The film I choose was Iron Jawed Angels, this film shares the story of Alice Paul, the National Women’s Party, and the historical events of the woman’s suffrage movement that led to the ratification of the 19th amendment. Throughout this paper I will be focusing on the social change and deviance presented throughout the film.
The film begins with Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, both of these women are suffrage activists, meeting with Carrie Chapman Catta and Anna Howard, leaders of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Alice and Lucy express their idea of fighting for constitutional amendment enabling women to vote. However the members of NAWSA believe that Burns and Paul are "getting ahead of themselves" and trying too hard
The definition of social change in our textbook is “Alteration in basic structures of social group or society. Social change is an ever-present phenomenon in social life, but has become especially intense in the modern era. The origins of modern sociology can be traced to attempts to understand the dramatic changes shattering the traditional world and promoting new forms of social order.” This film shows social changes within our society triggered by the events of the suffrage movement. One major social change shown was that the suffrage movement resulted in passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which finally allowed women the right to vote. At the beginning of the film were viewed as unimportant, but because of the suffrage movement towards the end people started respecting women more because of all the significant steps they took so they could have a voice. These are examples of social change because they were a result of a historical event, the suffrage movement, which transformed our society’s history drastically. The film Iron Jawed Angels is a depiction of the Women's Suffrage movement which resulted in women being able to secure their place in society and made us one step closer to complete equality amongst the people of America. The deviance shown with in this film I feel like shows that women had to perform somewhat deviant acts to try and get what they needed, because no one listened to them. And the social change caused by the suffrage movement shown in the film will forever be a part of our society and if the suffrage movement hadn’t happen I couldn’t imagine where we would
...st through a 22-day hunger strike. During this time, however, doctors tortured her and forcibly fed her. When reporters released stories regarding her situation and the many others who followed in her footsteps, the public was outraged and “the women received widespread sympathy from the public and politicians” (18). Though militant in her tactics, Alice Paul accomplished what she set out to do – gain the public’s attention by any means necessary.
Kathryn Kish Sklar I have read Kathryn Kish Sklar book, brief History with documents of "Women's Rights Emerges within the Antislavery Movement, 1830-1870" with great interest and I have learned a lot. I share her fascination with the contours of nineteenth century women's rights movements, and their search for meaningful lessons we can draw from the past about American political culture today. I find their categories of so compelling, that when reading them, I frequently lost focus about women's rights movements history and became absorbed in their accounts of civic life. I feel Kathryn Kish Sklar has every right to produce this documentary, after studying women's rights movements since before college at Radcliff College, Harvard University and U. of Michigan where earned various degrees in history, and literature.
After the success of antislavery movement in the early nineteenth century, activist women in the United States took another step toward claiming themselves a voice in politics. They were known as the suffragists. It took those women a lot of efforts and some decades to seek for the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. In her essay “The Next Generation of Suffragists: Harriot Stanton Blatch and Grassroots Politics,” Ellen Carol Dubois notes some hardships American suffragists faced in order to achieve the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Along with that essay, the film Iron-Jawed Angels somehow helps to paint a vivid image of the obstacles in the fight for women’s suffrage. In the essay “Gender at Work: The Sexual Division of Labor during World War II,” Ruth Milkman highlights the segregation between men and women at works during wartime some decades after the success of women suffrage movement. Similarly, women in the Glamour Girls of 1943 were segregated by men that they could only do the jobs temporarily and would not able to go back to work once the war over. In other words, many American women did help to claim themselves a voice by voting and giving hands in World War II but they were not fully great enough to change the public eyes about women.
Social movements refer to informal groups of people who focus on either political or social issues. The goal of the social movement is to change things in society, to refuse to go along with the norm, and to undo a social change. For example, the Women’s Rights Movement that began in the 1840s was geared towards getting women more equality in relation to political, social, and economic status in society (Foner). Along with this, women gained a louder voice to speak out about what they wanted to change and implemented the change. Prior to the Women’s Rights Movement, women were often timid, compliant, obedient, and mistreated. After the 1920s, a movement towards more equality was shifted in society views, however not all were convinced or changed by the new ideas of women. Although women began to get increased rights, the typical gender roles, which they were expected to follow did not loosely lesson. Women still found themselves doing the same gender roles, house roles, and family roles even after the 1920s. It was not until the 1960s when the Feminist movement began (Foner). The literary piece is “Why I Want a Wife” by Judy Brady and the goal of the Feminist Movement was to create new meanings and realities for women in terms of education, empowerment, occupation, sexual identity, art, and societal roles. In short, the Feminist Movement was aimed to gain women freedom, equal opportunity and be in control over their own life.
King, B. G., Cornwall, M., &Dahlin, E. C. (2005). Winning woman suffrage one step at a time: Social movements and the logic of the legislative process. Social Forces, 83(3), 1211-1234.
While the women’s suffrage movement was none violent and mainly carried out by organized meetings, lobbying congressman, and picketing protests, the women that participated in it could do nothing to stop the violence of their oppressors from coming to them. In January 1917, the National Women’s Party, led by suffragists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, began to picket, six days a week, in front of the white house for their right to vote. At first largely ignored, they became under frequent attack with no help from the police. Then starting th...
During the sixties and seventies there was an influx of social change movements, from civil rights, gay rights, student’s rights and feminism. In the early sixties the US was experiencing
Last year marked the 150th Anniversary of a movement by women to achieve full civil rights in this country. Over the past seven generations, dramatic social and legal changes have been accomplished that are now so accepted that they go unnoticed by people whose lives they have utterly changed. ( Eisenberg 1) Many people who have lived through the recent decades of this process have come to accept what has transpired. And younger people, for the most part, can hardly believe life was ever otherwise.
Women's activism has brought and is continuously causing changes in the country that are more liberating and emancipating of the women's rights and place in the society. With the help of brave, bold, and principled women, the status and roles of women in the nation have become more meaningful. Indeed, the 20th century was a turning point in the lives of many women. This was the time when women battled against the oppressions brought by patriarchy through crusading for the promotion of their civil rights, sexual freedom, and pursuing careers which were once forbidden to them.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s speech was very impactful thanks to her well thought-out address, emotionally impactful statements, and rhetorical devices. By using emotional, logical, and ethical appeals, she was able to persuade many, and show a first hand look at someone personally crippled by the lack of women’s rights in her time. Through her experience, she was able to give an exceptional speech conveying the deprivation of women in her time, changing society, and helping women reach equality in America.
...es, in the eyes of the modern moviegoers, this position is no longer reasonable due to the strides already made by women in quest for equality. It is a reflection of how the past American society treated its women and draws to the traditional inclination of the Americans to achieve financial independence as seen in this post war film.
Throughout history society has been controlled by men, and because of this women were exposed to some very demanding expectations. A woman was expected to be a wife, a mother, a cook, a maid, and sexually obedient to men. As a form of patriarchal silencing any woman who deviated from these expectations was often a victim of physical, emotional, and social beatings. Creativity and individuality were dirty, sinful and very inappropriate for a respectful woman. By taking away women’s voices, men were able to remove any power that they might have had. In both Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” and Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening”, we see that there are two types of women who arise from the demands of these expectations. The first is the obedient women, the one who has buckled and succumbed to become an empty emotionless shell. In men’s eyes this type of woman was a sort of “angel” perfect in that she did and acted exactly as what was expected of her. The second type of woman is the “rebel”, the woman who is willing to fight in order to keep her creativity and passion. Patriarchal silencing inspires a bond between those women who are forced into submission and/or those who are too submissive to maintain their individuality, and those women who are able and willing to fight for the ability to be unique.
By dissecting the film, the director, Jennie Livingston's methodology and the audience's perceived response I believe we can easily ignore a different and more positive way of understanding the film despite the many flaws easy for feminist minds to criticize. This is in no way saying that these critiques are not valid, or that it is not beneficial to look at works of any form through the many and various feminist lenses.
Although the opposing sides often come to a head, Alice Paul makes a great case when she says, “women don’t make the laws, but they have to abide by them”(von Garnier, 2004, part 2). With much determination and a lot of fight, the amendment was finally passed through Congress in 1920. Iron Jawed Angels provides a realistic representation of the fight for equality, but possesses modern film techniques and music to make it appealing to viewers today. It becomes evident in the fight for voting rights that class doesn’t matter in the struggle for equality. In the beginning of the film, the majority of the women seen representing NAWSA are upper class white women, but as the film goes on the fight becomes more socially and ethnically diverse.
The movie Iron Jawed Angels is about a group of women who want to get the right to vote all over North America. The women use many different methods or tactics to get the men to notice them and support their cause, they set up a parade on the day of President Wilson’s Inauguration so that they would get a big crowd. During this parade, none of the men watching thought that it was right for them to be walking the streets trying to get people to change the law, they started to yell insults like “If you were my wife I would bash your head in!” and “Go back home to your mother!”. Soon after that, the men had gotten through the ropes that were holding them back and they started to beat the women which were walking in the parade. The police officers who were on patrol just walked away because before the parade was fully planned one of the girls went to the police station to ask them to patrol the parade and the police chief said that they would patrol the parade, but they wouldn’t help