Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Iron Jawed Angels

First, I'd like to say that I LOVED this movie. I am so surprised I have never learned about Alice Paul or at least heard of this movie.
    One thing that really stood out to me was the Senator's wife and her narrative during the movie. One of her quotes that summed up her life was "In prison or out American women are not free." To me this was indicative of many women's home lives during this time. She in particular was always forced to have her husbands views because of his monetary hold on her. He first took away her allowance so she was unable to be a member of the NWP and then he held the fact that she would be unable to afford a lawyer in order to get custody of her children if they had divorced. This was shocking to me because I could not imagine a life where I was unable to make my own decisions because I was being taken care of like a child, but I can imagine it still happens to this day. She knew that if she were to ever feel any freedom and choice she had to fight for the vote not only for herself, but also for her daughters so they would never feel trapped and belittled like she did.

1 comment:

  1. I agree. I thought her story was by far the most interesting. She wasn't like Alice and Lucy, she was married had kids and had followed the traditional path for women. Alice and Lucy, though they sometimes struggled with wanting relationships and families (especially Lucy), equate having a family and getting married with wasting their potential. Emily Leighton has the family and proper life, but by the end she was as involved in the cause as anyone else.

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