Alice Paul was hardcore. In 1916, she decided that Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association was too moderate. Thus, in an effort to be more radical, she formed the National Women’s Party. Paul believed that suffrage would not be obtained by merely lobbying for it; she knew that it needed to be an in-their-face fight, so she gave it to them. Paul and her Silent Sentinels publicly humiliated President Woodrow Wilson by protesting in front of the White House for years. These courageous and determined women endured violence, prison, hunger strikes, forced feeding, psychiatric exams and other indignities so that women would be able to vote. She won. While suffrage for women may have been passed eventually, it was due to Paul that it became legal when it did. She did not flinch and she did not back down.
Given Paul’s clear radicalism, I feel certain that she’d be deeply disappointed by many of the recipients of The Alice Award given out by the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum. Each year, a “trailblazer” – a distinguished woman who made an outstanding contribution in breaking barriers and setting new precedents for women – is honored at their $1,000 per ticket luncheon. I doubt she’d agree that several of these women were trailblazers of her ilk. While Paul was unafraid to put her life and liberty on the line, many of these women – people like Katie Couric, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, philanthropist Evelyn Lauder, and journalists Nina Totemberg and Susan Stamberg – have not taken such great risks in their search for women’s rights, Sure, they have spoken out and supported women’s issues (although Bailey Hutchinson’s contribution is shaky at best) but are they at the same level of Paul? Not even close. As Susan B. Anthony said, “Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform.” It makes you wonder if the Sewall-Belmont House even knows about activists like Gloria Allred, Ai-jen Poo, and Delores Huerta (who has spent more time in jail than Alice Paul).
This year, the recipient is even worse. On September 19, 2012, former First Lady Laura Bush will be honored. While Bush may believe in women’s rights and has worked to secure women healthcare, education and human rights abroad, she sat right by while her husband tried to destroy many of women’s gains here at home. This is not acceptable. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” Laura Bush stayed silent and didn’t rock the boat. Alice Paul would rage.
So, they have appropriated the name of a feminist icon, one who was fierce and intractable no less, in order to make feminism feel safe. The mission of the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum is to preserve the legacy of Alice Paul and “telling the untold stories” of women’s progress toward equality. I want to throw up. Alice Paul spent her life challenging the powers-that-be and ignoring her own safety in order to achieve fairness and this is what we’re led to believe she would want? I don’t think so. The untold stories of the feminist movement aren’t about well-heeled women who can afford $1,000 lunches and who talk a good game while doing nothing untoward or dangerous.
Feminism is not safe and I am sick to death of people trying to pretend that it is. It is dangerous because feminism is about telling truth to power. It is refusing to rest until all of us are free. Feminism is about fairness, justice, empathy, and compassion. It is about doing what is right even if you get hurt in the process. Feminism is about raising the temperature on society just enough so that the heat makes change easier to manage. So, in honor of Alice Paul, the Silent Sentinels and the millions of unnamed women who have worked for the equality of women, this website is dedicated to you.
Riley Holden
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“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation or social standing, never can bring about reform. Those who are really in earnest are willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathies with despised ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.” – Susan B. Anthony