Throughout
history many people have been oppressed, whether it is physically, mentally or
socially by those of “higher power”. Martin Luther King Jr. conveys oppression
when he says, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be
demanded by the oppressed.” These wise words mean that people cannot live their
lives hoping that a person who is oppressing will suddenly do what they want because
it is the right thing to do. People must take actions on their own to gain what
they want whether it be by speaking their mind, not necessarily through
violence, but by implementing the legal system, protesting, campaigning,
amongst various other approaches. If someone does not want you to be empowered,
then you must empower yourself.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman depicts the absence of empowerment through her
famous short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” where women are imprisoned by male
authorities. Similarly, the American Drama film, Iron Jawed Angels, directed by Katja von Garnier, shows how women
in the early 20th century endure the struggle of gaining women’s
right to vote and how many young women activists risk their lives to fight for
women’s citizenship.
When
Martin Luther King Jr. said “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the
oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed,” he reveals we must take
action to deny others subjugating us. These actions are precisely what the
women in the movie Iron Jawed Angels took
in order to attain freedom. The protagonist Alice Paul is portrayed as a
strong, independent and intellectual woman who believes that if women are
citizens of the US, just as men are, then they should have the right to vote.
Her belief is exemplified when the male psychiatrist at the prison asks Paul to
tell him about “her cause” and to “explain herself”. Alice confidently replies:
I
just wonder what needs to be explained, it should be very clear. Look into your
own heart, and I swear to you mine is no different. You want a place in the
trades and profession where you can earn your bread, so do I. You want means of
self-expression, a way of satisfying your own personal ambitions, so do I. Want
a voice in the government under which you live, so do I.
Her words
clearly demonstrate the dedication, persistence and devotion Paul has in
demanding that her right to vote will lead to her freedom as well as the
freedom of many other women in the United States. Alice risks everything to
change the hearts and mind of the American people. She also utilizes the legal
system by campaigning for the National Women’s Party and protesting in front of
the White House in order to convince President Woodrow Wilson to support the
cause and present it to Congress. Unfortunately, protesting results in Alice’s
imprisonment, where she and many other women who are part of the National
Women’s Party use a hunger strike to emphasize the importance of their cause. Their
method of non-violence resistance convinces officials in the White House that Paul
is insane. On the other hand, the male psychiatrist believes that she displays
courage and bravery rather than insanity as he exclaims to President Wilson and
his co-workers, “Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.” Although
many people believed their actions were “insane” it was in fact bravery that
they revealed. The powerful act of their hunger strike and many other actions result
in the addition of the 19th amendment, giving women in the United
States the right to vote as of August 18, 1920.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s enlightened
words about oppression also play a role in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short
story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” where women during this time period were
imprisoned by male authorities and patriarchal oppression becomes a matter of issue.
The narrator in this short story is oppressed by her husband, who sees her as a
delicate, weak-willed, submissive woman who serves as nothing more than a
housewife. The protagonist’s attempt to gain freedom is exercised through
writing as she suffers with postpartum depression. However, her attempt to
escape from her depression must be done secretly because her physician/ husband
instructs her that in order to recover she must go on “rest cure”, never
allowing herself to pick up a pen and paper. She empowers herself when she
says, “Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change,
would do me good… I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a
little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me.” Her being put in almost
solitary confinement does not help the fact that she is suffering from
depression, for she isolated from the world outside her room and uses the imprisonment
represented by the yellow wallpaper as a way to express how trapped and
confined she feels as a woman during that time period. The narrator’s form of a
creative outlet is writing, and unfortunately once she is prohibited from
writing she is stripped of her spirit and forced to live in silence. Her broken
spirit and silence makes her sink into a deeper depression, rendering her
powerless and causing her internal suffering and external entrapment. The
narrator’s attempt to demand freedom from her husband is explicitly revealed
when she says, “I’ve got out at last, in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled
off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!” Her courage is displayed when
she succeeds in breaking away from the stereotype of being a housewife. To her
husband and others she may seem insane, but her actions are “courage that is
often mistaken for insanity.”
Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote
emphasizes the struggle that many people must go through in order to overcome
oppression and attain empowerment. As reflections of the struggle that women
faced and continue to face today, both the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,”
and the movie, Iron Jawed Angels,
depict female oppression and how women longed for societal and economic
independence.
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