The Captain of the Ship

I picture Trump as the Captain of our ship.

Boldly and defiantly,

he steers us into uncharted waters.

This was not on the itinerary

when we signed up for the cruise.

It even may be illegal;

Definitely unethical.

We are scared.

If and when disaster strikes,

I am terrified

he will be the first to abandon ship;

leaving all other passengers

to go down with the sinking ship.

The captain goes down with the ship

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The captain goes down with the ship" is an idiom and maritime tradition that a sea captain holds ultimate responsibility for both his ship and everyone embarked on it, and that in an emergency, he will either save them or die trying. In most instances the captain of the ship forgoes his own rapid departure of a ship in distress, and concentrates instead on saving other people. It often results in either the death or belated rescue of the captain as the last person on board.

History

The concept is closely related to another protocol from the nineteenth century, “women and children first.”." Both reflect the Victorian ideal of chivalry in which the upper classes were expected to emulate a morality tied to sacred honour, service, and respect for the disadvantaged. The actions of the captain and men during the sinking of HMS Birkenhead in 1852 prompted praise from many due to the sacrifice of the men who saved the women and children by evacuating them first. Rudyard Kipling’s  poem "Soldier an' Sailor Too" and Samual Smiles’ Self-Help both highlighted the valour of the men who stood at attention and played in the band as their ship was sinking.

Social and legal responsibility

The idiom literally means that a captain will be the last person to leave a ship alive prior to its sinking or utter destruction, and if unable to evacuate the crew and passengers, the captain will not save himself even if he can. In a social context, especially as a mariner, the captain will feel compelled to take this responsibility as a type of social norm. Shirking this responsibility in a crisis would go against societal mores because of the offender's lack of ethics.

In maritime law the responsibility of the ship's master for his ship is paramount no matter what its condition, so abandoning a ship has legal consequences, including the nature of salvage rights. So even if a captain abandons his ship in distress, he is generally responsible for it in his absence and would be compelled to return to the ship until danger to the vessel has relented. If a naval captain evacuates a vessel in wartime, it may be considered a capital offence similar to desertion unless he subsequently returns to the ship at his first opportunity to prevent its capture and rescue the crew.

Abandoning a ship in distress may be considered a crime that can lead to imprisonment.  Captain Francesco Schettino, who left his ship in the midst of the Costa Concordia disaster, was not only widely reviled for his actions, but was arrested by Italian authorities on criminal charges. Abandoning ship is a maritime crime that has been on the books for centuries in Spain, Greece and Italy. South Korean law may also require the captain to rescue himself last. In Finland the Maritime Law (Merilaki) states that the captain must do everything in his power to save everyone on board the ship in distress and that unless his life is in immediate danger, he shall not leave the vessel as long as there is reasonable hope that it can be saved. In the United States, abandoning the ship is not explicitly illegal, but the captain could be charged with other crimes, such as manslaughter, which encompass common law precedent passed down through centuries. It is not illegal under international maritime law.

Listen up:

Jeremy Grimshaw, Payson ·

--Don't say you're pro-life and then cheer the defunding of CHIPS.

--Don't say you support Biblical values and then turn away refugees whose homes have been destroyed.

--Don't say you support religious freedom and then advocate for a religious litmus test for refugees.

--Don't say pornography is a public health crisis and then elect a president who has appeared in and promoted pornographic films.

--Don't criticize women for the crude words on the signs they carry at a protest if you elected the president who said those words in the first place.

--Don't say you defend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights if you support the current administration's attempts to muzzle the press.

    It doesn't bother me when people disagree with me on political matters. It does bother me when they disagree with themselves on moral matters, for political reasons.

Lost and Found

Small miracles;

Small things.

Easily lost.

Snagged onto something?

Thrown out with newspaper?

Drats.

$3,000.

I didn’t turn on the light

When I put them in the cabinet

I promised myself I would always put them in

No matter what.

I hadn’t worn them that evening because the

batteries were dead.

The batteries are always dead.

I used DeRay’s TV ears.

I set them on the arm of the couch next to me

and take them to the desk when I leave for bed.

A few days later,

When I went to get them,

Only one was there.

Where is the other one?

I take everything out of the shelves;

I search the desk in case it had fallen;

I look through the drawers.

I get down on the floor and feel underneath.

I go to the couch and search around and under.

I search the pockets of my pants and jacket

In case they had snagged on my iPod ear buds.

I search my purse.

I bring the garbage can in and dump everything out.

Drats.

One last time, I get down on the floor to look under the couch.

DeRay hands me a flashlight and lifts the couch.

Relief.

Elation!

Joy!

Even though I hate them.

Hearing Aids are too small, too quiet, too expensive.

Can’t they light up or ring or talk?

Small miracles;

Small things.

Alternative Facts

Hear ye!  Hear ye!  Hear ye!

It is 90 degrees outside today.

A sunny balmy day.

All roads are clear with

freeway traffic moving at normal speeds.

A good day to mow your lawns

or plant the garden.

 Remember, just a few days ago, the snow was completely melted from the table.

"Alternative facts" is a phrase used by Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway during a Meet the Press interview, in which she defended White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's incorrect statements about the attendance at Donald Trump's inauguration as President of the United States. When pressed during the interview with Chuck Todd to explain why Spicer "utter[ed] a provable falsehood", Conway said "Don't be so overly dramatic about it, Chuck. You're saying it's a falsehood, and our press secretary, Sean Spicer, gave alternative facts to that.  Todd responded by saying "Alternative facts are not facts. They are falsehoods."

On January 21, 2017, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer held his first press briefing. He accused the media of deliberately underestimating the size of the crowd for President Trump's inaugural ceremony  and stated that the ceremony had drawn the "largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe." According to all available data, Spicer's allegations were false. Aerial images showed that the turnout for Trump's inauguration was lower than the turnout for the 2009  inauguration of Barack Obama. Washington Metro reported 193,000 riders by 11:00 am on the day of Trump's inauguration, considerably fewer than the 513,000 who rode the subway in the 2009 inauguration.

Spicer at the press briefing:

Spicer also gave incorrect information about the use of white ground coverings during the inauguration. He stated that they were used for the first time during the Trump inauguration and were to blame for a visual effect that made the audience look smaller. The white ground coverings, however, had been used in 2013 when Obama was sworn in for the second term. Spicer took no questions from the media at the press briefing. Trump's campaign strategist and counselor, Kellyanne Conway, defended Spicer's statements, telling NBC's Chuck Todd that the press secretary, simply, was giving "alternative facts", and that Trump's crowd numbers could not be proved nor quantified.

In the first few days of the Trump presidency, false statistics were added to whitehouse.gov., the official White House website. The website cited statistics to show that crime had increased when, actually, it had declined since 2008.

Reaction

Spicer's press conference and Conway's follow-up comments drew quick reactions on social media. Journalist Dan Rather posted a scathing criticism of the incoming U.S. Presidential administration on his Facebook page. Rather wrote:

These are not normal times. These are extraordinary times. And extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.

When you have a spokesperson for the president of the United States wrap up a lie in the Orwellian phrase "alternative facts”…

When you have a press secretary in his first appearance before the White House reporters threaten, bully, lie, and then walk out of the briefing room without the cojones to answer a single question…

he concluded,

Facts and the truth are not partisan. They are the bedrock of our democracy. And you are either with them, with us, with our Constitution, our history, and the future of our nation, or you are against it. Everyone must answer that question.

The New York Times responded with a fact check of statements made during Spicer's press conference. This included a side by side photographic comparison of the crowds from Obama's 2009 inauguration and that of Trump.

Journalist and former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson characterized Conway's comments about alternative facts as "Orwellian newspeak", and said "'Alternative facts' are just lies".

WASHINGTON — Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Trump, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the White House had put forth “alternative facts” to ones reported by the news media about the size of Mr. Trump’s inauguration crowd.

She made this assertion — which quickly went viral on social media — a day after Mr. Trump and Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, had accused the news media of reporting falsehoods about the inauguration and Mr. Trump’s relationship with the intelligence agencies.

In leveling this attack, the president and Mr. Spicer made a series of false statements.

Here are the facts.

In a speech at the C.I.A. on Saturday, Mr. Trump said the news media had constructed a feud between him and the intelligence community. “They sort of made it sound like I had a ‘feud’ with the intelligence community,” he said. “It is exactly the opposite, and they understand that, too.”

In fact, Mr. Trump repeatedly criticized the intelligence agencies during his transition to office and has questioned their conclusion that Russia meddled in the election to aid his candidacy. He called their assessment “ridiculous” and suggested that it had been politically motivated.

After the disclosure of a dossier with unsubstantiated claims about him, Mr. Trump alleged that the intelligence agencies had allowed a leak of the material. “Are we living in Nazi Germany?” he asked in a post on Twitter.

    Mr. Trump said of his inauguration crowd, "It looked honestly like a million and a half people, whatever it was, it was, but it went all the way back to the Washington Monument."

Aerial photographs clearly show that the crowd did not stretch to the Washington Monument. An analysis by the New York Times, comparing photographs from Friday to ones taken of Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration, showed that Mr. Trump’s crowd was significantly smaller and less than the 1.5 million people he claimed. An expert hired by The Times found that Mr. Trump’s crowd on the National Mall was about a third of the size of Mr. Obama’s in 2009.

Mr. Trump said that though he had been “hit by a couple of drops” of rain as he began his address on Inauguration Day, the sky soon cleared. “And the truth is, it stopped immediately, and then became sunny,” he said. “And I walked off, and it poured after I left. It poured.”

The truth is that it began to rain lightly almost exactly as Mr. Trump began to speak and continued to do so throughout his remarks, which lasted about 18 minutes, and after he finished.

Speaking later on Saturday in the White House briefing room, Mr. Spicer amplified Mr. Trump’s false claims. “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe,” he said.

There is no evidence to support this claim. Not only was Mr. Trump’s inauguration crowd far smaller than Mr. Obama’s in 2009, but he also drew fewer television viewers in the United States (30.6 million) than Mr. Obama did in 2009 (38 million) and Ronald Reagan did in 1981 (42 million), Nielsen reported. Figures for online viewership were not available.

                                            Trump's Inauguration vs. Obama's: Comparing the Crowds.

Estimates put the crowd gathered for President Donald J. Trump's inauguration at far less than President Obama's in 2009.

Mr. Spicer said that Washington’s Metro system had greater ridership on Friday than it did for Mr. Obama’s 2013 inauguration. “We know that 420,000 people used the D.C. Metro public transit yesterday, which actually compares to 317,000 that used it for President Obama’s last inaugural,” Mr. Spicer said.

Neither number is correct, according to the transit system, which reported 570,557 entries into the rail system on Friday, compared with 782,000 on Inauguration Day in 2013.

Mr. Spicer said that “this was the first time in our nation’s history that floor coverings have been used to protect the grass on the Mall. That had the effect of highlighting any areas where people were not standing, while in years past the grass eliminated this visual.”

In fact, similar coverings were used during the 2013 inauguration to protect the grass. The coverings did not hamper analyses of the crowd size.

Mr. Spicer said that it was “the first time that fencing and magnetometers went as far back on the Mall, preventing hundreds of thousands of people from being able to access the Mall as quickly as they had in inaugurations past.”

The Secret Service said security measures were largely unchanged this year. There were also few reports of long lines or delays.

Garrison Keillor: Help us, GOP, you’re our only hope

Special to The Washington Post

First Published Jan 24 2017 05:15PM

What we know so far is that the man is who he is. There is no larger, finer man inside him trying to get out. Everyone who is paying attention knows this. Flags flying at the Capitol, the U.S. Marine Band, gray eminences in black coats, and He Who Is Smarter Than Those With Intelligence delivers 16 minutes of hooey and horse hockey about corrupt politicians betraying the people, and American carnage, and patriotism healing our division, though the division is mainly about Himself and though love of country does not necessarily make people stupid.

There might as well have been a 14-year-old boy at the lectern saying that he is in possession of the Golden Goblet that will drive the Gimlets from Fredonia and preserve the Sacred Marmite of Lord Numbskull and his Nimrods.

The next day he motored out to the CIA and stood before the memorial wall honoring heroes who gave their lives in anonymity and he bitched about his newspaper coverage. The next day he boasted that his inauguration's TV ratings were higher than those in 2013. The day after that, he told the congressional leadership that he lost the popular vote because millions of illegal votes were cast, which everyone in the room knew was a bald-faced lie, except perhaps Himself. The man is clueless, tightly locked inside his own small bubble. A sizable minority of Americans, longing for greatness or wanting to smack down an ambitious woman and to show those people in the hellhole coastal cities what the real America is all about, has elected him. To him, this minority is a mass movement such as the world has never seen. God have mercy.

"American carnage," my Aunt Sally: The correct term is "American capitalism."

Jobs are lost to automation, innovation, obsolescence, the moving finger of fate. The carriage industry was devastated by the automobile, and the men who made surreys and broughams and hansoms had to learn something new; the Pullman porter union was hit hard by the advent of air travel, and the porters sent their sons to college; the newspaper business was hit hard by Craigslist. Too bad for us.

I know gifted men who were successful graphic designers until computers came along and younger people with computer skills took their place and those gifted men had to do something else. T-shirts are made in Asian countries because Americans don't want to pay $20 for one. Coal yields to natural gas as renewable energy marches forward. Who doesn't get this? The idea that the government is obligated to create a good living for you is one the Republican Party has fought since Adam was in the third grade. It's the party of personal responsibility. But there he is, promising to make the bluebirds sing. As if.

Everyone knows that the man is a fabulator, oblivious, trapped in his own terrible needs. Republican, Democrat, libertarian, socialist, white supremacist or sebaceous cyst — everyone knows it. It is up to Republicans to save the country from this man. They elected him, and it is their duty to tie a rope around his ankle. They formed a solid bloc against President Obama and held their ranks, and now, for revenge, they will go after health insurance subsidies for people of limited means, which is one of the cruelest things they can possibly do. Dishwashers and cleaning ladies need heart surgery, too. Hospital emergency rooms already see streams of sick people, uninsured, poor or unable to deal with the paperwork, coming in for ordinary care, and when upward of 30 million are left high and dry, people will suffer horribly. "Nobody is going to be dying on the streets," Trump said. No, they're going to die at home in their bedrooms.

The question is: How cynical are we willing to be and for how long? How long will Senate Republicans wait until a few of them stand up to the man? Greatness is in the eye of the beholder. American self-respect is what is at stake here, ladies and gentlemen. The only good things to come out of that inauguration were the marches all over the country the day after, millions of people taking to the streets of their own free will, most of them women, packed in tight, lots of pink hats, lots of signage, earnest, vulgar, witty, a few brilliant ("Take your broken heart and make it art"), and all of it rather civil and good-humored. That's the great America I grew up in. It's still here.

                       So, should we plant the garden today or mow the lawn?

A Tribute to my Mother

Tender isn’t enough when your husband suddenly dies, leaving you with eight children to rear, ranging in age from 1-18; especially when you have only an 8^th grade education.

Tender isn’t enough when you are financially, spiritually, and physically supporting eight dependent children, not to mention the lonely days and nights being a single parent; house and car repairs—oh wait, you don’t drive; but you have the old pickup for when the kids learn to drive; education, accidents, illness, marriages, grandchildren.

Tender doesn’t get you a job, or fix the meals, or clean the house, or milk the cows, feed the chickens, pigs, or horses.

Tender isn’t enough when you are planting, irrigating, cultivating and harvesting a huge vegetable garden, canning vegetables and fruit to last the winter. Also, a field to grow alfalfa and fruit trees.

Tender may help but it is not enough to make you want to take treats to all the old folks in town on every holiday; or visit the widows, the lonely, the mothers with new babies; and your sister daily after working at the Post Office all day.

Tender didn’t get you the only office job in town, that of Post Master.

Tender doesn’t make you love the children as Junior Sunday School coordinator for years.

Tender doesn’t help you give readings at funerals and special celebrations.

Tender isn’t enough to get you through the trauma of a malignant brain tumor resulting in numerous surgeries and cobalt.

You gotta be tough too. Very tough.

Amy Heaton

Amy Heaton & Lynn Esplin - Orderville 1926

Navajo Lake 1927

The brood Mama was left to support and rear. 1947
Verla 1, Carol Lee 5, Jerry 9, Jeanette 10, DeLoy 12, Lynn 14, Lucy 16, Shirley 18.

Amy Heaton Esplin - Orderville Post Master

A stinkbug lands on Carol.

Carol Lee, Shirley, Jeanette, Jerry, Mama, Lucy, Lynn, Verla

Orderville 1950

Esplin Children by age 1956: Mama, Shirley, Lucy, Lynn, DeLoy, Jeanette, Jerry, Carol, Verla

DeLoy, Jeanette, Jerry, Lucy, Lynn,
Shirley, Verla, Mama, Carol
1960 Orderville

Grandma and Grandson Brooke
Grand Canyon 1972

The Courage that my Mother had

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

The courage that my mother had
Went with her, and is with her still:
Rock from New England quarried;
Now granite in a granite hill.

The golden brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more:
Yet, it is something I could spare.

Oh, if instead she'd left to me
The thing she took into the grave!-

That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.

Will You Join in the Crusade?

I’m an activist in thought but not in action. In other words, I’m a coward. To my shame.

Someone once said that if your children are not better than you are, you have lived your life in vain. I hope nieces and nephews, grand nieces and nephews; and great grand nieces and nephews count.

What are you marching for?

Karla Bennion Provo. Marching with my husband, two sons, daughter, daughter-in-law, and four grandkids. Marching in honor of Mother Earth and in solidarity with my feminist Mormon ancestors. Marching for affordable healthcare, immigrant rights, LGBTQIA rights, BLM, POC, and economic justice.

Karla and John

 Lindsay Hansen Park

Every woman that is saying today, 'I'm a woman and I don't need to protest because my life is great...' can go back in time and hug a feminist whose blood, sweat, and body made it possible for you to read and write to say this.

You were educated because there were movements that made it possible. Your life is good because we built our wealth on the backs of other bodies we deemed less. You don't need feminism because others suffer so you can be comfortable.

Sit on the sidelines and reap the benefits of the struggle, but learn your history first.

Samanta Martinez-Villarreal

I do not think a lot of people understand what the Women's March was about. I've seen memes from, "trying to figure out what rights women have lost" to people posting blogs about how feminism is wrong. Stop. Just stop. It wasn't about bra burning or to say women are better. No. It was a call to say, "Women's right are human rights." I think that's a statement most people would agree with. On top of that, a lot of people from all walks of life (obviously) felt threatened by the new administration and how their policies might negatively affect them. They were also concerned about things said during the campaign by the new President and how that might translate into policies/decisions. That's a valid concern.

It wasn't just about "feminism" as a lot of people keep posting about, the issues there ranged from immigration to Black Lives Matter. It was a peaceful protest and it was beautiful. Just because you don't agree with someone's reason for marching does not make their cause invalid. It was an amazing show of force. 

I keep thinking back to the Million Man March, which I'm pretty sure the Women's March just stole, but would you have opposed that? If FB was a thing back then, would you be posting about how protesting wouldn't fix anything?

More importantly, I think it was wonderful because in one week we got to see our Consitution work in so many ways. We saw a peaceful transition of power and then we saw march which protested that power. The Founders made that right number one so that if citizen's ever felt threatened by the ruling power, they could have a voice. I think we all remember how the Founder's protest went. In case you forgot, it developed into a war and gave us this country. The new President keeps saying that this new administration is for the people and these were the people exercising their First Amendment. So why are so many people trashing what these people women did, especially other women? I don't understand that. Tell me. Seriously.

Our beliefs are shaped by our experiences and sometimes, you have bad experiences. Maybe you had a bad experience with a feminist, who you thought was a little much but realize that one bad experience doesn't mean you can conflate it. It's like the statistics question, "If you flip a coin 10 times, what's the probability of getting heads on the 7th try?" It's always gonna be 50%. The previous experience has no effect on the outcomes that will come. Even then, when you get home, do a little research and find out why they believe what they believe. I don't agree with hardly anything that comes out of the Tea Party, but I took the time to talk with people from that political leaning, read up on what, and why they believe it. I don't fully understand everything because I don't believe what they believe, but it doesn't mean their beliefs aren't real. If you don't understand something, ASK. Don't just go find a blog post that resonates with you. Everyone is so afraid of confrontation and debate, but that's how the marketplace of ideas thrives.That's how we evolve as a society. That's how we keep moving forward.

Ask and listen. After listening you might get to say, "Okay, I see where you are coming from, but I don't agree with that." That's fine. Stop putting people down for having a different opinion or idea than you. Instead, lift each other up. Don't be a dick.

Unless you're the Westboro Baptist Church. I just can't with those people.

You Are Not Equal. I’m Sorry.

A post is making rounds on social media, in response to the Women’s March on Saturday, January 21, 2017. It starts with “I am not a “disgrace to women” because I don’t support the women’s march. I do not feel I am a “second class citizen” because I am a woman….”

This is my response to that post.

Say Thank You

Say thank you. Say thank you to the women who gave you a voice. Say thank you to the women who were arrested and imprisoned and beaten and gassed for you to have a voice. Say thank you to the women who refused to back down, to the women who fought tirelessly to give you a voice. Say thank you to the women who put their lives on hold, who –lucky for you — did not have “better things to do” than to march and protest and rally for your voice. So you don’t feel like a “second class citizen.” So you get to feel “equal.”

Thank Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul for your right to vote.

Thank Elizabeth Stanton for your right to work.

Thank Maud Wood Park for your prenatal care and your identity outside of your husband.

Thank Rose Schneiderman for your humane working conditions.

Thank Eleanor Roosevelt and Molly Dewson for your ability to work in politics and affect policy.

Thank Margaret Sanger for your legal birth control.

Thank Carol Downer for your reproductive healthcare rights.

Thank Sarah Muller for your equal education.

Thank Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Shannon Turner, Gloria Steinem, Zelda Kingoff Nordlinger, Rosa Parks, Angela Davis, Malika Saada Saar, Wagatwe Wanjuki, Ida B. Wells, Malala Yousafzai. Thank your mother, your grandmother, your great-grandmother who did not have half of the rights you have now.

You can make your own choices, speak and be heard, vote, work, control your body, defend yourself, defend your family, because of the women who marched. You did nothing to earn those rights. You were born into those rights. You did nothing, but you reap the benefits of women, strong women, women who fought misogyny and pushed through patriarchy and fought for you. And you sit on your pedestal, a pedestal you are fortunate enough to have, and type. A keyboard warrior. A fighter for complacency. An acceptor of what you were given. A denier of facts. Wrapped up in your delusion of equality.

You are not equal. Even if you feel like you are. You still make less than a man for doing the same work. You make less as a CEO, as an athlete, as an actress, as a doctor. You make less in government, in the tech industry, in healthcare.

You still don’t have full rights over your own body. Men are still debating over your uterus. Over your prenatal care. Over your choices.

You still have to pay taxes for your basic sanitary needs.

You still have to carry mace when walking alone at night. You still have to prove to the court why you were drunk on the night you were raped. You still have to justify your behavior when a man forces himself on you.

You still don’t have paid (or even unpaid) maternity leave. You still have to go back to work while your body is broken. While you silently suffer from postpartum depression.

You still have to fight to breastfeed in public. You still have to prove to other women it’s your right to do so. You still offend others with your breasts.

You are still objectified. You are still catcalled. You are still sexualized. You are still told you’re too skinny or you’re too fat. You’re still told you’re too old or too young. You’re applauded when you “age gracefully.” You’re still told men age “better.” You’re still told to dress like a lady. You are still judged on your outfit instead of what’s in your head. What brand bag you have still matters more than your college degree.

You are still being abused by your husband, by your boyfriend. You’re still being murdered by your partners. Being beaten by your soulmate.

You are still worse off if you are a woman of color, a gay woman, a transgender woman. You are still harassed, belittled, dehumanized.

Your daughters are still told they are beautiful before they are told they are smart. Your daughters are still told to behave even though “boys will be boys.” Your daughters are still told boys pull hair or pinch them because they like them.

You are not equal. Your daughters are not equal. You are still systemically oppressed.

Estonia allows parents to take up to three years of leave, fully paid for the first 435 days. United States has no policy requiring maternity leave.

Singapore’s women feel safe walking alone at night. American women do not.

New Zealand’s women have the smallest gender gap in wages, at 5.6%. United States’ pay gap is 20%.

Iceland has the highest number of women CEOs, at 44%. United States is at 4.0%.

The United States ranks at 45 for women’s equality. Behind Rwanda, Cuba, Philippines, Jamaica.

But I get it. You don’t want to admit it. You don’t want to be a victim. You think feminism is a dirty word. You think it’s not classy to fight for equality. You hate the word pussy. Unless of course you use it to call a man who isn’t up to your standard of manhood. You know the type of man that “allows” “his” woman to do whatever she damn well pleases. I get it. You believe feminists are emotional, irrational, unreasonable. Why aren’t women just satisfied with their lives, right? You get what you get and you don’t get upset, right?

I get it. You want to feel empowered. You don’t want to believe you’re oppressed. Because that would mean you are indeed a “second-class citizen.” You don’t want to feel like one. I get it. But don’t worry. I will walk for you. I will walk for your daughter. And your daughter’s daughter. And maybe you will still believe the world did not change. You will believe you’ve always had the rights you have today. And that’s okay. Because women who actually care and support other women don’t care what you think about them. They care about their future and the future of the women who come after them.

Open your eyes. Open them wide. Because I’m here to tell you, along with millions of other women that you are not equal. Our equality is an illusion. A feel-good sleight of hand. A trick of the mind. I’m sorry to tell you, but you are not equal. And neither are your daughters.

But don’t worry. We will walk for you. We will fight for you. We will stand up for you. And one day you will actually be equal, instead of just feeling like you are.

~ Dina Leygerman, 2017

Yes. Thank You to the strong and courageous women who preceded us to give us the opportunities we enjoy today.

     Watch the movie, "Suffragettes". You'll never forget.

'Suffragettes lost husbands, children and jobs': The heavy price women paid

Anne Marie Duff and Carey Mulligan in Suffragette

The new Hollywood film Suffragette tells the story of Maud Watts, a working class suffragette played by Carey Mulligan. Her character is entirely fictional, but the film is rooted in the history of the women’s suffrage movement and was written using original testimonies. Watts' story is entirely plausible and could have belonged to any of the thousands of British women who fought for women’s right to vote.

This faithfulness to historical truth makes the film even more striking. Watts is a woman with a husband and a son. She works gruelling hours in a laundry and stays away from politics, until she gradually starts to notice the inequality surrounding her.

Like many women before her and after her, she decides to join the suffragettes. But her decision has an unexpected cost.

Watts ends up being kicked out of her house by her husband. She’s forced to sleep on the streets and loses access to her son – a fate that is sealed when her husband gives him up for adoption.

"I think it's all really realistic," says Krista Cowman, professor of History at the University of Lincoln, and a historical advisor on the film. She describes Watts as a 'composite' of many working class suffragettes, and adds:
“There are documented cases of women whose husbands left them as a result of their activity. There are other cases where you can read between the lines; women go to prison, it’s not uncommon for them to be picked up by their husbands and then you never hear of them being involved in any way again. You can kind of draw your own inferences.”

"At least two suffragettes left their husbands and many quarreled bitterly.”

One of the most striking real-life cases is of Helen Archdale, born in 1876. She was married to an army officer and was imprisoned several times for suffragette militancy. Her mother-in-law disapproved of this so much that she suggested kidnapping Archdale’s sons.

Archdale found out the plot when her sons were staying with their grandma in Ireland. Her brother-in-law wrote to her saying that his mother had said she should keep the boys to get them away from “that pernicious mama of theirs”.

The marital cost

There are other cases of women whose marriages and relationships broke down as a result of their participation in the suffrage movement. Mary Gawthorpe, one of the WSPU’s most successful and popular organisers, was engaged to be married when she joined the Union.

In her autobiography she recalled how her engagement “had to take care of itself” during the height of the suffrage campaign while she travelled around the country on a series of increasingly arduous speaking tours. Unsurprisingly it did not survive.

She would not have been the only woman to find herself in such a situation. Nellie Hall, a one-time organiser for the WSPU in Birmingham, recalled in an interview she gave in 1965 how “at least two suffragettes left their husbands and many quarrelled bitterly”.

A Suffragette chained to a gate.

Others, such as Florence Bartlett, would go to prison under different names (she used her maiden name) to spare their husbands embarrassment.
“Husbands didn’t want to suffer the shame of having a wife who was a jailbird, particularly in a small community,” explains June Purvis, professor of women’s and gender history at University of Portsmouth, and another historical advisor to Suffragette. But there was also the added factor that not all men supported women’s fight for equality.
“When you read the speeches of Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, it wasn’t just a single issue campaign to get women the vote,” says Purvis. “They wanted a radical transformation of women’s subordinate role in society. They wanted equality for women in family, in law, in employment and the public sphere. That’s why so many men were upset.”

Familial reactions

It wasn’t just husbands. Depending on how supportive a suffragette’s family was to the cause, they could be disowned by their parents and relatives. “Some mothers and daughters would go down together,” says Cowman. “If you’re from a political bohemian family it would be an OK thing to do, but if you’re from a family where they’re not sympathetic, by 1913 you’d be completely demonised [for being a suffragette].”

“Husbands didn’t want to suffer the shame of having a wife who was a jailbird, particularly in a small community."

June Purvis

Purvis tells me she once interviewed the daughter of a suffragette who remembered being locked in the larder with her mother by her grandfather to prevent them from going out and joining the cause.

Jessie Stephenson, a suffragette who worked in a barrister’s office as a clerk, was imprisoned in 1910. It meant she lost the support of her family. In her memoir she wrote: “My married-to-a-clergyman sister ha[d] never sent me a line since I was in gaol. She said not only would she never have me in her house again, but several times that she would never speak to me again.”

Emmeline Pankhurst being restrained by policemen.

Similarly Helen Craggs, daughter of a distinguished accountant and Knight Bachelor, felt she had to leave home for her involvement in WSPU activities. The WSPU gave her an organiser’s position (with a salary of two shillings a week) which meant she could live independently and rent a small room in Bloomsbury.

These cases show that both working class and upper class women were affected by the societal norms at the time, to a point where they could lose their families and homes. But, as the case of Lady Constance Lytton proved, there was still a vast difference in the way they were treated.

The class divide

Lady Lytton famously went to prison both under her real name and the disguise of a working class woman. “When she went into prison as a lady she was treated very well and called ‘your ladyship,’” says Purvis. “Then she cut off her hair, put on cheap glasses and a cheap dress and went in as Jane Wharton. She was forcibly fed.”

There was also more pressure on working class women to be at home for their families. Rose Towler, a tackler’s wife from Preston went to prison in February 1908. Before she went to jail, she spent a week baking for her four sons. After two weeks in prison she was so agitated about how her family were coping that the WSPU agreed to pay her bail so she could get back to them.

Others would ask fellow WSPU members to check on their children while they were jailed, or even look after them.

“Many were injured on demonstrations and marches, while others suffered long-term health consequences from violent force-feeding."

There was also a stronger sense of shame. Cowman explains: “The thing that one needs to remember is for working class women in particular, respectability was so important in the 20th century because it was all that delineated them from the non-respectable poor, ‘the great unwashed’.”

But of course the hardest part of being a suffragette from the lower working class was a lack of funds. “A number of women found it difficult to keep jobs,” says Purvis. “Domestic servants would have had to hide it from employers, school teachers gave false names and would try to do their prison service over the summer holidays, but often when suffragettes were imprisoned they lost their jobs.”

Jobs and finance

Annie Evelyn Armstong was one of the youngest suffragettes to be arrested – she was just 17 when she was imprisoned in 1907. As a working girl she stood to lost her job but, according to the Daily Chronicle: “She created such a favourable impression by her speeches that she won the sympathies of leading women in the movement who have taken her under their care and offered to “see her right” for a future situation.”

Others were not so lucky. Emily Wilding Davison was a governess who scored a first-class honours in her exams at Oxford (but not a degree as that was not available to women). She lost her job as a result of her activism and tried to earn money through journalism, but ended up having to working as a WSPU organiser to get by financially.

Emily Wilding Davison

Davison died tragically at the Epsom Derby when she was struck by the King's horse in 1913. That is what she is famously remembered for, but like all the other suffragettes, her activism deeply impacted her life in many other ways.

She didn’t just struggle financially, she was imprisoned nine times where she would often go on hunger strikes and be forcibly fed. In June 1912, near the end of a six-month sentence in Holloway Prison for arson, she threw herself down a 10-metre iron staircase to protest against the culture of force feeding. She suffered severe head and spinal damage.

“The health impacts of what the suffragettes did were vast,” says Cowman. Many were injured on demonstrations and marches, while others suffered long-term health consequences from violent force-feeding.

The suffragettes, especially those from working class backgrounds paid a heavy price for their cause, in terms of their health, relationships with their families and loved ones, and finances. Their triumphant 1918 win will always remembered, but so too should these personal and often traumatic sacrifices they made for the women's vote.

Kiristin Hanlin Rommel: