Iron Jawed Angels

We have seen that the suffragist movement had left a deep mark in history. For this reason, the suffragist movement has been the topic of many creations in the world of art such as films, books and so on. However, in this section, we are going to focus on one film which created diverse critical responses and told such important event during the American Suffragist Movement in 1910: Iron Jawed Angels (2004).

The film tells the story of two suffragists: Alice Paul and Lucy Burns recognized by the fact of using peaceful and effective nonviolent strategies and dialogues to make the American feminist movement conscious of the importance of their fight in order to get the right to vote. We are going to comment on diverse important aspects:

Firstly, one aspect that we have to mention and explain it is the fact that they were the founders of a new group of suffragist: National Woman’s Party (NWP), after being pushed out of the NAWSA (National American Woman’s Suffrage Association).

The National Woman’s Party gave the priority to the passage of a Constitutional Amendment ensuring women’s suffrage. Paul and Burns learned a lot from the suffragettes in Britain. For instance, in relation to the violence, the suffragettes used it in order to gain publicity and make people conscious of the women situation. Thus, Paul decided to use publicity in order to ridicule and damage the Democratic Party and the President, at that moment, Woodrow Wilson. It is very interesting because since the beginning of the film, we can see that the British and American suffragist movement are linked which shows that all women supported between them.

The purpose of this group was “to secure an amendment to the US Constitution enfranchising women and to pass the ERA”. What is the ERA? The ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) was a proposed amendment to the US Constitution designed to guarantee equal rights for women.

Moreover, the members of this party were called Silent Sentinels because they used the silence as a form of protest. A curiosity was that they continued her campaign even when the US entered into the war in 1917. It was argued that it was hypocritical for the US to fight for democracy in Europe while it was denying its benefits to the US population. However, the suffragettes in Britain decided to stop when their country entered into the war in 1914.

In relation to the President, Woodrow Wilson was an American politician and the 28^th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921. He held off support for a nationwide constitutional amendment for the suffragist movement because his party was divided, including the South who was against anything related with rights, except for Arkansas. The National Woman’s Party spook badly of the President and his party for not having adopted any amendment on the matter. However, he kept in touch with the National American Woman Suffrage Association. 

Furthermore, in the film, we can see how the NWP protesters were against the President Wilson and tried to picket outside the White House. As a result, many women were arrested for their actions and imprisoned. Women were mistreated in the jail and so, they undertook to do a hunger strike. But, guards made them eat in an aggressive way. The same thing occurred in Britain to the suffragettes.

Officers making a suffragist eat in the jail

Another important thing was the Nineteenth Amendment. The NWP pressured the President to introduce this amendment into the Constitution, and finally, he did. The Nineteenth Amendment prohibits any United States citizen from being denied the right to vote on the basis of sex. This amendment was the culmination of the women’s suffrage movement in the US to get the vote.

In conclusion, we see the importance of films about this topic because it helps us to learn more about those women who fought for achieving the right to vote and get the equality between men and women. Also, it is important to know the details of the context because it can help us in understanding the reason of movements. 

In the next link, we can find the full movie and have a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKZ2siXjijA 

Also, there are more information in the next links:

http://iron-jawed-angels.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Jawed_Angels
http://www.sewallbelmont.org/learn/national-womans-party/+https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Woman%27s_Party
http://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/woodrow-wilson 

Thanks for your attention and hope that you'll enjoy! :)