Female Badasses in History

Why would you talk her down? By your description, she seems to be doing just fine! Everyone gets a little obsessive in research mode. If she didn't, she wouldn't be researching the right subject for her.

Well, she seems to be getting a little anti-male. I'd like for her to be pro-female without being anti-male, if that makes sense.

Makes sense to me. But then again, I just might be a chauvinist pig trying to suppress you. You better watch out!

Nods.

Lucy Stone, suffragette and abolitionist as well as the first American woman to earn a college degree

Sozlet and Sozobe already made their pick. But it's close to your suggestion! It's Alice Paul.

So this went well, thanks everyone!

The conceit was that she was an animatronic statue of Alice Paul, someone had to "activate" her and then she'd start her spiel. Between activations, she was frozen in a position of picketing, with a sign reading "Mr. President, How Long Must Women Wait For Victory?" and a sash with "VOTES FOR WOMEN." She wore a veryold white dress I happened to have, with her hair up. The spiel (copied and pasted, all her), beginning with when she is "activated":



"Votes for women! Votes for women! Oh, sorry, I was just picketing. My name is Alice Paul and I thought every person should have rights to speak and be listened to.

For a long time, women had none of those rights. Now, we do. Why? Many people wanted what I did. Finally, we did achieve that goal. Many things happened along the way, here are some of them.

Let me tell you a bit about my early life.

I was born on January 11th, 1885 on Paulsdale, my family's farm, in New Jersey.

My mom and dad raised me right. They brought me up with the belief that men and women are equal. I spent most of my spare time half-reading-half-thinking.

My family was Quaker. We didn't have slaves, though most of our neighbors did.

[ed. note: in New Jersey? anyway]

After I graduated from Quaker school I went to college and traveled to England.

I worked very hard to change the constitution for women. Finally, along with some help, I did. Here are some things that happened along the way.

To draw attention to women's suffrage, we put the headquarters of the NWP (the National Women's Party) across from the White House.

I planned the D.C. Parade. While parading many women were attacked by men. Many young men protected us, but not enough. The police threw us in jail for the fall of 1917.

Quite a few crazy things happened that fall in jail, including something we ended up calling the Night of Terror. The police decided that the women they arrested needed to be taught a lesson, and hurled one of my friends into her cell. Her cellmate had a heart attack because she thought my friend was dead. Events like that kept going on all through the night.

Once we were out of jail, we unfurled banners saying, "How long must women wait for liberty" and "Mr. President, what will you do for suffrage?" in front of the White House.


I worked diligently to change the Constitution. Finally, with quite a bit of help, I did change it. Well, it takes the vote "yes" from 36 states to change the Constitution or, in our case, get women the right to vote. On August 18th, 1920, the 36th state, Tennessee, voted yes.

Everyone thought I had an uncanny ability to make people want to work. So I got lots of women to join together and win the rights to vote.

Now you understand how little rights women had way back when I was a girl. Try your hardest to change the world. Goodbye!

nice!

(Had to check the NJ slave thing, looks like NJ did have more slaves than most northern states, but not in 1885. Maybe the reference she read was to previous generations of Pauls.)

Looks like you've got yourself an Alice Paul fan for life. I'm so proud of her!


The politically correct expression is "workers on H1B visas".