Women of Protest: A Feminist History Refresher
It wasn’t until 1920 that women were granted suffrage, but it was 1917 when members of the National Women’s Party — Alice Paul, Lucy Burns and others — picketed outside the White House, burning copies of Woodrow Wilson’s speeches and demanding the right to vote. What resulted — mass arrests (most for “obstructing traffic”), unlawful imprisonment and bloody beatings — became known as the Night of Terror, though it’s fair to say most among my generation don’t know it.
The Night of Terror took place on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Workhouse Prison, in Occoquan, Virginia, ordered his guards to teach the suffragists a lesson. For weeks, the women’s only water had come from an open pail. Their food had been infested with worms. But on this night, some 40 prison guards wielding clubs beat the women senseless — grabbing, dragging, choking, kicking and pinching them, according to affidavits recounting the attacks.
November is Native American Heritage Month
All photos by Edward S. Curtis via the Library of Congress, original captions:
Top: O Che Che, Mohave Indian woman, Qahatika girl, Selawik Woman
Middle: Chaiwa—Tewa, Klamath woman, Cayuse woman
Bottom: Wisham female, Tsawatenok girl, Yaqui girl
In light of today’s news, a few iconic Newsweek covers from the 60s and 70s.
(Source: jessbennett)
"‘Life-work balance’ is a nonsense term. The idea that I have to segment work and life is based on some archaic lunar-calendar thing."
— NY Times: Housecleaning — Provided by the Boss? In Silicon Valley, Perks Come Home. «awesome»
(Source: jessbennett)
"Women are increasingly the bread-winners in the family. This is not just a women’s issue, it’s a family, a middle class issue, and we have to fight for it."
— President Obama, speaking in support of equal pay for women, and highlighting his signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which improved the ability of women to sure their employers for pay discrimination. (via blogofhorses)
(Source: shortformblog, via andticks)
Painting the Women of the 112th — Powersuit by Powersuit
Political portraiture doesn’t often feature women, so artist Emily Nemens decided to paint all 90+ female members of Congress — in watercolor. The result is 47 linear feet of women in power — and a stark display of uniform power suits, bouffant hair, and toothy smiles. Read more
(via jessbennett)
Presenting Lynn Povich’s (Newsweek’s first Female Senior Editor) Great New Book On the Landmark Class Action Suit Against The Magazine In 1970. And 40+ Years Later, Read How Her Contemporary Counterparts Question How Much Has Actually Changed.
The case that inspired the blog… out tomorrow from Public Affairs.
One more thing about Nora
In my mind, what she said meant this: In feminism and in writing and in life, righteous indignation alone—divorced from action or a sense of the absurd—will not be cute for long. It will ripen, and it will rot. And who among us likes to clean up rot?
—The wonderful Sarah Ball, on what Nora Ephron told us. She put it better than anyone, it’s stuck with me since she wrote it, and it deserves a shout-out, even months after the fact.
(Source: jesseellison)
“I think marriage is insurance for the worst years of your life. During your best years you don’t need a husband. You do need a man of course, and they are often cheaper emotionally and a lot more fun by the dozen.”
RIP Helen Gurley Brown, founder of COSMO
(via jessbennett)
"In the early ’90s, it was grunge, everybody was fully clothed. Alanis Morissette was one of the biggest artists in the world, never wore make up, wearing Doc Marten boots, and then the Spice Girls turn up, and suddenly it all looks a bit burlesque, suddenly they’re the biggest band in the world. … And as you go all the way through the ’90s, the clothes just fall off the women until you get to the year 2000, and Britney Spears is just wearing a snake."
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‘How To Be A Woman’: Not A Feminist? Caitlin Moran Asks, Why Not? : NPR (via blogofhorses)
Truth.
(via jessbennett)
