Iron Jawed Angels is a 2004 American film produced by HBO. It focuses on the American women's suffrage movement during the 1910s.
The film follows political activists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns as they use peaceful and effective strategies, tactics, and dialogues to revolutionize the American feminist movement to fight for the right to vote of women.
As it begins, Alice Pauland and Lucy Burns return to US from England where they have been actively involved in the suffrage movement. As the duo becomes more active within the National American Woman Suffrage Association, they begin to realize that their ideas were not accepted by the leader activists on female vote right, particularly Carrie Chapman Catt. Then they leave NAWSA and establish the National Woman's Party, a much more radical organization dedicated to the fight for women's rights.
Over time, tension grows as NWP tactics such as direct protesting of a wartime President and picketing directly outside the White House with their Silent Sentinels. The media dubs these women 'Iron Jawed Angels'. Relations between the American government and the NWP protesters also intensify, as many women are arrested for their actions, with the official so-called charge "obstructing traffic." They are sent to Occoquan Workhouse where Paul and other women undergo a hunger strike. News of their treatment leaks to the media through the husband of one of the imprisoned women by putting Alice’s written note in his coat pocket. Pressure is put on President Wilson as NAWSA seizes the opportunity to lobby tirelessly for the 19th amendment to the Constitution. Paul, Burns and all of the other women are eventually pardoned by President Wilson. Those women win the victory finally.
At first, I feel that this movie is a boring one in the process of fighting, suffering and exhausting. But later I am really touched by those women's words and brave behavior. "We don’t make the laws, but we have to obey them like children." "Look into your heart. I swear to you, mine is no different. You want some means of self-expression, some way to satisfy your personal ambition, so do I. You want a voice in the government under which you live, so do I. What is there to be explained?"
I believe that "someone has to pay because everything is a trade-off." No pains no gains. Just as Alice says, "the women need full citizenship". A women is not a private thing to a man or a house hence they need the same respect and right as men.
Yet, what kind of live should the feminists live except fighting for democracy and suffrage? After the victory in politics, what should Alice and Lucy do? According to the recordation, Alice went on the life as a feminist while Lucy returned back, taking care of her family. So what is feminism and feminist on earth?
"When you are along, you can make any choices you want, but when someone loves you, you lose that right. I wouldn't give anything away before I had it all. I can't" (Alice). Those women sacrificed everyone, including their lovers-to-be, their family, their children and everything that a normal woman would have for the revolution. I don't want to say what is wrong or wrong. I am not judging and I don't know the answer especially if it happens under the circumstance of China where patriarchy is deeply rooted. Somebody deems the back of rights is responsibilities. So do we really have the power to stand all of these now or are we strong enough to bear all the possibilities and consequences? I have no idea since females are strange creatures who always have potential powers.
"These walls are kind of funny like that. First you hate them, then you get used to them. Enough time passed, get so you depend on them. That's institutionalizing" (The Shawshank Redemption). "Give me liberty or give me death," said Patrick Henry. Indeed sometimes what makes us fail and get lost is the invisible daily trifle life instead of true enemy.
Some birds aren't meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are just too bright. Everyone is born to be equal no matter what the gender, colour or nationality is. "Forward out of darkness, leave behind the night. Forward out of error, forward into light."
