediate results, and condemns the Democrats and Wilson, even in the midst of war.
While historians have focused on the militant tactics of the new suffragists, the film fixates on their colorful personalities to separate them further from the old guard. Although the filmmakers try to reinvent the image of the suffragists, the storyline is based on the real troubles and triumphs of the campaign's final years.
For an audience new to women's history, it conveys the very serious barriers to women's political participation and social justice. When the activists are physically attacked as they protest peacefully, the true hostility toward woman suffrage comes alive.
The movie also contains a chilling portrayal of Paul's jail experience, showing her psychoanalyzed in the mental ward and violently force-fed after initiating a hunger strike.
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