Women who don't vote and the lack of depth about suffrage in history classes. In my other Women's Studies class we're watching Iron Jawed Angels, which, from what I can find, is very accurate in its portrayal of what the women leading the Suffrage Movement endured. The romantic story isn't accurate but the treatment the women received is.
WHY THE HELL DIDN'T WE LEARN ABOUT THIS IN MIDDLE SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL? Did you know these women were held as political prisoners on trumped up charges of "blocking traffic" because they stood outside the White House holding a banner that quoted the President. I don't have the exact text of the banner but it was an except from his April 2, 1917 War Message to Congress. The text of the banner was taken from this part of his speech (the part in bold is the part I believe they quoted but I'm not totally sure):
It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts -- for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. (Wilson's War Message to Congress)Why the hell weren't we taught what these women went through to gain the rest of us the right to vote? And why in the world do some women not vote after what these women endured. Hmm...maybe I've just answered my own question. Women have no fucking idea what was done for them to be able to cast their ballot.
I don't get our schools either...how can they not be teaching this?
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