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From God Terms To Gaga: The Bad Romance Between Motherhood And Female Suffragists In American Film, Mary Ellis Glymph

Masters Theses

Ninety-five years ago, the Nineteenth Amendment was passed by Congress, and women across America were given the right to vote. Nearly a century later, the long-gone figure of the female suffragist continues to subtly permeate American film, a reoccurrence that is not easily justified. Why would viewers in the English-speaking world continue an interest in a historically-contextualized feminist that seems, at first, to have little to do with what a “modern-day feminist” portrays?

Although the woman that history calls the suffragette hasn’t existed in America since 1920, representations of her in film and visual media have reminded viewers that this …