Although the United States won its independence from Great Britain over 200 years ago, the country’s path towards democracy has been long and tortuous.
As brilliant a document as our original Constitution was, it did not give full democratic rights to everyone in the country. For example, women won the right to vote less than 100 years ago!
The men in power violently resisted protest movements by women seeking that right. For example, on November 15, 1917 (the “night of terror”), defenseless women carrying signs asking for the vote and picketing the White House were arrested and thrown into jail, and wrongly convicted of obstructing sidewalk traffic.
While in jail, with the blessings of the warden, the women were subjected to enormous savagery, including being violently beaten, knocked unconscious, hung by their hands from high cell bars overnight, force fed to the point of vomiting, and fed vile worm-infested food for weeks.
To pursue their right to vote, these women and their foremothers exercised considerable moral agency—powered, as Theresa Thorkildsen has said, by a vision of how the world should be.
The full story of these women, including President Woodrow Wilson’s efforts to pressure a psychiatrist to diagnose Alice Paul as insane and permanently institutionalize her, can be seen in the HBO documentary “Iron Jawed Angels.”
For a briefer version of the story, watch this video.
The message: Get out and vote on Tuesday, November 2.
Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology