Spout at IndieWire recently pointed out that:
Max Urai at Anomalous Material continues his series on 20th Century in Film with a post on depictions of events from 1910 to 1919. This decade includes such the sinking of the Titanic, the start of Prohibition and World War I, which he will tackle next time. The notable part of the post is what it says about the lack of films about the women’s suffrage movement:
And then goes on to quote Urai at Anomalous Material, where he writes this about the women’s suffrage movement:
Although the conclusion to this political movement happened in 1920 (in the US, at least) when the Nineteenth Amendment was introduced, the battle for women’s rights mostly took place during the teens. It is often dismissed as something that naturally happened as people became more civilized, but history often forgets the many women (and men!) who had the balls to stand up for their rights and their fellow human beings.
Movie: None.
Feminism is all about putting things that history forgot on the map, which makes it all the more surprising that I honestly can’t find any movie about the movement. I know I promised to deliver you the history of the 20th century in movies, but it’s the lack of movies here that is most telling.
Emphasis mine.
If the lack of movies here is telling, what it tells is that Hollywood is not feminist. Perhaps that’s what Urai was getting at and simply worded it poorly. He sounds astonished, though, that because “feminism is all about putting things that history forgot on the map” (which it isn’t all about, in fact, but we’ll let that slide) there should still be things about women left off the map.
What’s surprising is that Urai is surprised that there aren’t lots of movies about the women’s suffrage movement.
It just pisses me off that “balls”, a male body part, is used as a compliment to denote strength or toughness but “pussy”(literally vagina, a female body part) is an insult to denote weakness. Even though balls are literally delicate and kicking them does a huge amount of damage(to the point where it’s even made into a joke), while pussies are strong enough to withstand so much shit, the least of which is menstruation and giving birth. But no, our society is so used to seeing men as the stronger sex and women as the weaker sex,* so anything associated with men is praised and valued, to the point where men telling women they have balls, are “the man” or are “one of the guys” is supposed to be taken as a compliment! Meanwhile “pussy”, “sissy”, “pansy”, “soyboy” “bitch” and “like a girl” are all seen as insults to be derided, especially when aimed at boys and men(because it emasculates them, aka strips them of their masculine value and reduces them to the lower feminine role of a woman). Why? Because according to patriarchal society, the worst thing you can possibly be is feminine or like a girl. The worst thing you can be is female. And the closer you are to a state of masculinity, the better. It’s sad.
*Oh, and if you’re going to respond with “well men are stronger than women and it’s science and all that so it makes sense to say blah blah blah…” then don’t bother. You know damn well what I mean; don’t pretend you don’t.