Women's Day, Suffragettes and Now

So today is International Women's day, and because the internet is awesome, this amazing video went viral. Thank you internet for mixing two of my great loves together in such a great way.



I wasn't prepared for how generally awesome this video would be, and especially not for how surprisingly touching it was.

So when I think of Women's suffrage I think of awesome, but also kind of cute cute Victorian ladies holding town halls gatherings with flag bunting and wearing home embroidered banners and picketing until the men folk finally went oh! You sweet women really are serious about this whole voting thing? Well, ok then. Very sweet and inspiring and oh so very Disney. I forget them being treated like pariahs. I forget them being treated like crazy, unnatural  women. I forget those who were institutionalized. I forget the police breaking  up their marches. I forget the jail. I forget the beatings. I forget the very literal blood sweat and tears and everything they put on the line for all of us.

Sometimes I feel silly for being such a hard-core feminist. Like maybe I am just a little too sensitive to little comments or actions and shouldn't I just know that things are fine now and no one means anything by it? We've come a long way baby and all that jazz. And we have. And I'm grateful.

But in this past month I've seen people talk about how the state should be able to make doctors vaginally penetrate women against their will and at their expense before they can get a legal medical procedure. Apparently employers and the state and everyone else should come first in deciding what happens to a woman's body. I've noticed how many of the voices in these debated have been men, and how few women. And I've seen how ugly and mean in a very gendered way people have reacted to the women who said no to all those things.

And I wonder if for all the very important changes in our laws and our lives that those brave women fought for if maybe we haven't come so far after all, if all the old ideas are still there, if every little thing I'm supposed to think of as nothing because after all things are so good now just makes them more normal. Most of all, I worry that we're getting just that much closer to sliding back, and how willing will people be now to really fight after years of being told to ignore it all.