OnLine With Zoe

Suffrage and the Vote

My interest in First Wave Feminism (as it is inaptly defined) crept up on me. It began in 1982 with my militant activism inspired by Alice Paul. I got entirely immersed beyond anything I imagined while preparing to speak at the 2013 Centennial celebration at Purdue.  

As with most deep study, the more you delve, the greater the love of the subject.  I have been called an independent scholar, a dramaturg of sorts, an expert on the last 10 years leading to the 19th Amendment and the life of Alice Paul in total (she lived to 92). http://missalicepaul.com

Today my latest work went live with the launch of http://inezmilholland.org/  The film, Inez Milholland ~ Forward into Light, which I helped research, will be available FOR FREE, next week. You can order it today.

Both of these websites offer unparalleled bibliographies. We hope that students, feminists, readers will find them robust resources on Alice, Inez and Suffrage. 

If you are looking for elegant website development or suffrage research, give me a call.

Suffragettes ~ Truth or Dare

I was invited to a private sneak peek of the movie, Suffragette.  On the invitation was a request to not write about it until it had premiered which it did last night at the Telluride Film Festival.  The British press had been writing about it and now the US press is at liberty to as well.  It is a marketing thing about film festivals and who gets to print first.  I find it all commercially understandable but not my concern at all.  My concern was, is and will always be -- historical accuracy.  For the rest of time certain fictionalized movies are shown in classrooms as if they are a history lesson and thus the myths are spun and truth is unseated: my personal annoyance.   With that said, I went to this preview with a chip on my shoulder or, in my mind, prepared to hold feet to the fire. 

My host had asked me to not be rude if the film veers entirely off track.  She thought I might confront the director and screenwriter who were offering a Q&A after.  Fortunately the opening frame set the story in 1912 which means that Alice Paul has left England for America and no matter what happens I will not have to leap to the front of the room and set them straight on Miss Paul.  It was a secret relief. 

Oddly the opening scene is Maud Watts, played by Carrie Mulligan, staring into a shop window, as was the opening scene in Iron Jawed Angels.  That set me on high alert.  Maud is a laundry worker, wife and mother.  She has suffered burns, long hours and sexual assault.  She has aged out of being assaulted and now the foreman has a younger conquest.  Fundamentally she lives like most women; trying to get through the day with the least amount of friction, falling into bed from exhaustion and, tomorrow, starting all over again.  It isn’t that she doesn’t have a voice.  It is that her voice has been silenced to such a point that Maud herself accepts she is unable to speak.

Mrs. Pankhurst, the genius strategist, beloved leader and hunted change-maker gave thousands of women the means to find their voice.  She trusted that these exhausted women knew precisely what was going on, they simply had to find the means and opportunity to express it.  Marches, songs, publicly wearing the movement’s colors, selling movement papers on street corners and being visible pierced society’s convention.  They saw one another, heard one another and could be silent no more. 

The film Suffragette features two women’s delicately structured evolution into full active, sometimes shocking, militancy.  The laundry worker and a pharmacist carry on in the neighborhoods of London you might recognize from Calling The Midwife.  Nappies on the clothesline crisscross the streets, hats on every head, children sitting in prams unattended, the streets of the workers giving it their all to simply carry on. 

The film is intimate, heartbreaking, every woman’s story.  Patriarchy is at its full roar and women are crashing through like Boudicca with her daughters riding against the Romans.  Once awake they cannot turn away escalating violence all the way to the death.  All for that precious vote.  That vote doled out in increments and still not used to its full potential. 

The vagueness about the movie in this writing is intentional for two reasons; not wanting give away any surprises and to address what is more to my preferred question -- was it a blathering fairy tale forever diminishing a brave noble story of our lineage as women. 

My real jubilation happened in the Q&A with Sarah Gavron, the director and Abi Morgan, the screenwriter.  The first question from the audience was what was their process in authenticating the story.  Gavron said that, unlike American bio-dramas, the British are very serious about accuracy.   (I did want to jump up with that!)  She said it took nine years and each time something more was discovered, they rewrote and, sometimes, re-shot.  Morgan said they went through 43 rewrites.  In the course of six years they had consulted with Dr. Helen Pankhurst, granddaughter of Sylvia Pankhurst and Katherine Tupper, great granddaughter of Emily Davison. They had access to the British Museum and Parliament archives  They read memoirs by the laundry workers.  Carrie Mulligan read handwritten diaries of women who led lives like the one she played.  The role of Edith Ellyn, played by Helena Bottom Carter, was based on the real woman, Olive Schreiner who had wanted to be a doctor but could not afford the training. 

For me, it was important that Sarah Gavron and Abi Morgan did not take the easy road and draw un-provable conclusions in the film about the death of Emily Wilding Davison.  They acknowledged that Emily’s death is and will always be unsettled business; was she a martyr or on the edge of suicide?   They described they were given access to her tiny purse and inside was a return ticket, possibly alluding that she did not mean to be killed.  Watching films, listening to scholars and relatives it seems it will always be a great conversation.  Even a recent television recreation puts forth a digital supposition that she only wanted to place a VOTES FOR WOMEN sash on the King’s horse.   Dr. Diane Atkinson, author of the book, Suffragette says, “Don’t fall for this return ticket business.  It is a red herring.  I am very sure she was ready to give her life.”  The mystery is a never ending conversation. 

And we need all the bait for conversations we can find.  As Gavron said, “We need to resurrect women from history.”  Indeed we do.  Thank you Sarah Gavron and Abi Morgan.  Well done. 

Oscars and Pie

Is it too soon to move from re-act to retro-spect?  I have to admit most of my insights occur in a rearview mirror but the optimal distance is usually more than a couple of weeks.  It can take years to collect succinct or defensible responses.  Nonetheless, I am going to risk it today, show my hand and hope for the best. 

If you are a feminist or interested in feminism, Oscar night 2015 was volatile, exciting, best water cooler talk in a long time. That said, it begs the question what did it mean to everyone else?

In the pie chart of American women, I live in the red slice.  Most of the people I know live in the red slice.  We are cool.  We are hot.  We are hip.  We have read Freire, Alinsky, hooks, Hill Collins, Crenshaw.  We tweet and post and follow Laurie Penny, Amanda Levitt, Roxane Gay, Ultraviolet, A is For, and hundreds of peeps or orgs who agree with us.  We retweet and use hashtags (though not as effectively as ISIS).  We work on checking our isms, our privilege, our ever-widening inclusion and our revulsion over inner circle royalty.  We are pro plus sizes, support public breast feeding and fight like hell to come out ~ as queer, having an abortion, in recovery.  We do all we can to protest inequality, demand justice and stand in solidarity.  It’s a lot but it’s who we are. 

Once a week or less I shop at a big neighborhood grocery store.  In twelve years, my favorite checker, Sue always asks me the same two questions.  “How’s Grace?”  She’s fine.  “What did you do this weekend?”  One weekend I told her about going to Dallas.  I hosted an ERA Café Conversation and Gloria Steinem was at the same table.  I asked her if she knew who Gloria Steinem was.  “No, who is she?”  I asked if she had heard of Ms. Magazine.  “No.”  I asked if she knew what the ERA is.  “No, What is it?”  But you can be sure my checker knew what fair wages means. 

Sue has no idea what is intersectionality or white privilege or why immigration is a family issue.  She does not know what the old Jim Crow is about, let alone the new Jim Crow.  She knows about a zillion morphing prices for as many products on hundreds of shelves on dozens of aisles.  She knows the mad hours she and her husband work to keep their children, grandchildren and dog, Emmie safe and well.  She knows her feet hurt and retirement is many years off. 

Sue is not in the red section of the pie chart.  She doesn’t know that there is a matrix of domination, an inseparable intersection of all oppressions, a few men own dam near everything, black water is coming out of California faucets and abortion rights are the lynchpin of female autonomy.  She doesn’t know that I live and love in the red section of the pie chart.  She doesn’t know about the chart, the pie or the red slice.

Sue didn’t see Boyhood.  She has no idea who the Arquette Family is but she did see the Oscars.  She saw a best actress winner say something about her own life; about equal wages.  She saw a woman over 40, in a nice, relatively kind of plain dress, wearing glasses, talk about her life.  She saw women in the audience leap to their feet in support.  I am certain Sue knows they are all rich beyond belief.  They have more money than they could ever need and she saw one of them spent her sliver of time to talk about equal wages.  And, now she knows that even among well paid Americans, men and women are paid unequally. 

Sue doesn’t know what was said backstage, about the call for Gays and Blacks to back the fair wage movement.  The phrase, Equal means Equal is all new.  It was an outrage to those who live in the red slice.  It was a slap in the face for all those who work in the red slice.  It set the social justice movement back decades as tweeted and posted by the red slice residents.  But that night, someone at the Oscars said, women should be paid equally.  And that’s enough for Sue.  And I am grateful to Patricia because Sue’s feet hurt and she rings up my groceries and always asks, “How’s Grace?” 

I love writing, thinking and living in the red slice.  It is home to me.  And one of my concerns is full equality for all the pie people.  I want fair wages and don’t need everyone to convert to the red slice.  Forgive me if I don’t say it well.  I know better. 

 

Get me a Piece of Vanilla, Milquetoast, BS Pie

Imagine if the film industry took every meaningful, inspiring, insightful and incite-ful story and made it G-rated, a box office success and shaved off every bit of thorny truth or multi-layered complexity.  Imagine if a writer misrepresented a real person and retold a historic event to suit themselves.  Maybe it is their right to do that, to show one side of a life, but a tragic loss occurs when a generation believes that the sanitized version, the mischaracterization, the fantasy re-telling is the actual reality.

Every year around Women’s Equality Day, the best of people advise us to watch Iron Jawed Angels.  Every year I comment that Alice was so much more.  Not only was she more than the movie character but the striking inaccuracies reveal a warped bias on the part of the movie makers.  They made up a male interest.  They made up a Congress member’s wife.  They imply that Alice had some kind of melancholy about not having children (the fictional boyfriend is a widower with a son who charms Alice).  But, more importantly, what is lost in this fantasy?  What is the viewer robbed of?  That is the real tragedy.  Who was this strong, mouthy, brave, relentless, sometimes divisive woman?  It is my position that the fluffy interpretation negatively impacts every American woman who would have found camaraderie in the true fire and soul of Alice Paul.  I would go so far as to say that the pink hat wearing, gum chewing, bumbling character is held up to be an example as to how far an acceptable woman can veer from lady-like behavior.  Read a book and you will see what it actually took for her to accomplish the 19^th Amendment, how she stood trial in 1917, her demanding leadership style, she did not suffer fools, she was not anything near the Hillary Swank edition.

Now the identical thing will be happening around May 22, Harvey Milk Day.  Oh yes, the movie Milk won an Oscar, starred Sean Penn, was truly moving.  I have watched it 6 times, at least.  But if you watch The Times of Harvey Milk and then watch Milk - ask two questions: What is the difference in these two representations of Harvey and what is the impact to future generations if they believe the man portrayed in Milk is the whole picture.  The fictionalized Milk epitomizes the very thing that is a terrible problem in the LGBT movement; it shows a single issue man on a single issue mission.  The Times of Harvey Milk shows Harvey working with labor, with women, with seniors, with people of color and imparts to the viewer that being gay was one facet of Harvey - he was the Mayor of Castro before it was a mecca for gays.  He was inclusive and open; something the LGBT movement could surely use today.  My hope is that high schools that do celebrate Harvey Milk Day will watch BOTH movies and have a real lesson plan that identifies the differences in these movies.   

Most recently I sat in a theater and watched, The Help.  Loved it.  Loved the casting.  Loved the poster.  Loved the sets, the clothes, the chotchkies, the music.  But I am 63 and lived through that period and I know that the entire movie from start to end was one vanilla, milquetoast, BS pie.  It has nothing to do with the facts of prejudice, poverty, politics of that time.  Madger Evers murder was some little wispy mention, a black woman leaving her abusive husband was a flick solved with some deep fry and what’s more fun than not allowing a woman to use the loo – a knee slapping good laugh; pass the popcorn.  Hollywood will surely have a 5 minute reprieve from sexism during Oscar season, as The Help gets a dozen nominations.  Can’t you just picture all of the bigotry and anti-woman business of the industry being whitewashed on the red carpet.  And what of this movie being used as a teaching tool?  Gee, wasn’t the 60’s just a lot of good music and silly women acting all clique-ky.

Notable exceptions validate a wish that non-documentary films can tell the truth.  Sir Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi was meticulously scripted and shot.   In fact, the book, Gandhi, A Pictorial Biography shows the shots side by side; Patel, Nehru, Kasturba, Jinnah, the ashrams, the courtrooms, the jails – all painstakingly accurate.  Certainly Gandhi the man was infinitely more complex than this movie but it is not dishonest, sanitized, fictionalized and offers the viewer genuine inspiration. 

Martin Scorsese’s Kundun, portrays the life of the 14^th Dalai Lama from ages 2- 24 with astounding accuracy.  Particularly significant is that many of the actors are direct blood relatives of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama.  You can be sure that the ceremonies and traditions are accurately portrayed.  

I love movies.  I love social justice.  I worry that cute is painting over pure.  I worry that polite is being advanced as possible.  I worry that women, in particular, are being corralled by darling little shots of Ben teaching Alice to drive.  I worry when Hollywood makes a movie that implies that the Civil Rights Movement was a wonderful success and, golly, wasn’t it just a lot of fun.    

The Movement Marches On

On September 14, 2009 I noticed a post on facebook by a woman who was looking for people going to the National Equality March.  She was going to be making a documentary about it.  I rang her number to tell her about a friend of mine, Melinda Tremaglio, President of Palm Springs NOW, dyke extraordinaire, who had filmed the 1987 March.  Melinda and I might have been the two oldest broads going but we would not miss any march for equal rights.  As the story goes, after two and a half hours on the phone, Laura McFerrin hung up believing that I would be one of the principles in her film, March On. 

Armed with my flip camera and a todo list I took pictures of packing, flying, landing and walking in the National Equality March.  I stayed at the Washington Court as it was the closest to the Sewall Belmont House, my favorite building in DC.  Melinda stayed there too, as did several of my feminist sistas.  Night one, I met with the director, Laura McFerrin, for the first time.  We all crammed into my studio room; sound boom, film crew, interviewer.  It was bloody late, we talked for a very long time and off they went.  

October 11, 2009, meeting ten feminists who move the world, we gathered at Alice Paul’s house, walked her halls and touched her desk.  And, poof, it was off to the March.  Meeting with my NOW friends at a specified address, we collected, we wrapped ourselves in rainbows and embraced our shared mission; equality.  I “flipped” walking and flipped again when I got back to my room.  Late that night I met with the crew to drop off my flip footage and de-brief on camera.  A bit of sight-seeing the next day, a long flight home and all of it was just a mark on a square on my desk calendar ~ and It was back to the daily minutia of building equality, one minute at a time.  For two months I didn’t hear from the crew of March On and thought c’est la vie.  There is plenty to do and that was that.  In late December a member of the crew, in whom I took a particular interest, called to ask about visting on the 26th.  To my surprise, she brought a tripod with a list of questions and told me that I was not cut out at all.      

And now I have flown home again, this time from the world premiere of March On.  Opening with Melinda’s footage from the “1987 Great March,” ending with the 2009 National Equality March and a call to action, March On tells the story of the Movement, the longing, the people who simply cannot settle for second class citizenship.  Original music and diverse stories by current day families who “flipped” their lives as well as filmed by Laura McFerrin, March On is the movie I want the movement to see.  The Movement needs to see.  Families and communities need to see. 

We cannot go to Arlington in 25 years asking the president for equality.  We cannot ask our queer youth to just hang on, live in the streets and survive while we party.  We cannot deny full equality under the law for any American.  Want to understand what this movement is about?  Want to show your family and friends what this movement is about?  Want to see the laying Quilt to the bravery of Dan Choi and witness how long this has been going on?  Want to meet couples whose lives demonstrate what it is we are marching for?  Then you will love March On.  It is your documentary. 

Out Love, not Out Rage

I saw Outrage on Friday.  Besides being supportive, I was curious.  I am always looking for agreement, camaraderie, unity.  I found the movie’s premise lost under the weight of the title.  Even watching the movie makers on the View that morning, it wasn’t readily obvious that author and blogger, Michael  Rogers was objecting to closeted people voting against their very people they have relationships with.  Closeted gay men in politics are voting against HIV/AIDS funding, against gay marriage, against making crimes against LGBT people a hate crime.  It is the chasm between their sexual orientation and their visible, measurable, callous voting record.  Frankly, for me, it begs the question, would they be less stalwart if they were straight.
 
The characters in the movie, opening with Larry Craig, were all recognizable.  Those of us who read gay news are aware of these men and their voting records.  I have to admit, I have zero idea what this looks like to straight people.  Heck, I got emails this week asking me if Adam Lambert is gay – straights see things very differently than I do.  Governor McGreevey was bright, radiant – no really – like someone who just discovered deep spiritual relief.  Governor Crist was slimy and resistant; what is the opposite of present? 

A paragraph  on women ~ Elizabeth Birch of the Human Right Campaign was terrific, moving and honest.  Rep. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin was open and relaxed.  Oh but the wives, the terrified wives, standing next to the pathetic closeted husbands at counterfeit press conferences; Mrs. Craig, Mrs. McGreevey, Mrs. Crist.  Actually there are thousands of straight spouses who are trapped infraudulent lives,  holding their families together.  How the gay spouse can do this is really beyond me.  I kissed a girl, I liked it and I came out; all within about 5 seconds.   And it is no secret that there are many, many lesbians and bi women in politics ( no I have not slept with all of them) but I can tell you that I have never seen them vote against LGBT rights or human rights for that matter.
 
But what really bothered me, deeply bothered me, was one clip of Larry Kramer, beloved founder of Act-Up.  Certainly this brave hero of the LGBT movement said dozens of quote-ables during the taping but what they chose to show was Mr. Kramer saying that activism comes from rage, from anger.  For me it was like hearing nails on a chalkboard.  I have spent over 40 years working to deepen my understanding and practice that successful, lasting activism comes from love.  You cannot convert the opponent by burning his car, breaking her windows, clubbing their kids.  Fear will never create conversion.  (aren’t we having a national conversation about torture on this right now?)

However, more importantly, the oppressed will become poisoned by the violence.  The minority has to find love in their heart and become irresistible.  That is the only way to create a healthy movement, a true lasting conversion and extinguish fear.  I was fortunate to spend some time with Jeremy Gilley, the British filmmaker who is creating International Peace Day, through his film-making of Peace One Day and The Day After Peace.  I told him that I am not as worried about those who die by gunshot as I am about those who pull the trigger as they live on with their hearts broken.  Violence is intoxicating, contagious and another disease – like homophobia.
  
Tuesday, May 26 is California’s Day Of Decision.  On Facebook, the White Night Riots video has been viraling around.  I want to tell people that clearly those 1979 riots did not work or we would not be rising up for our rights in 2009.  Releasing of violence may be billed as good for you but it isn’t.  It is not some limited energy that must be spent.  It is a viral, burgeoning disease that only attracts itself.   If you are angry, you deserve to be loved.  If you are homophobic, you need to love and be loved.  No matter what happens on Tuesday, extinguishing  anger with love is the only way that will last.  

Got MILK?

Its Friday – its the movies.  I sat in the second row center, I moved up an extra row to be really alone.  Good thing as I was weeping audibly.  I always bring a blanket incase it is cold and it was a big hankie today.  How much can you forget?  It changes every day ~ sometimes its a lot and sometimes its nothing at all but today it was just tucked away, waiting to be remembered, filled with emotion, bursting with memories, so much – too much. 

I knew MILK would be spectacular; Sean Penn, gay rights and Gus Van Sant.  Several people wrote me and said it was great.  Unexpectedly the last third of the movie knocked me out.  In 1978, my little bookstore was one of the primary organizing HG’s for the NO ON 6 campaign.  John Briggs was all over the OC and Anita Bryant was so much fun to mock.  We boycotted Florida Orange juice and hotly debated the ethics of “outing.”  We sold the Advocate, sold Holy Near tickets and never considered being closeted.  We were out lesbians in the middle of Newport Beach, Orange County, California.

As the movie portrays, we thought that we were going to lose; particularly in the eye of the OC.  It was a shock that we won.  The queers won.  We were going to be fully accepted, integrated and de-stigmatized.  State by state, county by county, family by family; as we came out, we certified our social membership.  I remember telling people, who had not come out, that they would be supported by those of us who were out.  Coming Out was all it was going to take.  Women and men gathered at The Magic Speller Bookstore.  We all enjoyed the lesbian and gay books, the fantastic bars and believed that the heavy lifting was over. 

Of course, within a few weeks Harvey was shot and the “twinkie defense” was more egregious than “if the glove fits, you must acquit.”  With Simpson, it was one man and a tight circle of people effected but the murder of Milk left thousands of us ignited, incited and in various levels of exposure in work, home and families.  My life was as blessed then as it is now; I was out, my girlfriend was out and we were safe.  I publicly testified at a Newport Beach City Council meeting as an out lesbian and no one in my neighborhood was visibly upset.  The store was never vandalized.  Briggs lost, Bryant lost, queers won. 

Twenty days or so, from the elation of the defeat of the Briggs Initiative and the assassination of Harvey Milk.  Twenty days or so, to dance with joy and come out to one’s self and all whom one loves.  It was brief, reelingly brief.  That shot did not instantly galvanize the movement, that takes time and radiates from progressive places (The Castro) to conservative homes (Montana) at a snail’s pace.  AIDS was the gasoline on that fire in those rosary praying, bible thumping homes.  (and you may recall Mr. Falwell kept that bullshit going right through 9/11 and Katrina). 

So I just wept.  Second row center.  Dec 5, 2008.  It sort of all runs together, like a Jackson Pollack (whom I can’t stand).  No Harvey, thirty years later it is not all done; it seems to just be getting started.  And I heard you say, its not politics, its a movement.  Sure seems slow.  Too slow. 

Women, not Angels

About a week ago I was invited to speak after a showing of Iron Jawed Angels.  I am very forthcoming about the movie; its ridiculous fabrications, the manipulative music and, most importantly, what the facts are.  I spent a lot of time putting together an abbreviated PowerPoint with emphasis on the movie plot line.  Since I was invited by a women’s studies group, I believed it would be an audience interested in the fight for the Susan B. Anthony Amendment and the women who waged it. 

When the movie was over, a history professor was introduced who was going to take questions.  I was rapt.  I never learned any of the things I know about the American Women’s Movement in a classroom and this was a welcome opportunity.  She began to explain that films tell you what to think, that the facts are unknown because it is the past, that there is no way to know what they wore, how they behaved or what was their intent.  She continued about the use of music that was not from that period and drew some conclusion about Hilary Swank as she was in Boys Don’t Cry – though never expressing any regard for Brandon Teena.

Ok, yes, I blew my lid.  I raised my hand and said that I had been invited there to talk about the film.  She said I could say a few words.  I said that you could definitely know things about Alice Paul ~ you can talk to people who knew her, I would furnish the phone numbers.  There are photos and letters and that the movie is based on a book, whose author is very much alive.    

I struggled to set up my projector, computer and presentation.  It was a packed room.  I opened with, “I feel like I am in some alternative universe as I usually speak to feminists, activists, people who are interested in political action and social justice.  I am not accustomed to addressing people who look at this as an art form with all the latitudes of artistic expression.  The devices, fabrications and outright fiction in this movie are known and worthy of discussion."

“You are the sequel.  That is both the good news and bad news.  The worst thing the movie does is represent this information as if it is all done.  Within three years of the passage of the 19th Amendment, Alice knew that women needed a lot more than the vote, they need to be explicitly included in the US Constitution.  The job remains unfinished and the biggest problem we have is that most people think the ERA passed and that women are in the Constitution.”

I have seen the movie at least 12 times.  I am beyond kvetching about the manufacturing of the boy friend, Doris Stevens stealing him, Alice implying that she could have him back when Doris is in jail.  He comforts Alice saying that Doris is having “the time of her life,” and she will write a book.  (I wish they had read it.  It is real; Jailed for Freedom.  It does make me freak to see Alice tying the boy’s shoe laces to a snappy rendition of “Ain’t she sweet.” 

Ok, Katherine Leighton is fiction but serves a descent purpose giving voice to rich wives who risked their security and possibly losing their children by joining the movement .  Ben is made up entirely which is particularly aggravating as he mocks Alice driving and finally gets her to take off her pink silk hat (oh barf).  Why not talk about the actual men who supported suffrage?  And why did they chose to portray Susan B. Anthony as sharing in the raising of Stanton’s children – her letters make it pretty clear – she wanted Elizabeth to stop with the kids and get on the road for suffrage.

Why not talk about Jeanatte Rankin, first woman elected to Congress, sole vote against the war and called for an investigation of the Occoquan Women’s Workhouse?   Why not talk about the extraordinary women; Alice with a Ph D; Inez, refused at Harvard Law as she was female, earned a law degree at New York University. 

And what is the harm?  Ask Hillary Clinton.  Strong women, brilliant women in a life long battle for human rights are infantilized, trivialized and sanitized only contributes to the castigation of opinionated, capable, aggressive, dedicated women.  Someone tell Tim Gunn what he does when he (an accepted gay man) describes Hilary Clinton as “dressing gender-confused.”

So much was good about the story and, even, in the movie.  Doris Stevens gazing at the State House ceiling at “the Apotheosis of George Washington,” in which women circle the heavens.  The allusion to Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in watching Katherine Leighton hide her little leather bound journal of poetry.  The brutality of the force feeding.   

My favorite scene is Alice listening to the ghost of Susan B Anthony while placing her ear on Susan’s desk.  I almost lost it when I stood in a room with Alice Paul’s desk.  It is not done, it is a long, arduous relay of activists and visionaries.  To the college kids I have the privilege to address I want to say - this one central message ~ As Alice’s desk whispered to me ~ YOU ARE THE SEQUEL. 

The very best of Sicko

I loved Sicko, but then I love Michael Moore.  This little clip is my most favorite moment.

It is one of my dearest dreams that everyone who has not voted, VOTES.  Can you imagine if all of the poor, the hopeless, the disenfranchised voted?  What would happen if everyone 18 - 29 voted or all women?  Just seizing power, which is rightfully theirs, would scare the power brokers out of their minds.   

85 Minutes spent well

It is Friday.  It is movie day.  My favorite theater re-opened with all new seats and clean floors.  I went to see Once.  I knew zero about it, just that it ranked very high on Rotten Tomatoes.

So here's the deal, 85 minutes and no one got beheaded, no one screamed, no one drove their car into another, no one flew off a roof, no one farted or barfed, no one was made of metal, no swords no guns, no knives, no one cut off a dick and fed it to a dog.  Can you believe it?  That alone is worth the price of admission. 

I forgot what tenderness can be on a screen.  I forgot what a whisper, a glance, a moment captured looked on a screen.  And can you imagine a loving mother, grandmother, father?  Sober friends enjoying A COUPLE of beers.  Simple clothes, common streets, a dog and a sunrise and NO meant NO.  Holy Mother of God ~ NO MEANT NO.

And if that isn't enough; songs, gorgeous songs about love and life.  I began to remember what it was like to be touched lightly, kindly, deeply at the movies.  You must see Once - maybe Twice.