Throughout the history of the world, oppression has existed for the reason of dominance, to control others, deeming them inferior for the oppressor’s benefit of economic, social, and political superiority. There is no egocentric reason for the oppressor to give up whatever hierarchy they have achieved, unless opposition to the oppression is great, and forces egalitarianism. This is what is meant by Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” If it were not for the civil rights movement continuing to fight against racial oppression, African Americans would not have freedom in employment, education and political offices. Not only is freedom from oppression ever given voluntarily, the fight for freedom stretches over decades, with much perseverance and sacrifice of the oppressed, as seen in the movie “Iron Jawed Angels.” If it were not for the commitment and continuance of fighting of suffragist activists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns where Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton left off, American women would not have the right to vote in every state in 1920. The two young woman form the National Woman’s Party (NWP) a more aggressive approach to have the 19th amendment passed at the Federal Government level. A senators’ wife joins the party, and her husband takes her “allowance” away and threatens to take her children as well. Alice Paul chooses selflessly, not to continue a romantic relationship, sacrificing, to stay focused and continue the fight for woman’s oppression in our Patriarchal Society. The NWP continue to picket the Whitehouse during WWI, and it is visually shocking how these women are treated just for wanting to vote in a government that they support. Stones are thrown at them and they are violently hauled off to jail, beaten, and handcuffed with their arms above their heads. The women go on a hunger strike and are force fed so that President Woodrow Wilson does not have a “stinking corpse” on his doorstep during a reelection year. The woman from the NWP demanded freedom from oppression by organizing, marching, picketing and boycotting. Charlotte Perkins Gilman demanded freedom from oppression when she wrote, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Gillman wrote of patriarchal oppression in her story of a woman who is patronized by her husband in the Victorian era. The woman longs for societal independence and to express her self by writing. Women of that era were confined to a life of domesticity, which made them anxious and depressed. The woman keeps a journal hidden and writes, “ Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.” Her husband and her brother are physicians who confine her to a room to rest without stimulus, only yellow wallpaper to look at, which drives her to insanity. In real life Gillman had a nervous condition and was almost driven to insanity by a physician who treated her with “The Rest Cure.” When her piece was published she gave it to her physician, which led to changes in his treatment. Charlotte Perkins Gilman was part of the early women’s movement fighting oppression; not waiting for freedom to be given by her oppressors, because she knew it would never come. She divorced her husband and went on to write “Women and Economics” and “Man-Made World.”
If it were not for the commitment and continuance of fighting of suffragist activists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns where Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton left off, American women would not have the right to vote in every state in 1920. The two young woman form the National Woman’s Party (NWP) a more aggressive approach to have the 19th amendment passed at the Federal Government level. A senators’ wife joins the party, and her husband takes her “allowance” away and threatens to take her children as well. Alice Paul chooses selflessly, not to continue a romantic relationship, sacrificing, to stay focused and continue the fight for woman’s oppression in our Patriarchal Society. The NWP continue to picket the Whitehouse during WWI, and it is visually shocking how these women are treated just for wanting to vote in a government that they support. Stones are thrown at them and they are violently hauled off to jail, beaten, and handcuffed with their arms above their heads. The women go on a hunger strike and are force fed so that President Woodrow Wilson does not have a “stinking corpse” on his doorstep during a reelection year. The woman from the NWP demanded freedom from oppression by organizing, marching, picketing and boycotting. Charlotte Perkins Gilman demanded freedom from oppression when she wrote, “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
Gillman wrote of patriarchal oppression in her story of a woman who is patronized by her husband in the Victorian era. The woman longs for societal independence and to express her self by writing. Women of that era were confined to a life of domesticity, which made them anxious and depressed. The woman keeps a journal hidden and writes, “ Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.” Her husband and her brother are physicians who confine her to a room to rest without stimulus, only yellow wallpaper to look at, which drives her to insanity. In real life Gillman had a nervous condition and was almost driven to insanity by a physician who treated her with “The Rest Cure.” When her piece was published she gave it to her physician, which led to changes in his treatment. Charlotte Perkins Gilman was part of the early women’s movement fighting oppression; not waiting for freedom to be given by her oppressors, because she knew it would never come. She divorced her husband and went on to write “Women and Economics” and “Man-Made World.”