The school year’s officially started and CWC is getting into gear. So far, a few members took a roadtrip to Omaha to counter-protest on the same day Operation Rescue was protesting Dr. Carhart’s clinic (the wekkend before school started). The protest went really well, with pro-choice activists greatly outnumbering Operation Rescue members. I’ll write a separate post with more details and pictures later.
CWC also had our first event yesterday. There was a pretty good turnout for an event on Labor Day. We showed Iron Jawed Angels, a film about Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and the rest of the National Women’s Party’s fight to get the right to vote. It’s an excellent movie and if you haven’t seen it, you should. The filmmakers did take a few liberties (Like adding in a love interest for Alice Paul… who knows why. It’s a movie about feminists, geared toward feminist audiences. If there’s any audience that would generally be ok with the leading woman in a movie not needing a man in her life to romance her, it would be the feminist audience. Old habits die hard in Hollywood, too, I guess.), but high school history textbooks take liberties, too. In my high school, at least, the women’s suffrage movement wasn’t portrayed as that big of a struggle. Woodrow Wilson seemed like one of the good guys. Until I saw this movie, I was unaware of the unconstitutional arrests, hunger strikes, force-feedings, and all of the other horrible conditions these women had to go through to achieve something so many people take for granted today. It’s really eye-opening. And if you’re a student in Brookings, you can check it out at the Briggs Library for free!
The Cycle to Stop the Cycle is also coming up this weekend. It’s a fundraiser for the Brookings Domestic Abuse shelter and will be held September 12, 2009 at 9:00 am at the Brookings Chiropractic Center. There’s a discounted fee for SDSU students, but all of the proceeds go to the shelter so I do encourage you to give what you can afford. First through third place wins prizes! If you’re not riding but still want to help, you can volunteer to direct riders, help with registration, or be a cheerleader. You can also pledge donations by emailing cycletostopthecycle@brookings.net. Hope to see you there!
