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B&N Book Clubs - Ilana's Journal Week 20: What's Your Reaction to the Word "Feminism"? - Literature & Life with Ilana Simons - Book Clubs
I was recently interviewed about my work on Virginia Woolf, during which the interviewer and I had a long discussion about the word "feminism." When she asked if I were a feminist, I told her I was uncomfortable with the word.
To me, the word implies that people must fit into one of two categories, though the categories don’t make much sense.
If we were to put the loaded word aside and ask if women should live fully, we’d all say yes.
The real question is in “how” and “why”: What empowers women;
What’s feminine; and in what voice should we fight for these things?
Virginia Woolf hated the word “feminism,” because she thought it killed deep thinking.
She hated just about every “ism.” “Feminism” was a word that could shut down conversation and trigger aggressive reactions;
Woolf wanted more subtlety in our thinking.
I tend to think our history in the “-ism” has made some of us lazy.
Sometimes we ride old stereotypes until they justify bad behavior.
This seems true today in the realm of living which Virginia Woolf cared most about: the small-scale personal interactions we have with friends, lovers, and family.
The fact is, I think I know as many men as women these days who are careful with friends’ feelings and who—without getting due credit—spend the energy to keep relationships together.
And I know many women who demand favors and a special level of kindness but give too little.
That is: I think that even a justified, long-standing sense of being owed a debt can bring on a sloppy swing in the opposite direction.
That said, the basic, original reasons for the feminist movement—like a woman’s need to be known as an equally intelligent, capable human being—are still salient.
The interviewer I was talking with said this well.
She’s a journalist, Kelly Kingman, who sent me this email during our discussion: “No one is out and out ‘pro- inequality.’ That said, it is useful to look at the ways gender bias still [exists].
We need a new word to describe someone who is sensitive to [gender] issues.” I think she’s right there—new language about relationships between the genders would do us good.
I haven’t brought up a particular novel to talk about this week, but I do think literature is often the place we imagine and assemble new models for gender.
Writers like Virginia Woolf, Ross Lockridge, D.H.
Lawrence, and Simone de Beauvoir gave us, in their books, lasting sketches of men and women: their behaviors and styles.
I’d like to know what you think about gender in our everyday words and in books this week:
--Which authors have you considered smart in their portrayal of men and women?
--How does gender specifically influence your daily life?
--I said “feminism” can be a deadening “ism.” Do you think there other more common words—even “maternal” or “boyish”—that force some conformity in, or cramp, behavior?
How do words either confine us or expand our habits in thinking?
-Ilana
Visit my website at http://webspace.newschool.edu/~simonsi.
Message Edited by IlanaSimons on 10-11-2007 09:43 AM
Ilana
Check out my book, here and visit my website, here.
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I like to say that I am a feminist mostly because I don't want to be thought of as a conservative (haha) but I also find that "feminist" is a term that gets spit back in my face.
"Oh. You're a feminist," was thrown at me once and in a very derisive tone;
I had sided with the guy's wife who thought it was unreasonable that she be expected to give up her job and stay at home with the kids (they were working on a baby) just because she was the woman (on a side note: she had the better job and benefits, with good opportunities for advancement while he was a major slacker who liked to drink beer with his buddies;
I should also mention that these two are divorced now and cited "irreconcilable differences" in the filing).
"Feminist" does put you in a box.
A woman calling herself a feminist is apparently supposed to be some sort of man-hating, bra-burning, obnoxious, liberal freak.
My friends and I don't fit the bill.
We consider ourselves feminists because we think women should be able to walk down the street and have respect as a human being.
Just because we have two X chromosomes doesn't mean that we are stupid, vain, stereotypical bimbos who need to be "taken care of" just as having an XY combination doesn't mean one must be a mysogynistic, drunken boor.
[Is it obvious I live in a university town populated by newly-released-from-home undergrads?]
I think Margaret Atwood is a great feminist writer - The Handmaid's Tale, Alias Grace, and Oryx and Crake are three of my favorites - because the female characters are so real.
Message Edited by pedsphleb on 10-11-2007 01:42 PM
Melissa W.
I read and knit and dance.
Compulsively feel yarn.
Consume books. Darn tights.
Drink too much caffiene.
All that good stuff.
balletbookworm.blogspot.com
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Melissa--I really love how you make potentially-dry topics clear with real examples.
Yes: University towns and the performance of the Male--loud radios and beer.
Have you read Judith Butler?
She's a critic who writes that our male and female gender roles are performances that we need to do daily exercise to sustain.
That is, a woman wears a skirt and necklace (or whatever) to "perform" a gender that might otherwise not exist so clearly.
It takes energy to perpetuate our paradigmatic roles.
In that light, boys who have just left their mothers' care would probably need to amp-up the performance of maleness, to feel that they are men at the point in which they're most full of memories of the nest.
write on, pedsphleb
Quote: :
I like to say that I am a feminist mostly because I don't want to be thought of as a conservative (haha) but I also find that "feminist" is a term that gets spit back in my face.
"Oh. You're a feminist," was thrown at me once and in a very derisive tone;
I had sided with the guy's wife who thought it was unreasonable that she be expected to give up her job and stay at home with the kids (they were working on a baby) just because she was the woman (on a side note: she had the better job and benefits, with good opportunities for advancement while he was a major slacker who liked to drink beer with his buddies;
I should also mention that these two are divorced now and cited "irreconcilable differences" in the filing).
"Feminist" does put you in a box.
A woman calling herself a feminist is apparently supposed to be some sort of man-hating, bra-burning, obnoxious, liberal freak.
My friends and I don't fit the bill.
We consider ourselves feminists because we think women should be able to walk down the street and have respect as a human being.
Just because we have two X chromosomes doesn't mean that we are stupid, vain, stereotypical bimbos who need to be "taken care of" just as having an XY combination doesn't mean one must be a mysogynistic, drunken boor.
[Is it obvious I live in a university town populated by newly-released-from-home undergrads?]
I think Margaret Atwood is a great feminist writer - The Handmaid's Tale, Alias Grace, and Oryx and Crake are three of my favorites - because the female characters are so real.
Message Edited by pedsphleb on 10-11-2007 01:42 PM
Ilana
Check out my book, here and visit my website, here.
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Only a tiny bit in Lit Theory (in the Norton Anthology of Lit Theory/Crit).
So many things to read, so little time.
Quote: :
Melissa--I really love how you make potentially-dry topics clear with real examples.
Yes: University towns and the performance of the Male--loud radios and beer.
Have you read Judith Butler?
She's a critic who writes that our male and female gender roles are performances that we need to do daily exercise to sustain.
That is, a woman wears a skirt and necklace (or whatever) to "perform" a gender that might otherwise not exist so clearly.
It takes energy to perpetuate our paradigmatic roles.
In that light, boys who have just left their mothers' care would probably need to amp-up the performance of maleness, to feel that they are men at the point in which they're most full of memories of the nest.
write on, pedsphleb
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The word "Feminism".
To begin with, I don't like the word.
It's a label. It has now taken on a life of it's own.
I've moved through, and around this word most of my life.
Because of this, I've grown to hate it.
As Melissa pointed out, it puts you into a box to be even associated with the word....a stereotypical box.
I run from stereotypes.
I grew up knowing the differences between the genders.
But in some ways, I was atypical.
I fought (as much as was allowed) against playing with the typical 'girl' things.
I fought, again, against wearing the typical 'girl' things.
It's not that I didn't give into what was expected of me, but I was not always comfortable with how I became perceived differently when doing so.
From being a 'good girl' to being ignored.
Most of my life, others' perceptions of me was everything.
I now have enough years on me to say that it only hangs in the periphery of my thoughts, until an invitation announces 'formal attire' is necessary to wear, to be able to attend.
Feminism has blown itself out of proportion.
It is still going through changes.
I believe it was a necessary 'ism' that had to happen to bring into it the perspective of equality for gender rights.
I think that if any balance is to occur within the realm of equality, there has to be a force to bring this about.
But the bigger issue is, what does happen once these issues are realized?
Were does it stop?
It has backfired now.
I see the young male population wondering just were it fits into the whole scheme of things.
It's another struggle, but I don't think it has a name just yet.
I worked within the male dominated workplace.
From the age of seventeen I was seen as the subordinate female.
My job was to cater to the needs of men, my bosses.
I didn't think much about it, at first, because 'to cater' was part of the job.
I also worked for men doctors who thought the sun rose and sat on them.
They put themselves up on pedestals that didn't allow subordinate female workers to touch.
The word 'harassment' in the workplace didn't exist then.
This is when I realized that the sun hasto set on everyone, equally.
But there was nothing I felt, at the time, I could do to change this, except get out of a profession I went to college to learn, and one I loved more than anything.
I was also married at the time.
I found other avenues to go into to use my knowledge.
But in the end, I ventured too far, and in too many directions, until I lost it completely.
Again, the balance of equality is sometimes never known, until you come face to face with it.
This week I've read more thoughts of Katherine Dalsimer's, along with Virginia Woolf's, and see that these periods of writing brings a more enlightened view of the inequality that Virginia was forced to face.
I, fortunately, had a few good male influences that 'allowed' me to show my capabilities, which would offset the negative feelings I had started to developed.
I look back, now, and see that I didn't hate the men that I worked for, but I hated the fact that they were taught to act the way in which they did towards me.
Being a chauvinistic pig is learned, and women can be just as bad in this area as men.
So, again....I reiterate that thought, that I will not draw lines between men and women.
I want to see them on a level playing field.
How realistic is this?
I don't know.
You talk about relationships?
Another playing field to level and balance.
I'm guilty in throwing the scale in an off balance position.
I'm still learning these processes.
No matter how old I am, it never fails to be hard work to stay in the field, and I'm afraid I want to give up, to make it easier for everyone.
I ask myself - Is it worth having?
Is it worth working for?
And how much energy am I willing to spend?
What's realistic?
But through it all....I don't think anything, or anyone, should be taken for granted.
There has to be worth.
I want to believe in this.
K.
The tiger leapt, and the swallow dipped her wings in dark pools on the other side of the world.
The Waves
V.
Woolf
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Oh boy, Ilana, you really love to open cans of worms, don't you?
I agree with you about the isms -- i just sigh every time I hear one of them used.
Isms tend to have two common aspects.
One, they emphasize division rather than union.
Two, they inevitably contain the message "I'm good, you're bad."
What I find most interesting about the whole gender discussion is how much we have learned just in the past decade or two about the physical differences between male and female brains and the physiological and psychological consequences of those differences.
Men and women are not the same creature with the only difference being that one set has sexual organs type A and the other has sexual organs type B.
However, most feminist thinking is based on this fundamental error.
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Quote: :
[snip] We consider ourselves feminists because we think women should be able to walk down the street and have respect as a human being.
Don't you believe that men should have the same right?
Why don't you call yourself a humanist, one who wants full human rights for all people?
Why do you focus on just supporting women's rights to walk down the street and have respect, with the implication that you don't have any care about men's rights to the same?
Message Edited by Everyman on 10-11-2007 06:29 PM
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Quote: :
Oh boy, Ilana, you really love to open cans of worms, don't you?
I agree with you about the isms -- i just sigh every time I hear one of them used.
Isms tend to have two common aspects.
One, they emphasize division rather than union.
Two, they inevitably contain the message "I'm good, you're bad."
What I find most interesting about the whole gender discussion is how much we have learned just in the past decade or two about the physical differences between male and female brains and the physiological and psychological consequences of those differences.
Men and women are not the same creature with the only difference being that one set has sexual organs type A and the other has sexual organs type B.
However, most feminist thinking is based on this fundamental error.
I'm off the topic of "isms" at the moment - but don't you think that any time you have a rights issue, there is always going to be sides taken?
The women's rights issue is nothing new, but it has become a snow ball from hell, basing itself on 'anger' as it's foundation, against inequality.
It has been an inevitable fight, and with any 'fight', someone ends up throwing derogatory "nasty" names.
Thus lines start to blur as to what the fight was about in the first place.
Defensive reactions start to form.
No one likes to have someones thumb pressing against them.
It starts to hurt after a while.
Women have been shoved into these boxes, with bruises on their foreheads, for so many years, there had to have been some way to come out from under that dominance.
Unfortunately, it's been a war.
An equal voice has to be heard from all sides.
But it shouldn't be about winning "over" someone/something else.
But shouting is all that is heard at times.
We all want to be heard, and not be put down, suppressed by opposition, for using that voice.
And it's not just a matter of sexual differences, woman VS man, it's all inclusive of every known right that has been denied every human being since the beginning of time and still these issues are being debated.
K.
The tiger leapt, and the swallow dipped her wings in dark pools on the other side of the world.
The Waves
V.
Woolf
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No one likes to have someones thumb pressing against them.
It starts to hurt after a while.
The day you identify someone who hasn't ever had someone's thumb pressing against them for some characteristic beyond the person's reasonable control, let me know.
I've never been and never to my knowledge met such a person.
Granted, some people are more frequent victims of thumbism than others.
And one can argue that some thumbism is worse than other thumbism.
But is it really to the victim?
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Never said I wasn't
Quote: :
Quote: :
[snip] We consider ourselves feminists because we think women should be able to walk down the street and have respect as a human being.
Don't you believe that men should have the same right?
Why don't you call yourself a humanist, one who wants full human rights for all people?
Why do you focus on just supporting women's rights to walk down the street and have respect, with the implication that you don't have any care about men's rights to the same?
Message Edited by Everyman on 10-11-2007 06:29 PM
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Good. So call yourself that instead of, not in addition to, calling yourself a feminist.
Then I can see you as a colleague against discrimination and not as an attacker.
Quote: :
Never said I wasn't
Quote: :
Quote: :
[snip] We consider ourselves feminists because we think women should be able to walk down the street and have respect as a human being.
Don't you believe that men should have the same right?
Why don't you call yourself a humanist, one who wants full human rights for all people?
Why do you focus on just supporting women's rights to walk down the street and have respect, with the implication that you don't have any care about men's rights to the same?
Message Edited by Everyman on 10-11-2007 06:29 PM
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Sorry, but I don't follow.
I just read back through my original post and I don't think I was attacking anyone.
Quote: :
Good.
So call yourself that instead of, not in addition to, calling yourself a feminist.
Then I can see you as a colleague against discrimination and not as an attacker.
Quote: :
Never said I wasn't
Quote: :
Quote: :
[snip] We consider ourselves feminists because we think women should be able to walk down the street and have respect as a human being.
Don't you believe that men should have the same right?
Why don't you call yourself a humanist, one who wants full human rights for all people?
Why do you focus on just supporting women's rights to walk down the street and have respect, with the implication that you don't have any care about men's rights to the same?
Message Edited by Everyman on 10-11-2007 06:29 PM
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"Thumbism" - I'm just confirming the label on the box.
I'm certainly not an expert on the women's rights movement, but I do know what limits were put on women...by men.
I don't know where the label "feminist" came from, do you?
I wonder what a man would be called if he were fighting for equal rights?
Masculinist? Could you explain what you mean when you say, "But is it really to the victim"?
Kathy
Quote: :
No one likes to have someones thumb pressing against them.
It starts to hurt after a while.
The day you identify someone who hasn't ever had someone's thumb pressing against them for some characteristic beyond the person's reasonable control, let me know.
I've never been and never to my knowledge met such a person.
Granted, some people are more frequent victims of thumbism than others.
And one can argue that some thumbism is worse than other thumbism.
But is it really to the victim?
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Historically and metaphorically speaking, men have always had the right to respect and to walk down streets of their choosing.
Women have had to fight for the same rights and are still fighting, especially in other parts of the world.
So there is still a need for the focus that Melissa writes of.
We have spent a lot of time on these boards reading Victorian novels in particular, which show the blatant lack of rights and respect afforded to women, and it is against that background that the 'militancy' perceived today was born.
It was regrettable but IMO it was inevitable.
Just as, say, male workers' entitlements to decent working conditions resulted in trade union militancy.
That militancy, now that those rights have largely been won (in the West at least) has now dissipated and has been replaced by 'negotiation', 'arbitration' etc.
So it will be with the militancy surrounding the fight for womens' rights.
I agree that, ideally, our general focus should be on humanism, especially on its universality:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism
Quote: :
Quote: :
[snip] We consider ourselves feminists because we think women should be able to walk down the street and have respect as a human being.
Don't you believe that men should have the same right?
Why don't you call yourself a humanist, one who wants full human rights for all people?
Why do you focus on just supporting women's rights to walk down the street and have respect, with the implication that you don't have any care about men's rights to the same?
Message Edited by Everyman on 10-11-2007 06:29 PM
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Oh Boy! from pornography to feminism, hmm...
Lets see...
Well Everyman, i totally agree with you, such does give way to discord and I think most persons seem to have a general misunderstanding of women simply advancing themselves to women being dominant, in terms of 'power' etc.
What most should understand is that we can only achieve united in life.
Apart from physical differences, the psychological also do exist but one main problem I think is persons expecting women to 'think' in a particular way focusing on things that thier male counterparts wont bother to consider, in some instances, maybe that is why we have feminists, there are those who are just bent on straying from that which the masses consider 'the norm'.
Quote: :
Oh boy, Ilana, you really love to open cans of worms, don't you?
I agree with you about the isms -- i just sigh every time I hear one of them used.
Isms tend to have two common aspects.
One, they emphasize division rather than union.
Two, they inevitably contain the message "I'm good, you're bad."
What I find most interesting about the whole gender discussion is how much we have learned just in the past decade or two about the physical differences between male and female brains and the physiological and psychological consequences of those differences.
Men and women are not the same creature with the only difference being that one set has sexual organs type A and the other has sexual organs type B.
However, most feminist thinking is based on this fundamental error.
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Thinker,
You opened a new thread, but I think your message there is relevant for this discussion.
I'll Quote: it here:
"...If a woman decides that she does not want to involve herself in activities considered normal for women, do you call her a feminist?
By 'activities considered normal' I mean, get married, have children, take part in more outdoor activities instead of becoming skilled in the usual cooking, cleaning, and other household duties, be bent on furthering her education and career, or entering a 'male dominated' field.
What do you think!
Is this being feminist?!"
I do think it takes courage to deviate from the norm.
People who deviate often get less public respect.
If a woman is trying to carve out a non-stereotypical, humane way to "live big," her choices certainly seems feminist to me.
Ilana
Check out my book, here and visit my website, here.
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Sorry. I didn't mean that your post specifically was attacking anyone.
I mean that calling yourself a feminist self-assigns you to a group that many people see as attacking Quote: :
Sorry, but I don't follow.
I just read back through my original post and I don't think I was attacking anyone.
Quote: :
Good.
So call yourself that instead of, not in addition to, calling yourself a feminist.
Then I can see you as a colleague against discrimination and not as an attacker.
Quote: :
Never said I wasn't
Quote: :
Quote: :
[snip] We consider ourselves feminists because we think women should be able to walk down the street and have respect as a human being.
Don't you believe that men should have the same right?
Why don't you call yourself a humanist, one who wants full human rights for all people?
Why do you focus on just supporting women's rights to walk down the street and have respect, with the implication that you don't have any care about men's rights to the same?
Message Edited by Everyman on 10-11-2007 06:29 PM
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Could you explain what you mean when you say, "But is it really to the victim"?
An objective observer might argue that, say, racism is worse than ageism.
But the victim suffering from of ageism may not think so.
Quote: :
"Thumbism" - I'm just confirming the label on the box.
I'm certainly not an expert on the women's rights movement, but I do know what limits were put on women...by men.
I don't know where the label "feminist" came from, do you?
I wonder what a man would be called if he were fighting for equal rights?
Masculinist? Could you explain what you mean when you say, "But is it really to the victim"?
Kathy
Quote: :
No one likes to have someones thumb pressing against them.
It starts to hurt after a while.
The day you identify someone who hasn't ever had someone's thumb pressing against them for some characteristic beyond the person's reasonable control, let me know.
I've never been and never to my knowledge met such a person.
Granted, some people are more frequent victims of thumbism than others.
And one can argue that some thumbism is worse than other thumbism.
But is it really to the victim?
Message Edited by KathyS on 10-11-2007 11:17 PM
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Quote: :
Historically and metaphorically speaking, men have always had the right to respect and to walk down streets of their choosing.
That may be a woman's perception of reality.
It's not a man's experience of it.
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Http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/anthony.htm
The fight for rights is never easy.
How do we base what is the norm without first hearing a voice?
This was one voice.
Here is the Quote: from this page:
In the 1800s, women in the United States had few legal rights and did not have the right to vote.
This speech was given by Susan B.
Anthony after her arrest for casting an illegal vote in the presidential election of 1872.
She was tried and then fined $100 but refused to pay.
Friends and fellow citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote.
It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen's rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any state to deny.
The preamble of the Federal Constitution says:
"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
It was we, the people;
Not we, the white male citizens;
Nor yet we, the male citizens;
But we, the whole people, who formed the Union.
And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them;
Not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people - women as well as men.
And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government - the ballot.
For any state to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people, is to pass a bill of attainder, or, an ex post facto law, and is therefore a violation of the supreme law of the land.
By it the blessings of liberty are forever withheld from women and their female posterity.
To them this government has no just powers derived from the consent of the governed.
To them this government is not a democracy.
It is not a republic.
It is an odious aristocracy;
A hateful oligarchy of sex;
The most hateful aristocracy ever established on the face of the globe;
An oligarchy of wealth, where the rich govern the poor.
An oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant, or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured;
But this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters, of every household - which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension, discord, and rebellion into every home of the nation.
Webster, Worcester, and Bouvier all define a citizen to be a person in the United States, entitled to vote and hold office.
The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons?
And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not.
Being persons, then, women are citizens;
And no state has a right to make any law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities.
Hence, every discrimination against women in the constitutions and laws of the several states is today null and void, precisely as is every one against Negroes.
Susan B.
Anthony - 1873
Following her death in 1906 after five decades of tireless work, the Democratic and Republican parties both endorsed women's right to vote.
In August of 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution was finally ratified, allowing women to vote.
The tiger leapt, and the swallow dipped her wings in dark pools on the other side of the world.
The Waves
V.
Woolf
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