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Comparing the depiction of women in The Vote and “Chapter 18: The Progressive Era”
During the mid-19th century, Americans had witnessed social problems that engaged the attention of millions of people surpassing far-beyond the public domain dominated by men. In the political and economic arena, topics began to emerge centered on dangerous classes, respectable classes, and better classes dominating general discussion overt the country’s ethical and social status. In the 1850s and into the 20th century, women’s social class became a common discussion on the social scene. One of the important social discussions that greatly influenced the political and social environment surrounded how to create effective social change. Women’s voting rights came about as the 19th Amendment, and despite the relentless efforts the women made to attain the right to vote, they were not amply represented in their efforts to upend the social status. In the two-part film The Vote that featured on PBS, Michelle Ferrari pieced together the history of the complicated rough patches that the process of women attaining women suffrage took and rightfully acknowledged the sacrifices of some prominent feminists that saw the attainment of women suffrage rights such as in Eric Foner’s text Give me Liberty! An American History. Foner’s text understates the contribution of women’s activism efforts in the attainment of their voting rights through the 19th Amendment.
Ferrari’s film was a commemoration of 100 years of achieving women’s suffrage rights and featured in a two-part feature on PBS. The film is well narrated by prominent actors, including Mae Whitman, Aura McDonald, and Patricia Clarkson. The threads follow the story of Alice Paul. This had been a suffragist with the reputation of having traveled to Britain in the. She had attended the University of Birmingham, where she became imprisoned for writing something in support of the suffragist cause and undergone imprisonment and forceful feeding and deported to the US to endeavor her women suffragist causes. The name suffragist had been coined in the UK by a critiquing newspaper that was following on the upcoming topic in the political arena.
The Pankhursts had a profound influence on the American movement with the help of other female suffragists that are focused on in The Vote. The portrayal of women in Ferrari’s film is quite elevating for women and idolizes them for their achievements fighting for social justice. In the film, Alice Paul is well introduced and well interpreted to have ignited the suffragist movement in America. There is also the case of Harriot Stanton Black, who was given the title of “the first-second wave feminist” according to the narrator of the film (Ferrari). The writer and director premised the film on the particular contribution of women to suffrage rights.
Conspicuously, Foner’s text takes on a different trajectory in terms of recognizing their achievements in that the author pays little attention to the women participants in the fight for women’s voting rights in American history. For instance, in the text, women participants are slightly introduced and their actual achievements are not well documented (Ferrari). Stanton is mentioned only by her surname and is only alluded to as the leader of the National Woman Suffrage Association. There is also the summarized mention of Lucy Stone, who had been the president of the American Woman Suffrage Association (Foner, 721). Notably, the author dwells on other personnel like Thomas Jefferson that are overtly mentioned and praised for helping women attain their social status. The contribution of women appears to be ignored in Foner’s text. Such women had a tremendous impact in igniting the force that led to one of the most revolutionary achievements in the US, and that would see the social status of women rise not just in the country but globally.
Ferrari’s film was released 100 years after the iconic 19th Amendment passage because it is viewed as a momentous occasion for women. It speaks to the achievements of an undermined minority, and women suffrage was a historical occasion that brought the end of suffering to a large portion of the American population. The movie served as a good documentary because it gave the audience the chance to draw new parallels and allowing them to draw conclusions on their own. The director leaves many opportunities for that purpose (Nicholson). The director did this to emphasize one of its themes that is centered on demystifying the misplace notion that women did not have a hand to play in claiming their voting rights and that the men counterparts handed the women the freedom to vote. The Vote gives the audience the opportunity to witness women’s struggles and the pressure they wielded in attaining Women’s Suffrage rights. The film begins with photos of the parades and marches of 1848 in which women were treated violently in the US and the UK. The film mainly centers on the 1900s in which there was rampant racism, classism, and populism, with white men stuffing the government with the notion of democracy shielding this vile behavior being encouraged in the political sphere.
In Chapter 18, “The Progressive Era”, the author writes about the women’s era that is said to be a period starting in the 1890s until the 1920s. This is a period in which women’s movements were revamped and, although still being denied voting rights, experienced more opportunities compared to the past to be more economically independent and take up a more prominent role in public life. Notably, the author mentions women collectively, such as when writing about the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) that had grown to become the largest women’s organization, and does not appear to heed the more detailed account that Ferrari gives the audience leaving a chance for open interpretation (Foner, 721). It becomes apparent that the author does not accord the due recognition that the women rightfully require for their achievements. They had led other agendas like the prohibition of alcohol and in other economic and political reformations, yet the individuals mentioned openly in such initiative include men like President Franklin Roosevelt (682). In a way, Foner is promoting the misplaced notion that men created means for women to gain their voting rights while the women played a dormant role in society. In one instance, Foner states that the government brought about the maternalist reform through the help of some female reformers. There was a wave of rapid reforms spreading throughout the country that the author states were a direct action by the government (722). He goes on to state that believers and feminists were in support of such measures. This text fails to expose the force with which feminists instilled pressure on the male-dominated society to make these women citizenry changes. It would have sufficed if the author included some of the reckoned events that steered the Progressive Era, which is a period that women experienced a lot of social and economic progress in society.
In the age of gender inequality, women embarked on various schemes to alleviate their suffering by forming collecting bargaining groups and organizations organized to combat a unique social problem for women. As the film The Vote would show, the women were the driving force for the social changes they experienced in the backdrop of many problems connected to race, gender, and class. However, as Foner would in Chapter 18 of his text, women were not sufficiently recognized for their hand in the reformations attached to them. They made tremendous efforts to escalate their livelihoods and ended up creating opportunities like women’s right to vote. The female activists and feminists did not receive much appreciation for their efforts during the 19th and 20th-century contribution to social reforms.
On the one hand, this could be due to misrepresentation of women participants in these reformations and, on the other hand, be as a result of the misplaced assumption that women were dormant individuals expecting their male counterparts to hand them their rights. In essence, women were instrumental in their own social uplifting and necessitated the changes that saw them attain an equal footing to men in terms of voting rights. Women undoubtedly played a crucial role in attaining some of the appreciated social stands that people enjoy today. A deserving representation of women such as that by Ferrari gives a clear picture of women’s actual involvement to achieve the modern serene environment where social justice is increasingly becoming a global phenomenon.
Works cited
Ferrari, Michele. The Vote. PBS. Retrieved from: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/vote/#part02
Foner, Eric. Give me liberty! An American history 5th ed. New York: Norton & Company.
Nicholson, Rebecca. The vote – a real-life prequel to Mrs America. The Guardian. 2020. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/aug/19/the-vote-a-real-life-prequel-to-mrs-america