#Repealthe19th

I'm sure you guys have all seen this already—but I'm so curious to hear what everyone has to say about this considering the time we spent reading about the fight for women's suffrage.

So Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight Twitter has been posting some excellent maps and projections, especially after the most recent debates.

Here's the first map:

And here's the second:

So after Nate Silver posted these, this started trending on Facebook and Twitter: #Repealthe19th. Here's one hilarious tweet that particularly stood out to me...

But then, when I went on Twitter to look at more of these tweets just for kicks, I found way more tweets that were denouncing the use of #Repealthe19th. 

One tie-in to class (although I'm sure we can find many, many more!) is that we discussed the idea that women's suffrage seems so obvious for now and many people take it for granted, not understanding that it was uncertain in the decades before its passage, and required a difficult struggle. What other connections do you guys see?

Amazon Series - Good Girls Revolt

Hey all! I was just browsing for some fall break items to watch on Amazon, and I came upon this—a new series called "Good Girls Revolt."

Here's the description:
In 1969, while a cultural revolution swept through the free world, there was still one place that refused to change with the times: newsrooms. Good Girls Revolt follows a group of young female researchers at "News of the Week," who ask to be treated fairly. Their revolutionary request sparks convulsive changes and upends marriages, careers, sex lives, love lives, and friendships.

Although this is later than the materials we've looked at so far, the description reminded me of reading about Ida B. Wells and her revolutionary role as both an anti-lynching crusader (engaging in political activity) and a female journalist (engaging in this activity through an emerging medium in which women were underrepresented). This seems to also deal with demands for equality in the workplace, an issue that the Equal Rights Amendment also brings up. 

Let me know if anyone decides to watch the first episode! 

International Day of the Girl Child (Plus a bonus Michelle Obama film)

Today is the International Day of the Girl Child, a day declared by the United Nations to focus on girls' issues and bettering their lives. Appropriately, CNN has published an article listing the 5 toughest places to be a girl. It is important while looking at this to remember that it is easy to judge these countries from our point of view, but as a country we rank 28th for the best place to be a girl, and we can do much better than this, also.

Additionally, this article touches on Michelle Obama's activism surrounding her Let Girls Learn initiative. I think it's cool for us to read a little bit more about Michelle Obama's work as a first lady, as we were discussing in class yesterday that we don't know that much about her. A documentary about her travels learning about girls' education and other factors is also premiering today on CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/11/health/gender-inequality-worst-countries/

Letters from Eleanor Roosevelt

https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/10/11/eleanor-roosevelt-lorena-hickok-love-letters/

After discussing Eleanor Roosevelt in class today, I conducted some follow up research. Although the readings from class extensively examined Eleanor Roosevelt's political accomplishments, I was just as intrigued by her multi-faceted, fascinating and quite mysterious personal life. I found an interesting website that has a few excerpts from her letters with Lorena Hickok here.

These letters help provide a little more context into her relationship with Lorena Hickok. Although it will never be possible to fully understand Eleanor's relationship with Lorena, its important to recognize that the letters "offer a beautiful record of a tender, steadfast, deeply loving relationship between two women who meant the world to one another, even if the world never quite condoned or understood their profound connection". These letters are taken from a collection of 300 letters between Hickok and Roosevelt which are published in a book titled Empty Without You. 

Although a few of these letters suggest that Hickock and Roosevelt may have shared a relationship of "great romantic intensity", this subject has remained an issue "of lasting controversy" for many years. Nonetheless, I truly found these letters to show the personable/compassionate/romantic side of Eleanor Roosevelt that was touched upon briefly in class throughout our discussions. I hope these may be interesting to you all as well! 

Pew: In both parties, men and women differ over whether women still face obstacles to progress

 I came across this article during some thesis background work. It explains, as we might suspect, that Democratic women think that women still face particular obstacles in our society which make it harder to get ahead. Democratic men follow, then Republican women, and lastly Republican men. This is instructive from an electoral perspective-- which groups make up the support base of each major party determines the politics of their representatives. However, it also reveals that the perspective of key players can have serious consequences throughout our political system. If more liberal Republican men, who believe obstacles still inhibit women, start gaining elected office, we might expect a gradual change in the beliefs of all Republican men. The influence works both ways.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/16/in-both-parties-men-and-women-differ-over-whether-women-still-face-obstacles-to-progress/

Op-Ed: The right says Hillary Clinton is responsible for her husband. Why isn’t Melania Trump?

Here is a short op-ed from the Washington Post about the double standard that women, specifically Hillary Clinton, are held to in regards to responsibility over their husbands. As an op-ed, it is clearly very biased against Trump, but I think it makes some interesting points as to the different roles that women are expected to fulfill within politics, and how these expectations are often contradictory.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2016/10/07/the-right-says-hillary-clinton-is-responsible-for-her-husband-why-isnt-melania-trump/?utm_term=.edb017f6cb33

Jane Addams-Fun Facts

Jane Addams: https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1931/addams_postcard.jpg

Dear History 175 friends,

Hope you all had a great weekend. I just found out this weekend that Jane Addams was the second women to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She was recognized with this tremendous honor for her work with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, which she founded in 1919,  "to get the great powers to disarm and conclude peace agreements". 


She fearlessly defended international efforts for piece and fought against war, even if her ideas were considered by many to be unpopular. For example, during " World War I, she chaired a women's conference for peace held in the Hague in the Netherlands, and tried in vain to get President Woodrow Wilson of the USA to mediate peace between the warring countries". Even after she was "stamped a dangerous radical and a danger to US security," she refused to stop fighting for what she believed in. 


Jane Addams was truly an amazing activist, not only at the national level, but also at the international level. Its important that we never forget about her work in history. Please feel free to read more about her accomplishments here. 


Have a great weekend.

Best,

Michael