The Women's Rights Movement In Iron Jawed Angels

Iron Jawed Angels is a film which portrays the women's suffrage movement during the 1920's. The film is a documentary and a drama which uses live action and music to deliver the sympathetic and distressful mood the film creates. An example of the distressful mood is when the suffragists refuse to eat when they go to prison. This shows how passionate and distressed the suffragists are to get the 19th amendment passed, which would give women the right to vote. The films message, which is the hardships and adversity women had to withstand to get the 19th amendment passed, is effectively portrayed because the struggle the suffragists faced is accurately and beautifully depicted. As a tool of communication, the strengths

The first women’s right convention was held in Seneca Falls, NY with about 300 attendees which include women and men, such as Frederick Douglas. Whereas the agenda was clear to abolition all social, economic, and legal discrimination against women.

Feminists today are viewed as raging, man-hating bitches, but feminism in its true sense simply advocates women’s rights. While there are extremes on either side of the scale, most feminists fight

Iron Jawed Angels is the story of Alice Paul and Lucy Burns and their part in the fight to get women the right to vote. They originally began their fight as part of the NAWSA (the National American Women Suffrage Association) which was founded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Paul and Burns meet with Carrie Chapman Catt and Anna Howard Shaw in 1912 after returning from London together. During their meeting, Burns and Paul try to take Catt and Shaw into pushing President Wilson for a constitutional amendment for women to have the right to vote, Catt and Shaw refuse.

In 1912, after returning to the United States, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns joined the National American Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA), and headed up the Washington, D.C. chapter. The NAWSA primarily focused on a state-by-state campaign, while Paul preferred to lobby Congress for an amendment to the United States Constitution (NWHM). Paul and her colleagues later split from the NAWSA and went on to establish the National Woman's Party because Paul’s tactics were considered far too aggressive for the NAWSA

In 1848, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton set up a meeting in Seneca Falls, New York to discuss their rights as women. In this meeting, they discussed that their rights is as important as men are and they shouldn’t have to fight for basic rights such as the right to vote. This was simply the beginning of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States. In the keynote address at the first Women’s Rights Convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton uses concrete detail and diction to persuade her audience that they need to fight for equal rights, to have an equal voice. Demanding the freedom and representation that women utterly deserve.

Iron Jawed Angels, by Katja von Garnier, is a non-fictional drama about a group of women who do everything they can and will do in order to the women’s right to vote during the years between 1912 and 1920, as it was started by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and many others in 1890. Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, two of the younger women suffragists, join the NAWSA (the National American Woman Suffrage Association) to try to push for the constitutional amendment for women’s suffrage. Carrie Catt and Anna Shaw allow Alice Paul and Lucy Burns to take over the Washington D.C. NAWSA committee, but Alice and Lucy would have to raise their own funds for the committee. When Alice and Lucy first get to Washington D.C., Alice and Lucy go around recruiting a team of volunteers, including Mabel Vernon, Ruza Wenclawska, and Doris Stevens.

The sometimes-fractions suffrage movement that grew out of the Seneca Falls meeting proceeded in successive waves. Initially, women reformers addressed social and institutional barriers that limited women’s rights; including family responsibilities, a lack of educational and economic opportunities and the absence of a voice in political debates. Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, a Massachusetts teacher, met in 1850 and forged a lifetime alliance as women’s right’s activists. For much of the 1850’s,

“Led initially by Stanton and then by Anthony, the NAWSA began to draw on the support of women activists in organizations as diverse as the Women’s Trade Union League, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), and the National Consumer’s League.”

The definition of feminism is very elusive. Maybe because of its ever-changing historical meaning, it’s not for certain whether there is any coherence to the term feminism or if there is a definition that will live up to the movement’s variety of adherents and ideas. In the book “No Turning Back,” author Estelle Freedman gives an accurate four-part definition of the very active movement: “Feminism is a belief that women and men are inherently part of equal worth. Because most societies privilege men as a group, social movements are necessary to achieve equality between women and men, with the understanding that gender always intersects with other social hierarchies” (Freedman 7).

“Iron Jawed Angels,” is a historical drama film that was filmed in the year 2004. The time that the movie is filmed around is the early 1900s; during the woman’s suffrage movement. There are two main characters introduced in the film; Alice Paul and Lucy Burns. During the woman’s suffrage Alice Paul and Lucy Burns led the National Women’s Party and was a Quaker. Lucy Burns played a significant role in helping Paul lead the National Women’s Party. Paul seduces a Washington Post editor to help her fight for the women’s suffrage movement; his name is Ben Weissman. Weissman was a supporter of the women’s suffrage movement and volunteered to help the National Women’s Party in changing the amendments so women can vote. This movie targets the ‘behind

Origins of the Women’s Rights Movement discusses, the impact and the significance of the revolutionary convention that changed the course of women's history. The main subject of the book is women, The book also covers women's activism, from 1840-1890, focusing on the incredible figures --Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Susan B. Anthony that started it all and it also discusses their accomplishments. McMillen addresses the stories of the four figures lives, and how those women took up the leadership on the cause of women's rights, and the astonishing progress they accomplished during their lifetimes, and the lasting legacy they left behind and transformative effects of the work they did. In Seneca Falls, New York, over

Iron Jawed Angels is the moving 2004 film that highlights how Alice Paul and Lucy Burns fought for women's suffrage. In the film, director Katja von Garnier, follows these women and the efforts they put forth as members of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and later the work they did as founders of the National Woman's Party (NWP). The film showcases the trials that Alice Paul and Lucy Burns had to overcome, not just from opposition found within NAWSA, but also among society and in politics.

Among all these different kind of feminism, a single political agenda binds them together, a common purpose; gender equality. Like most things, there are misconceptions about certain subjects. For example the media tends to focus on feminist extremist, and (knowingly or unknowingly) perpetuates the stereotype that feminists hate men, and that their agenda includes the eventual societal elevation above men. Nothing could be further from the truth since the actual definition of feminism is, “The advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.” (Oxford Dictionary, 2014). Here we see that it is not a competition to the top of the pyramid, rather it is an effort to join the sexes in equality. The problem that arises from the definition is the lack of explanation of the methods, and ideologies, and that is breeding ground for speculation and therefore misconceptions. The solution to this problem is simple; we must acknowledge that there are different methods employed by different women to reach equality.

Throughout the last century, women have had to fight to have the same opportunities as men. Women have had to earn the right to vote, the right to have a career, and the right to autonomy. However, these are all rights that men have simply been given, which is why today’s feminists work to promote equality. Despite these efforts, feminism is often misunderstood and is interpreted with a negative connotation. According to a study conducted by Precopio and Ramsey (2017), “feminism is commonly recognized as a movement driven to grant social, political, and economic equality to both women and men.” The participation of others besides women is crucial to the spread of equality among the genders. Furthermore, the stigma and negative feelings surrounding feminism must be reduced in order for the ideals of feminism to have a greater impact.