Portrayal Of The American Suffragist Movement In The Movie Iron Jawed Angels

Women Around the world have come a long way towards achieving equal rights and protection from gender discrimination at the legislative level. The historical drama Iron Jawed Angels is dedicated to the struggle for equal rights for women that took place in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Shot in 2004, the Iron Jawed Angels reflects the long-standing battle of American suffragists, led by real historical figures such as Alice Paul and Lucy Burns. This film not only highlights the complex struggle of women for gaining voting rights, thereby reviving the challenges they faced at the family, social, and political levels, but also focuses on the origins of those rights that the American female population enjoys today.

One of the most appealing peculiarities of the movie is that it strives to make the historical figures look alive. It was achieved by depicting the numerous struggles they have been facing on different levels. Among other things, the film shows how society has been rejecting the fact that women may want to be able to influence processes outside their households as well. The most explicit and appealing was the example of Senator's wife Emily, who has gone a long way to self-identification and empowerment contrary to the views and attitudes of her husband (1:23:49).

Although the film portrays a discontented and aggressive crowd as the story unfolds, it remains faceless. However, living personalities such as Emily and her husband humanize the conflicts and obstacles that the suffragist movement was facing in the early twentieth century. In the context, the eventual acceptance of the fact that women deserve equality on the part of husbands, sons, and fathers is what contributed to the social change that has benefited women in the past.

What Is more, the Iron Jawed Angels make an accent on how the suffrage ideas made their way into the minds of women and how women within a single suffrage movement organization were seeing the ways of achieving their goals differently. The fact that a split can take place within an organization whose members strive for a common goal indeed broadens the perspective on the movement in general (41:30:00). In particular, the scene where Paul argues with African-American civil rights activist, Ida Wells about why she believes black women should not march on the front of the parade made me reconsider my views on the dimensions in which suffrage movement was working (11:30:00). It shows that at the time, intersectionality was indeed a pressing issue and that society was not ready to deal with it. In the broader perspective, the movie shows a way for future shifts in consciousness of people as it assumes that segregation should be beaten on all levels, not excluding race.

In the final analysis, the movie examines a significant historical event the roots and the circumstances of which indeed deserve a close analysis to understand how it has contributed to the social changes that society is enjoying today. The events and personalities depicted in the movie allowed me to look at the suffrage movement from a new perspective and estimate the track of actions that they have taken to achieve their goals.

Finally, the Iron Jawed Angels is the story of self-searching, fight, and sacrifice for the public good that led to tremendous social change like women empowerment and, therefore, deserves one's attention.