The Reel Woman

A MUST SEE MOVIE: IRON JAWED ANGELS

 

This month my video pick is a movie that touched me so deeply and inspired me beyond words. After watching this film and seeing what women before us had endured to have the right to vote and be treated as an equal citizen, I cannot imagine any woman not using this hard fought right to cast their vote this upcoming election.

 

This amazing film was released on HBO in 2004 and had some of the greatest women actors in Hollywood portraying the true story of the Women Suffrage that began in the 1800's but focused more on the efforts of the (CUWS) that was formed in 1913.

 

The line up of female stars include: Hilary Swank, Frances O'Connor, Julia Ormond, Anjelica Huston, Vera Farmiga, Laura Fraser, Molly Parker, and Brooke Smith. The lead male actor Patrick Dempsey played a very endearing man, Ben Weissman of the Washington Post, that had the greatest respect for women.

 

These incredible women: Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, Doris Stevens, Mabel Vernon, Olympia Brown, Mary Ritter Beard, Belle LaFollette, Helen Keller, Maria Montessori, Dorothy Day and Crystal Eastman, just to name a few, helped pave the path that made us the women we are today.

 

Many were imprisoned, beaten, rediculed and still they persevered to ensure that women had rights. There has only been one monument ever created for the women of this courageous fight that gave women the rights they have today. The monument was created by a woman Adelaide Johnson and portrays three women suffragists, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Lucretia Mott, located in the Capitol crypt, Washington, DC.

 

We, as women, have come a long way, thanks to these amazing women that stood up, and never gave up, to ensure our position in society. In their time, married women could not sign a contract of any kind, only their husbands. The children of a marriage belonged to the husband, not the wife...and this was only 88 years ago.

 

I give this film:

 

Join us next week for the next review on the Reel Woman!