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Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand.
Author: Raine
Date: 03/14/2011 13:13:14
Last week was a rough one. There is no question about it. There are still too many conflicting reports from Japan to really know what is going on with regard to the nuclear power plants. To be honest, I am far more concerned with the massive death toll that we will see from the Tsunami. My heart is quite heavy for the people of Japan. It's hard to know what to do in times such as these. I feel somewhat hopeless, but I know succumbing to it is not an option.
I have been wanting this month to write about History, specifically, Women's History, and It has been difficult to approach such a subject without feeling as though I am disregarding the current events of each day. From Wisconsin, to the middle east, people are rallying and fighting for basic rights and freedoms. It's is something that women here in America struggle for every day. Every day someone is trying to roll back the rights our foresisters and brothers fought - and died - to obtain.
Woodrow Wilson was referred to as Kaiser Wilson for basically telling women to wait for their right to vote -- the war was after all far more important than we were. Women were thrown in jail for protesting the White House. Persisitance paid off. Being hopeless did not. Ironically, it was the tragedy of the events of WWII that secured Japanese women legal equality in that country. Out of what appeared to be a hopeless situation -- came hope. Today Japanese women are considered equal.
They are a strong and proud society, former warriors, survivors of 2 atomic bombs -- they rebuilt the nation and became stronger and better for it. There is hope for Japan. Perhaps this is the wake up call the world needed about Nuclear power. Only time will tell -- but the people of Japan have a history of coming out of tragedy and hopelessness better than before.
In Wisconsin, despite the setback -- people continue to rally, and recall efforts are being put into place. They have not become hopeless. We can look at the events in the Middle East -- and there is still hope. Giving up is not an option. Struggle provides a voice for not only ourselves, but for the future.
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will."
Frederick Douglass, 1849
Source
and 
Raine
I have been wanting this month to write about History, specifically, Women's History, and It has been difficult to approach such a subject without feeling as though I am disregarding the current events of each day. From Wisconsin, to the middle east, people are rallying and fighting for basic rights and freedoms. It's is something that women here in America struggle for every day. Every day someone is trying to roll back the rights our foresisters and brothers fought - and died - to obtain.
Woodrow Wilson was referred to as Kaiser Wilson for basically telling women to wait for their right to vote -- the war was after all far more important than we were. Women were thrown in jail for protesting the White House.
In the US presidential election of 1916, Paul and the NWP campaigned against the continuing refusal of President Woodrow Wilson and other incumbent Democrats to support the Suffrage Amendment actively. In January 1917, the NWP staged the first political protest to picket the White House. The picketers, known as "Silent Sentinels," held banners demanding the right to vote. This was an example of a non-violent civil disobedience campaign. In July 1917, picketers were arrested on charges of "obstructing traffic." Many, including Paul, were convicted and incarcerated at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia (later the Lorton Correctional Complex) and the District of Columbia Jail. In a protest of the conditions in Occoquan, Paul commenced a hunger strike, which led to her being moved to the prison’s psychiatric ward and force-fed raw eggs through a feeding tube. This, combined with the continuing demonstrations and attendant press coverage, kept pressure on the Wilson administration. In January, 1918, Wilson announced that women's suffrage was urgently needed as a "war measure", and strongly urged Congress to pass the legislation. In 1920, after coming down to one vote in the state of Tennessee, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution secured the vote for women.
After World War II, the legal position of women was redefined by the occupation authorities, who included an equal rights clause in the 1947 Constitution and the revised Civil Code of 1948. Individual rights were given precedence over obligation to family. Women as well as men were guaranteed the right to choose spouses and occupations, to inherit and own property in their own names, and to retain custody of their children. Women were given the right to vote in 1946. Other postwar reforms opened education institutions to women and required that women receive equal pay for equal work. In 1986 the Equal Employment Opportunity Law took effect. Legally, few barriers to women's equal participation in the life of society remain.
They are a strong and proud society, former warriors, survivors of 2 atomic bombs -- they rebuilt the nation and became stronger and better for it. There is hope for Japan. Perhaps this is the wake up call the world needed about Nuclear power. Only time will tell -- but the people of Japan have a history of coming out of tragedy and hopelessness better than before.
In Wisconsin, despite the setback -- people continue to rally, and recall efforts are being put into place. They have not become hopeless. We can look at the events in the Middle East -- and there is still hope. Giving up is not an option. Struggle provides a voice for not only ourselves, but for the future.
Frederick Douglass, 1849
and Raine
