Suffragette Brings to Light Women’s Fight for Equality

Last week I was asked to attend the theatrical release for the Focus Features  movie Suffragette at The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences in Beverly Hills.   I read the preview and it sounded like my type of movie so I asked my husband to be my date and accepted the invitation.  The movie was released today, October 23rd, in selected theaters in Los Angeles and New York with a full release  Thanksgiving week.  So if you don’t live in any of those areas be sure to check it out next month.  And be sure to bring your tween, teen, sister, mother and/or friend because this is a movie everyone young (and young-at-heart) should see!  I don’t think our young today truly understand what women had to do to fight for equality and the right to vote not only here in the United States but in Britain as well.

Suffragette is about the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement, women who were forced underground to pursue a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an increasingly brutal State.  Many of us know the history of what women in the United States had to do to get this right but it was really fascinating to me to learn more about what women in England went through as well.  Many young people today many not know that women literally gave their lives to have this right given to all women. But a right we are still fighting to get in certain parts of the world!  Be sure to stay until the very end of the movie credits.  You will be shocked at the list of countries and years they were given the right to vote. For example,  Switzerland’s women weren’t able to vote until 1971!

Red Carpet Premiere:

When they had invited me to attend the premiere and said it was a red carpet event, it really was a red carpet event!  They even had dandelion moms printed out and taped to the red carpet next to Variety and People Magazine.  How did that happen?!  The stars of the movie Cary Mulligan and Meryl Streep along with the producers and director attended the Los Angeles premiere.

Some of the women who attended the premiere to give their support:

Sharon Osbourne and Sarah Gilbert

One of Meryl Streep’s daughter (carrying the latest bag).

And Kathy Baker, Candy Clark, Sally Kellerman, Anne Jeffreys and many more!

I spoke to the producers of the movie, Alison Owen and Faye Ward, and they talked about how important this movie is for young girls (and boys) to see because they need to see what women had to do to win the basic right to vote.  They spoke about how as they researched British women’s rights they were shocked by some of the inequalities they came across –  such as the astonishing fact that up to 1983, married British women were not allowed to own a credit card unless their husband co-signed on the card.  People, this was in 1983!  Luckily, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher put an end to this during her term.

I also spoke with Sarah Gavron, the Director of Suffragette, and we talked about how important it is to bring our daughter’s to see this movie so they understand what women had to do to get the right to vote.  She has a young daughter as well and thinks all young tweens should see this movie to gain more of an understanding.  But as producers Alison and Faye stressed, the women’s equality fight is still not over and people need to get involved.

Around 7:15 we were ushered into the Samuel Goldwyn Theater and you could see two large Oscars up on the stage. I wondered if one of my favorite actors had sat in the very seat I was sitting in!  I joked that I couldn’t believe I was breathing the same air as Meryl Streep but truly, it was pretty magical to be in a room filled with people there to support women and their rights.

I really enjoyed the movie and Cary Mulligan, who played Maud Watts, a fictional laundry worker, and gets caught up into the fight for women’s rights to vote was absolutely amazing.  She embodied the hopelessness and despair women must have felt during that time.  A time where women had no rights over their children.  A time when the law didn’t recognize or protect them.  It was very eye-opening to me and made me appreciate all that women before have done for us.

March of the women … a suffragette protest in London, 1911. Photograph: © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS Courtesy of The Guardian

So come Thanksgiving time be sure to take your kids (I recommend this movie for tweens on up) to see Suffragette.  Though my daughter is too young at the moment, we did speak about how women had to fight for the simple right to vote and in some countries (Saudi Arabia) they still do not have this right.  She was astonished and it just reiterated to me how important it is to teach our kids where we’ve been so as to know how far we’ve come – and where we want to go!

About Suffragette:

Synopsis:

Suffragette, a critically acclaimed Focus Features film depicts the early stages of women’s suffrage in England. Set in London in the years leading up to England’s 1918 declaration of suffrage for women.

Director:

Sarah Gavron

Who would you like to see this movie with?