Today in Herstory: Suffragist Alice Paul Kept in Hospital During Hunger Strike

[niyad]

Today in Herstory: Suffragist Alice Paul Kept in Hospital During Hunger Strike






November 18, 1917: Suffragist Alice Paul has finally been transferred out of the psychopathic ward of Washington, D.C.’s District Jail, and today succeeded in smuggling a note out of the hospital ward where she is now being kept during her hunger strike and force-feedings.
Her confinement to the psychopathic ward was never really about her sanity. She was singled out for extra punishment as the leader of the suffragists who have been picketing President Wilson by standing along the White House fence with large banners each day since January 10th.

These “Silent Sentinels” are highlighting the contrast between the President’s untiring advocacy of democracy around the world and his lack of any meaningful effort to help win it here for the female half of his own country. He has yet to even endorse the Susan B. Anthony (nationwide woman suffrage) Amendment, or use his considerable influence to help get it passed by Congress and then sent to the States for ratification.


Over the past few days a number of prison officials have admitted that they had no doubts about Alice Paul’s sanity, and at that point, the policy of subjecting her to the conditions of the psychopathic ward became so obviously punitive, unjustified and illegal that her confinement there could no longer be continued. In a note to Doris Stevens, who is temporarily heading the National Woman’s Party in Paul’s absence, Paul wrote:

“Miss Winslow and I are at opposite ends of the building, each locked in her room, with an iron barred door. I saw her as they brought me on a stretcher from the psychopathic ward, but I have not seen her since. We are each in a ward with three windows. Today they nailed two of my windows shut so that they cannot be opened. The third window has been nailed shut at the bottom, so that the only air I have now is from the top of one window.

. . . .

http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2014/11/18/today-in-herstory-suffragist-alice-paul-kept-in-hospital-during-hunger-strike/

[midnight]

1. Our grandmothers fought long and hard for this right to vote, and sadly those with the money

find ways to continue to suppress our votes.

[niyad]

2. it truly boggles the mind.

[redruddyred]

3. and women continue to be oppressed by the psychiatric industry today.

kathleen hanna said something interesting in her recent documentary how she always had to be aware of how her words were being interpreted, as a woman. men can just say what they mean, she states, but as a woman, you are a potentially unreliable witness. wimminz be krazy and all that.

I remember reading about paul sometime back. she was finally let go when a male dr mentioned that bravery in a woman can sometimes be seen as insanity. not much has changed in a century.

[niyad]

4. sadly, you are correct. the psychiatric industry does not serve women well.

did you ever read charlotte perkins gilman's "the yellow wallpaper"? a chilling example of the profession's treatment of women, and not much has changed in all that time. masterpiece theatre did a production of it in 1989 that was truly chilling.

[redruddyred]

5. oh yeah I've had the same diagnosis.

they call it chronic fatigue now, but still try to load you up with prozac and such.
no one I know who has it has ever benefitted from such a regimen.

[niyad]

6. how are you doing now?

[redruddyred]

7. not taking psychiatric meds

that's a huge improvement.
also managed to bully a doc to give me antivirals that was like a herculean effort.
I guess they don't want to feed my neurosis or something.