Right now Iron Jawed Angels is on TV. I am watching it again, though it makes my blood boil. Patrick Dempsey hitting on Hillary Swank (music goes to I Won't Fear Anymore) glamorizes and trivializes women seeking citizenship, equality under the law and full representation. To watch Doris Stevens, author of Jailed for Freedom putting on her lipstick to flirt and Lucy Burns sparring with Alice Paul over a hat doesn't seem right. At the end, Alice Paul standing in front of the National Women's Party Building as if "everyone lived happily ever after," is too much. To me it seems a bit more like Enchanted than the fight for the Nineteenth Amendment and gender equality.
When I speak at college and university classes, I tend to rant about the movie. I am met with disapproval. They think I am carrying on for no reason; they tell me at least its a movie about women's rights with Angelica Houston, Hillary Swank and Patrick Dempsey on HBO. But the intoxicating elixir of this movie and this movement is the false notion that equality is trite (I saw my brother pee in the snow), one hundred years old and Mission Accomplished.
Proving my point that the movement is still on this year is that the Supreme Court upheld Goodyear v. Ledbetter, the Senate not passing the Fair Pay Act, the national apathy to the sexism all over the Democratic presidential race (hold on one second, Sweetie) and the outrageous awarding of an honorary degree in Humane Letters by Washington University on the leader of the anti-women, pro capital punishment, end marital rape laws; Mrs. Phyllis Schlafly herself.
But one scene in the movie I can tell you knocks me out every time is watching Alice Paul listen to the whispers radiating from the desk of Susan B. Anthony. Lucy Burns asks what does she hear? "Just do it!" she says. These women are not just characters in a movie. We know these women. They march next to us today. They are working for our rights, our protection, our advancement today. We are still running this movie. We are the stars of this movie. Lets not drink the kool aid that we have all the rights we need and just go shopping as President Bush advised. President Wilson said that he believed that women should be patient and that, if allowed, they would not vote anyway. We need to wake up! that was 1918 and there is still a lot to do.
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