Iron Jawed Angels: The Women's Suffrage Movement

In the movie Iron Jawed Angels, women used many different methods to earn the right to vote during the Women’s Suffrage Movement. An example of one of these methods is the parade in Washington D.C. The parade took place on the same day as Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration as president of the United States. There were huge crowds on both sides of the streets. Hundreds of women marched in the parade, they carried banners, rode on floats and college graduates wore their graduation gowns. During the parade men on the sides of the streets were drinking. Because of this, the men became angry and started shouting at the women. Eventually the angry outbursts perpetuated into physical violence. The police were on scene, but they did nothing besides turn and walk away. After the parade a hundred women were injured and …show more content…
Everyday from dawn until dusk, in all types of weather, women stood holding banners that quoted Woodrow Wilson. Alice Paul participated in many of these picketing sessions and during one she burned some of Woodrow Wilson’s speeches which quoted democracy. The idea of this strategy was to get the president to notice them and get frustrated, after this, they hoped he would support a constitutional amendment that gave women the right to vote. The legality of this strategy came into question however, at the start of WWI as it was treason to picket a wartime president. Since the banners referred to the president, the government could not arrest the women on charges of treason, however twice women were arrested on the charge of obstructing traffic as the president wanted the picketing to stop. The first wave of women who were arrested (including Lucy Burns, a prominent leader of the Suffrage movement) were fined $10 dollars each or sentenced to 60 days in prison. As the women saw paying the fine as an admission of guilt, they decided to go to jail rather than admit