Tag: PBS

Afghan Women Fight to Not Have Their Rights Bargained Away in ‘Peace Unveiled’ in ‘Women, War & Peace’ Series

This is a guest post by Megan Kearns. She also contributed reviews of Part 1 and Part 2 of Women, War & Peace.

For the past year, revolutions swept across North Africa and the Middle East. Despite their vocal presence, the media didn’t initially display women’s involvement in the protests. The same could be said in Afghanistan. It appeared the strides women made might be lost as women were shut out of the peace process. But just as they did in the Arab Spring, women strive to play a vital role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
In the documentary Peace Unveiled, the third installment of Women, War & Peace, written by Abigail E. Disney and directed by Gini Reticker (and WWP series co-creators), we witness 3 tenacious female activists, Parliamentarian Shinkai Karokhail, Hasina Safi and Shahida Hussein, struggling for their voices to be heard in Afghanistan’s treacherous peace negotiations. Following the 2010 surge of U.S. troops, the Afghan government arranged peace negotiations with the toppled Taliban. The women valiantly fight to protect their gains and not have their rights bargained away.
Hasina Safi, one of the 3,000 members of the Afghan Women’s Network (AWN), a non-partisan NGO working to empower women, visits villages to monitor the programs she coordinates for illiterate women. Classes for women could not be held openly with the Taliban in power. Almost 90% of Afghan women cannot read or write. Through classes, many women are just learning Islam encourages women’s education.
But working women like Safi risk their lives. They receive death threats via horrific letters in the night, telling them they must stop working or else their children will be killed and their homes burned. Safi admits:

When I go out of the house in the morning, I say goodbye to my children and my family because I say that I never know if I’m coming alive back home or not.

 

While women have made massive strides in Afghanistan, a peace deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban, supported by President Karzai, “threatens to trade away their hard-earned freedoms.”
Shinkai Karokhail, a founding member of the Afghan Women Educational Center (AWEC), a non-profit seeking gender equality and ending violence against women and children, was elected to parliament in 2005. Karokhail doesn’t want to see women’s rights erode. She warns:

I am hopeful that my sisters understand the importance of this process…I hope that the Afghan government and, especially, the president, whom women helped elect, do not make a deal that leads Afghan women into miserable lives again.

Women’s lives have drastically improved since the toppling of the Taliban in 2001. In 2004, Afghanistan’s new constitution guaranteed greater equity for women, including the right to vote and 25% of parliamentary seats. Now, women work, girls attend school, have increased healthcare access and can choose not to wear the burqa. Sadly, that doesn’t mean women are empowered everywhere throughout the country.

 

In heavily-populated Kandahar, “the birthplace of the Taliban,” the city is plagued with administrative corruption and armed men terrorizing citizens. “Prominent working women are being assassinated. No one knows who’s doing the killing.” Women must wear the burqa to go into the streets. It’s amazing to think that a new constitution protects women’s rights, yet means nothing here.
Shahida Hussein, a women’s rights activist in Kandahar, stands as a beacon of hope amongst the tumult. Women turn to her with their legal and property problems. Hussein serves as a mediator between them and the courts. Yet she worries:

Women go out with great fear & trepidation. Will there be a suicide attack? Will American tanks or NATO forces fire on people?

Despite the supposed protection of U.S. troops, women aren’t safe here. In fact, Afghanistan remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world for women. An anonymous woman wearing a burqa tells Hussein:

When I go out I’m terrified. We are powerless. What kind of government is this? Neither the Americans nor the government rule here. The Americans are on one street and the Taliban on another. They can see each other!

After the end of the Soviet occupation in 1988, civil war erupted in Afghanistan. The U.S. supplied arms to the Mujahideen (guerilla fighters), fueling the turmoil that ripped the country apart. Homes were destroyed, people raped, burned and massacred. The Taliban emerged from this chaos, coming to power in 1996. Karokhail said:

During the time of the Taliban, women endured the worst era. They were imprisoned in their homes, every form of activity in their lives was taken away.

For 5 years, the Taliban ruthlessly oppressed women. They were forced to wear the burqa; if women showed even a hand, they were beaten. “Banned from public life,” they weren’t allowed to work and couldn’t go to a doctor without a male relative, even if in mortal danger. Those years “haunt women who are trying to modernize their country.”
Women strive to be heard; worried the Taliban’s demands will undermine their rights. Yet President Karzai and the government continually shut them out of peace negotiations. No Afghan women were invited to the London Conference for the Afghan peace talks. Male politicians tell the women they must now “surrender their rights” in order to achieve peace with the Taliban. Instead, the women don’t listen, choosing to mobilize so they can be included in Karzai’s peace jirga, or council.
President Karzai promised women only 50 out of 1600 seats at the jirga. But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressures Karzai to secure women 20% of the delegate seats. Safi, Hussein and Karokhail all attend to advocate for women’s rights.
On June 2, 2010, the day of the peace jirga, the women take part in the first public debate amongst Afghan citizens to help end the war. Despite attacks from the Taliban, the jirga continues. Karokhail knows the symbolical significance of women’s attendance in negotiations. She asserts:

It was the first time that Afghan women came together with Afghan men and discuss peace. Maybe it was even very symbolical but it was like breaking something, like break the culture and impose the presence of women.

 

Amidst peace negotiations, a Parliamentary election looms. Karokhail was the only woman running for Parliament in Kabul. Unsure she should even enter politics, thinking she couldn’t accomplish much, Karokhail’s friends convinced her that this “is the most important time” to run. Facing campaign fraud and candidates assassinated, Karokhail bravely persists in her re-election campaign. She knows that in order to win, she needs the respect of the men. Karokhail declares:

Most of these men also make decisions for their wives to whom they should vote. You have to convince them to support women.

But as research in India has shown, once you get women into political office, both men and women are more likely to support more women serving in office. It’s vital to have more elected officials like Karokhail, staunch advocates for women’s rights.
When another peace conference is held in Kabul with over 70 nations in attendance, Safi and AWN representatives meet with Ambassador Karl Eikenberry to garner women a seat. As a result of their meeting, a women’s representative will have 3 minutes to address the conference with their concerns.
Secretary Clinton addresses the Kabul Conference, insisting on the importance of including women in Afghanistan’s peace process. She asserts:

The women in Afghanistan are rightly worried that in the very legitimate search for peace, their rights will be sacrificed…None of us can allow that to happen. No peace that sacrifices women’s rights is a peace we can afford to support.

Palwasha Hassan, an AWN Representative and Karokhail’s sister, spoke as a representative for the women. She insists that “for peace to take hold, everyone in society must be protected.” Hassan became “the first woman ever to address the world from an Afghan stage.” She passionately declares:

Critically, women’s rights & achievements must not be compromised in any peace negotiations or accords…Women’s experiences of both war and peace-building must be recognized in the peace process.

But her words go unheard. When the conference concludes, no one “stipulates that women must take part in reshaping the nation.” Disappointed and disheartened at the lack of support for women, Hussein laments:

Girls in Kandahar have had acid thrown in their faces. Girls have been assassinated. They have been kept at home by their fathers. Schools are being burned. In the rural districts, there are no schools at all.

…What astonishes me, what my final issue is that the world community came, saying, “We will work for the people of Afghanistan, especially for the women.” It’s worse than being a dead person in Kandahar. We don’t have a life anymore.

Following the Kabul Conference, President Karzai forms a Peace Council to reconcile with the Taliban. Secretary Clinton sends U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer to ensure women participate in negotiations. Ambassador Verveer worries Karzai doesn’t want to include women in negotiations. But she hopes to secure women at least one-third of the seats on the peace council.
When President Karzai finally announces the Peace Council representatives, the government shuts women out again. Equality remains elusive.
Despite barriers and set-backs, Safi remains resilient. She asserts:

I don’t want to go back. I want to make it easy for my daughters. We will struggle; we will struggle till our last breath. We cannot do anything alone. We are a part of the world. We have to be identified to the world. The world has to support us in this.

Women provide a unique perspective when included in the decision-making process. Yet across the globe, with gender parity in politics a rarity, women are continually relegated to the sidelines of most peace negotiations. Until women and men can participate equally, their rights protected, no peace can exist. Governments must learn that if they ever hope to attain lasting peace, they need to start listening to the voices of their entire population.
Afghan women face an uncertain future as they fight to hold onto their rights. After 9/11, I remember the rallying cries of U.S. politicians claiming we liberated the women of Afghanistan from the Taliban’s totalitarian regime. But all of the women’s freedoms they’ve garnered for themselves threaten to be taken away. The international community must ensure that never happens.
Watch the full episode of Peace Unveiled online or on PBS.
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Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. She blogs at The Opinioness of the World, a feminist vegan site. Her work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Fem2pt0, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston with more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime.

Megan contributed reviews of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Something Borrowed, !Women Art Revolution, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Kids Are All Right (for 2011 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), The Reader (for 2009 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), Man Men (for Mad Men Week), Game of Thrones and The Killing (for Emmy Week 2011), Alien/Aliens (for Women in Horror Week 2011), and I Came to Testify in the  Women, War & Peace series. She was the first writer featured as a Monthly Guest Contributor. 

 

‘Pray the Devil Back to Hell’ Portrays How the Women of Liberia, United in Peace, Changed a Nation

 

Written by Megan Kearns.

Men often dominate the debate of war, negotiation and even peace. Only one woman had ever won the Nobel Peace Prize. Until now. Last month, three women won the prize, including Leymah Gbowee and President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (along with Tawakkul Karman in Yemen) who fought for women’s rights and helped achieve peace in war-torn Liberia.

We often think we can’t make a difference in the world. We’re just one person. How can anything we do matter? But the activism of the women of Liberia should inspire us all to realize that we can impact change.

In the 2nd installment of the Women, War & Peace series, director Gini Reticker and producer Abigail E. Disney, and WWP series executive producers and co-creators, create a Tribeca Film Festival-winning documentary. Pray the Devil Back to Hell tells the powerful and uplifting story of the Liberian women, including activist and social worker Leymah Gbowee, who joined together and peacefully protested, helping end the civil war ravaging their country.

For almost 15 years, beginning on Christmas Eve in 1989, two civil wars plagued Liberia. Warlord and former president Charles Taylor resided at the center of both. He overthrew the regime during the first civil war and committed war crimes and human rights atrocities while president during the second civil war. Taylor recruited soldiers as young as 9-15 years old. With his private army, the dictator controlled the finances and terrorized the country.

“Life was bad. People…couldn’t even afford a cup of rice.”

Everyone in Liberia lived in a perpetual state of fear. Gbowee told how she trekked to her parents’ house, walking for 7 hours, while 5 months pregnant with her two young children. Her 3-year-old lamenting that he just wanted a piece of donut to eat. She said:

“Liberia had been at war so long that my children had been hungry and afraid their entire lives.”

Many pundits and journalists claimed ethnic conflicts spurred the civil war. But Gbowee elaborates:

“Some say war was about the gap between rich and poor. Some also say it was about the hatred between the different ethnic groups. Others say the war was to control natural resources. Power, money, ethnicity, greed…but there is nothing in my mind that should make people do what they did to the children of Liberia.”

Gbowee shares the inception for her radically simple idea for peace:

“I had a dream and it was like a crazy dream. Like someone was actually telling me to get the women of the church together and pray for peace.”

She rallied women from the surrounding Christian churches. Comprised of “ordinary mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters,” Gbowee and other women started the Christian Women’s Peace Initiative.

Asatu Bah Kenneth, Assistant Director of the Liberian National Police, attended a meeting of the Initiative, the only Muslim woman in the church. Inspired by their work, she reached out to other Muslim women, encouraging them to get involved. Kenneth formed the Liberian Muslim Women’s Organization to work towards peace. Kenneth said:

“When I sold the idea to them, they were more than excited.”

Initially divided by faith, the Christian and Muslim women soon came together. The two peace groups united to form the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. Vaiba Flomo shared:

“But the message we took on was: Can a bullet pick and choose? Does the bullet know Christian from Muslim?”

While the women were organizing, Taylor’s opponents prepared to go to war. The warlords wreaked havoc on the country, giving boys guns and intimidating civilians. Just as in Bosnia (and often happens in war), rape remained a constant threat for the women of Liberia. Journalist Janet Bryant-Johnson said:

“They can rape you in front of your children, they could rape you in front of your husband…And they just do anything because they had guns.”

People were forced to enter displacement camps. Not only did they live in “abject poverty,” people, especially children, died each day. The Liberian women went to the camps to see how people were faring. Their hope amidst tragedy inspired Gbowee:

“These women had seen the worst of the wars something that I had not seen but they still had that vibrancy for life. And just being able to help them, to sit and hold their hands, and to hug their kids and looking at people who had lost everything and still having hope, I think that was where I got baptized into the women’s movement.”

As the war progressed, the women wanted to take more drastic measures. Inspired by their faith, the women donned white garb to declare to people they stood for peace. Thousands of women protested at the fish market each and every day, a strategic location visible to Taylor. Carrying a huge banner stating, “The women of Liberia want peace now.” It was the first time in Liberia’s history where Christian & Muslim women came together.

While all of the women worked together, Gbowee’s indomitable will buoyed the women’s spirits. “Desperate for peace,” the women decided to engage in a sex strike from their husbands. As they protested, the women knew they had to be brave. Flomo declared:

“We were not afraid. My mother was like, “They will beat you people, and they will kill you.” And we said, “Well if I should get killed, just remember me, that I was fighting for peace.”

Kenneth became the women’s “spy,” keeping them abreast of developments. An international call for peace talks “emboldened the women.” Taylor initially refused to negotiate. But the women created a decree “demanding…not appealing” the Liberian government participate in the peace talks. Taylor finally decided to stop ignoring the women and meet with them, “the moment Gbowee had lived for.” The women marched to Taylor’s mansion to present their document. As they walked onward and chanted, groups of women joined them. When they reached Taylor’s mansion, Gbowee read their statement aloud:

“With this message that the women of Liberia…We are tired of war. We are tired of running. We are tired of begging for bulgur wheat. We are tired of our children being raped. We are now taking this stand to secure the future. Because we believe as custodians of society tomorrow our children will ask us, “Mama, what was your role during the crisis?”

Taylor succumbed to the women’s demands and attended the peace talks in Ghana. Some women traveled to Ghana to protest. Gbowee said:

“We are their conscience, sitting out here. We are calling to their conscience to do the right thing. And the right thing now is to give the Liberian women and their children the peace that they so desperately need.”

As violence erupted in Monrovia, Liberia, some of the women remained in Ghana at the peace talks. Despite missiles and stray bullets, the other Liberian women risked their lives, continuing to protest each day at the fish market, singing and praying.

After 6 weeks, peace talks went nowhere. For the warlords, sleeping in lush accommodations and removed from the fighting, it was “like they were on vacation.” Frustrated, the women sat in the hall where the peace talks were held. “Seizing the hall,” the women locked arms and wouldn’t leave until a peace agreement was signed. Gbowee, accused of obstructing justice, passionately declared to the media at the conference:

“What we’ve done here today is to send up a signal to the world that we the Liberian women in Ghana, we are fed up with the war. We are tired of fighting, the killing of our people. We can do it again if we want to. And next time, we’ll be more than a thousand…We can do it and we’ll do it again.”

Two weeks later, they finally reach an agreement, including Taylor’s exile to Nigeria and the implementation of a transitional government until democratic elections held. As the women returned home, they were met with hugs and children chanting, “We want peace, no more war.” They knew their work wasn’t over as “peace is a process; it’s not an event.”

The women believed they couldn’t achieve peace until they attained democracy. So they campaigned for presidential candidate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. With the “Iron Lady’s” election, President Johnson Sirleaf (who has helped erase the national debt, built schools, improved roads and increased access to healthcare) became the first elected female president in Africa. She acknowledged the Liberian women’s brave accomplishment:

“It is the women who labored and advocated for peace throughout our region.”

Despite the horrific subject matter of war, the uplifting documentary exudes optimism. The women achieved something “unimaginable.” The beauty of the documentary lies in director Reticker showcasing the Liberian women. With no narrator, she lets their voices speak for themselves.

The Liberian women’s unity brought about peace. Community activist Etweda “Sugars” Cooper admits:

“If we had not had different women from different walks of life, banding together, we may not have been able to solve the problem.”

Gbowee believes the film Pray the Devil Back to Hell has lasting impact and can inspire women to realize their power and mobilize:

” … This documentary is like a landmark or something that tells other women, ‘People did it before we came, we’ve done it, and they can also do it,'” she said. “So it’s not a fluke. It can happen. People just need to rise up and rise above the politics that so deeply divide us as women.”

The women’s tenacity, resilience and unity will amaze and inspire you. Social injustices plague the world; the staggering number of problems can overwhelm. But one person can make a difference; a powerful reminder that we each matter. We need to put aside our differences to combat injustice and reclaim peace. One voice can inspire others, triggering disparate voices to harmoniously come together; a symphony of voices can change the world.

Watch the full episode of Pray the Devil Back to Hell online or on PBS.

Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. She blogs at The Opinioness of the World, a feminist vegan site. Her work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Fem2pt0, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston with more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime.

Megan contributed reviews of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Something Borrowed, !Women Art Revolution, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Kids Are All Right (for 2011 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), The Reader (for 2009 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), Man Men (for Mad Men Week), Game of Thrones and The Killing (for Emmy Week 2011), Alien/Aliens (for Women in Horror Week 2011), and I Came to Testify in the  Women, War & Peace series. She was the first writer featured as a Monthly Guest Contributor.

Why Should Men Care? An Interview With Matt Damon

Matt Damon narrating Women, War & Peace
At Bitch Flicks, we’re featuring reviews of the five-part PBS documentary Women, War & Peace—all by the fabulous Megan Kearns—the first of which we published on October 19th. (Megan’s review of Part Two will appear later today.) Matt Damon narrates the series, and he was interviewed about his participation, explaining why he wanted to be a part of the event and why men should care about how war impacts women, especially when rape is used as a weapon of war. I’m posting the video of the 4-minute interview, but it’s also linked to above (just in case).

 

“Why I wanted to do Women, War & Peace was because I thought it said something really important about the nature of war and the nature of the experience of women. And—as a guy who’s raising four girls—that matters to me. It matters to me anyway, but that makes it matter to me more.” — Matt Damon

In ‘Women, War & Peace’s ‘I Came to Testify’ Brave Bosnian Women Speak Out About Surviving Rape as a Weapon of War

 

This is a guest post from Megan Kearns. It originally appeared at The Opinioness of the World.

 

When we discuss war and security, we don’t often explore its ramifications on women. Rape and sexual assault are common threats women face globally. But of all the artillery and tactics soldiers use, we rarely think of rape as a weapon of war. And yet too often, it is.

 

On Tuesday night, I watched I Came to Testify, the first in the 5-part documentary series, Women, War and Peace, on PBS showcasing women’s role in war and its impact on women. Produced and written by Pamela Hogan, one of the series’ executive producers, I Came to Testify highlights the courageous women who testified about the rape camps during the Bosnian genocide.

 

The powerful film examines women’s horrific experiences in the town of Foca in Bosnia (formerly Yugoslavia), a site of one of the rape camps. Before the Bosnian War, journalist Refic Hodzic said that brotherhood and unity was the “ideology” in Yugoslavia; “no one cared who was Croat, who was Serb, who was Muslim.” But overnight, things changed. Many Serbs pulled their children out of school and fled town. The Bosnian Muslims were eventually dehumanized by Serbian soldiers, pitting neighbor against neighbor.

 

In Foca, soldiers rounded up the Bosnian men, women and children. Men “were beaten, starved and executed in concentration camps” while the women “were locked in hotels, schools, private homes & makeshift prisons around the city.” After they were gathered, the rapes began. Soldiers threatened women; to cut off their breasts, slit their throats and kill their daughters. Hundreds of women and girls were held captive in rape camps.

 

Established by the United Nations Security Council in 1993, the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands was the first tribunal established in Europe since Nuremberg and the first ever convened during a war. 16 women agreed to travel to The Hague to share their nightmarish ordeal. As narrator Matt Damon (who wanted to be a part of the documentary because of his 4 daughters) said:

“Their testimonies would embody the experience of hundreds of women held captive in Foca.”

One of the witnesses, called Witness 99 to protect her anonymity, recounted how on the day they were rounded up, she was raped in front of her in-laws and then they were murdered in front of her. Witness 99 escaped to a refugee camp where the horror of rape continued. Another witness said she “cried and pleaded” for the soldiers to let her go “but they just laughed.” Another witness testified that one of the soldiers told another, “You have to learn how to rape Muslim women like we are doing.” The women said fear “paralyzed” them.

 

In Foca, half the residents, 20,000 Muslims were just gone. All 14 mosques were destroyed. Evidence in Foca showed that a campaign could be built to prove that a systematic, organized campaign of rape had been “used as an instrument of terror.” While the UN estimated 20,000 women raped in Bosnia, others say it was more like 50,000.

 

Peggy Kuo served as a trial attorney with the tribunal. She declared that “rape has always been an undercurrent of war.” When talking about war, the term “rape and pillage” frequently arises. But we don’t really think about what the words mean. Kuo said the soldiers raped the women, objectifying them and attempting “to strip them of their identity.” Journalist Hodzic explained:

“Rape was used not only for the immediate impact on women but for the long-term destruction on the soul of the community.”

Witness 99 asserted:

“Rape is the worst form of humiliation for any woman. But that was the goal: to kill a woman’s dignity.”

The women heroically faced their fears to share their stories. They were astutely deemed heroes by those interviewed in the film. As Kuo articulated:

“…The people who came and testified were able to maintain their dignity and they didn’t let the perpetrators take their humanity away from them. So yes in one sense they were victims. But in another sense, they were the strong ones. They survived.”

While rape had been charged as a crime before, it usually falls under the umbrella of hate crimes. With this groundbreaking tribunal, for the first time rape was charged as “a crime against humanity.” The case wouldn’t prevent all rapes. But Kuo said that even though they couldn’t prosecute every rape, it was a significant statement to acknowledge what happens to women during war. The case “transformed the definition of wartime slavery,” laying the “foundation of trials involving violence against women in international courts.”

 

War leaves devastation in its wake. Yet historically, when we talk about war, we talk about it in terms of soldiers and casualties; too often from a male perspective, forgetting that it equally destroys women’s lives. Kuo explained:

“Looking at pictures of Nuremberg, it’s mostly men…women aren’t given a place at the table, even as a witness…”

And that still holds true today. We need to reframe security issues from a gendered lens.

 

Genocide frighteningly still occurs; people systematically killed because of their ethnicity, religion or the color of their skin. As tragically seen in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, soldiers utilize rape as a weapon of war again and again. Rape and sexual assault occur beyond conflicts and don’t only threaten women as men face rape in wartime too. It’s an epidemic we must combat.

 

Bravery bolstered the 16 Bosnian women to come forward, speaking out against the unspeakable atrocities they survived. As Witness 99 so eloquently said:

“War criminals wouldn’t be known & there would be no justice if witnesses didn’t testify…I was glad to be able to say what happened to me and to say who had done this to me & my people. I felt like I had fulfilled my duty. I came to look him in the face. I came to testify.”

We live in a rape culture that continually silences women’s narratives. The survivors’ horrific experiences shock and haunt. If we ever hope to change things and obtain justice and peace, I Came to Testify reminds us that women’s voices must be heard.

 

Watch the full episode of I Came to Testify online or on PBS.

 

Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. She blogs at The Opinioness of the World, a feminist vegan site. Her work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Fem2pt0, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston with more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime.

Megan contributed reviews of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Something Borrowed, !Women Art Revolution, The Kids Are All Right (for our 2011 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), The Reader (for our 2009 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), Game of Thrones and The Killing (for our Emmy Week 2011), as well as a piece for Mad Men Week called, “Is Mad Men the Most Feminist Show on TV?” She was the first writer featured as a Monthly Guest Contributor.

YouTube Break: ARTHUR – The Agent of Change

We often lament the state of girls’ representation in animated films–an issue that the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media is working hard to improve. If you spend some time on the site and look at the stats, what most of us already know about children’s programming becomes undeniable–boys are the norm, girls the exception.
Brought to our attention by reader Alli (on Facebook), this clip from the PBS cartoon Arthur –called “The Agent of Change”–takes on gender in a smart and kid-friendly way. After sitting through a popular animated film (ahem, Cars) in the theatre, one character asks “Are there any kid movies with decent girl characters?” 
Makes us wonder, too. The girls in this episode take matters into their own hands.
Watch the clip and share with the kids in your life.

Documentary: When Abortion Was Illegal

In this 1992 documentary directed by Dorothy Fadiman, women (and men) tell their stories about illegal abortions, reminding us of the necessity of safe and legal access for women.

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short in 1993, and is the first in a three-part series about abortion in America.

‘One Woman, One Vote’: A Documentary Review

Seneca Falls. Susan B. Anthony. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Alice Paul. Lucy Burns. Iconic American names that we recognize from our last history course, but often without knowledge of the full extent of their courage and suffering. The suffrage movement is one filled with small victories, setbacks, and defeats, and with men and women of often clashing ideas and ideologies.

Women’s suffrage was a 72-year movement that finally attained nation-wide victory in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th constitutional amendment prohibiting sex discrimination at the polls. Up to this point, women met, organized, marched, fought amongst themselves, lobbied, and protested. They were threatened, ridiculed, attacked, beaten, tried, arrested, and placed in solitary confinement for their actions. In retaliation, they fought harder. They organized hunger strikes in prison. They surrounded the White House in protest, despite angry mobs of men who dragged them to the ground and tore not only their banners, but also clothing from their bodies.

One of the more shocking discoveries I had from watching One Woman, One Vote was that women were not united in the cause of suffrage. There were a number of women who believed that politics were corrupt, and that women would only participate in the corruption, and sully their clean, domestic image, by voting. There was even strong disagreement amongst the suffragettes; they divided and formed separate groups on different occasions, opposing each others’ strategies and tactics for earning the vote, and finally unified when ratification of the amendment seemed inevitable. There were many diverse opinions and motivations driving the movement and its opposition, including racism, temperance, religion, and cultural norms.

The documentary was made in 1995, but only the graphics seem dated (and, despite the fact that One Woman, One Vote is part of the PBS American Experience series, the film has no official website). Susan Sarandon narrates, and the film is full of varied voices, letters, film reels, photos, and cartoons. There are great clips of historic songs throughout, too, which are often funny, incisive, and scathing. I learned so much about a part of American and women’s history that is so often summarized into a single paragraph.

Here are a few highlights of the women who made the movement.

On November 5, 1872, Susan B. Anthony led a dozen women to the polls in Rochester, New York, and convinced the worker there to allow her and the others to vote—despite the fact that it was against the law. Four hours later, U.S. Marshals arrested and handcuffed Anthony. She was later convicted of a federal crime by an all-male jury–after being forbidden to testify on her own behalf (women were deemed incompetent to testify because of their sex). Before her sentencing, however, she was permitted a statement:

“In your ordered verdict of guilty, you have trampled underfoot every principle of our government: my natural rights, my civil rights, my political rights. I have been tried by law made by men, interpreted by men, administered by men, in favor of men, and against women. May it please, your honor, I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty. Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.”

African American women were quite unified in their support of suffrage. However, mainstream groups were seeking the support of Southern Democrats, who strongly opposed suffrage for black women, and thus largely left black women out of their cause. Mary Church Terrell was one of the few black women invited to speak at national conventions, and there she urged white suffragists not to forget black women:

“Not only are colored women handicapped on account of their sex, they are everywhere mocked on account of their race. We are asking that our sisters of the dominant race do all in their power to include in their resolutions the injustices to which colored people are victims.”

Despite the efforts of Terrell and other African American leaders, they never enjoyed mainstream acceptance from the suffrage movement. Regardless, they organized and grew their supporters to half a million members, including active support from men.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who first called for women’s rights at Seneca Falls (the right to vote was her most radical demand; the group met to call for property rights, divorce rights, and a woman’s right to her children), told her friend Susan B. Anthony that as she grew older, she grew more radical. Their relationship is widely considered one of the greatest relationships of the 19th century, and Stanton’s radicalism seems to be one of the few areas of disagreement–though it did not end their friendship. When Stanton was in her 70s, frustrated by women who still refused to join the suffrage movement, she denounced the church as responsible for the oppression of women.

“The Bible teaches that woman brought sin and death into the world. I don’t believe that any man ever talked with God. The Bible was written by man, out of his love of domination.”

She rewrote every section of the Bible that degraded women, and published The Woman’s Bible, which was translated into six languages. The Woman’s Suffrage Association denounced the work, and rebuked Stanton. After her death, Stanton’s daughter, Harriet Blatch, led the movement.

Alice Paul earned numerous academic degrees in her lifetime, and also served numerous prison sentences for acts of civil disobedience in her campaign for women’s suffrage. When she arrived in Washington in 1913, she was one of the few women in the United States who held a doctorate degree in political science. While in prison she led hunger strikes, and was tortured with forced-feedings:

“Dear Mama,
The forcible feeding was terrible. They tied me to a chair because I struggled. One wardress sat astride my knees, two others held my arms and hands while two doctors forced a tube five or six feet long through my nose, like driving a stake into the ground.”

Rather than defeat her, the experience only made Paul more determined to devote her life to the suffrage movement. Among her many accomplishments were the organization of a parade that essentially upstaged the inauguration of newly-elected president Woodrow Wilson and caused a riot in the streets that brought out the U.S. Cavalry, and a “perpetual delegation” of women who picketed outside the White House, six days a week, in which women from all backgrounds stood silently with banners protesting the administration’s refusal to support a federal amendment to enfranchise women, and even outrageously mocking the president’s hypocrisy. Finally, police began to arrest the silent protesters, who were regularly being physically attacked, and charged them with obstructing traffic and imprisoned them–sometimes for months at a time.

The year was 1917. It took an additional three years for the 19th amendment to be passed and ratified by all of the states.

Remember the women who fought for women like us. We’ve only had the vote for 88 years. Exercise your right: Vote today.

Rent One Woman, One Vote from Netflix.
Purchase the DVD from PBS.