By Deborah Desilets
It normally is a difficult time in our household to vote; yet it feels even more so this year as we can barely all sit at the dinner table and enjoy a meal. Saddling up to vote this year I wanted to really connect with this vote and on whose back I have this great privilege. I turned my attention to the suffrage movement which celebrates its 100th Anniversary August 18, 2020. Through watching the film “Iron Jawed Women” I relived the fight that Alice Paul took up the early 20th Century to secure this privilege that since 1840 had been sought by the women Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cody Stanton who were barred from anti the World Anti-Slavery Convention held in London. By 1848 the fight came across the Atlantic and was taken up in Seneca Falls, New York where the first woman’s right convention was held. From 1840-1920 the timeline of Woman’s Suffrage shows the growing awareness of a country city-states from municipality to municipality the growing wave of support for woman’s vote: from farm, fields, homes, and hospital, upon blackboards and bible-belt lecterns where woman was being acknowledged.
In my quest to give thanks I was struck by the grace of one Floridian, Helen Hunt West who embraced the rage at the gates of the white house–not only did she personally meet the “prison train” that delivered the 26 woman imprisoned for their suffrage demonstrations at the gates of Woodrow Wilsons White House to Jacksonville. Those woman dared to use the Presidents own words as applied to their cause: “ …We will fight for the things we hold dearest to our hearts …for democracy; for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government”; pointing out that his overseas rhetoric applied to our homes and homeland. Woman changed him and in August 1920 history was made. Helen Hunt West would be the first woman to vote in Duval County. Her legacy is writ large in Florida, as from 1913-17 until 1964 she carried the flame for suffrage into the era of the Civil Rights. Her papers are held at the Harvard Library. Clear headed she said “…women must be equal under the law” and worked toward that end.
Wrapped in the warmth of this amazing feat of women, I went outside to breathe in this air of America. And as if by remote control, I paused in my garden in front of my concrete statue of Minerva, looked to my owls in waiting and smiled deeply. I was not done yet.
In the world of founding myths in Greek Mythology, the stories employing a deity and a local people created a narrative that established a special relationship between city and state: From WIKI – “Greek founding myths often embody a justification for the ancient overturning of an older, archaic order, reformulating a historical event anchored in the social and natural world to valorize current community practices, creating symbolic narratives of collective importance enriched with metaphor.”
All ages seek their heroes—just as I was doing now— and in our third millennial modern time, ancient myths are valid, necessary, and needed. The stories of gods that are not immune to emotion: for whom love and hate activate. Mythic stories that expose how Athena she was conceived by a virgin birth, remained a virgin although she suffered an attempted rape, and adopted a child. She was Goddess of weaving and crafts, and war, and the Attic calendar makes the celebration of Athena in July/August. (The same month we are in now.)
History records that woman in Athena were unequal to men. Yet—
And this is a big yet—they were great influence in raising children, in ordering the family and in divining with Athena. Yet small, these daily acts within their family they became increasingly more influential—as motherhood within households united in prayers to Athena—she who rocks the cradle later weaves the crafts of war and rule. In Roman time Athena became concretized in the form of Minerva the goddess of wisdom, strategic (defensive) warfare, sponsor of arts, trade and strategy. She is also seen as the goddess of poetry, medicine commerce and weaving.
During the COVID 19, I have taken up my contemplations in my garden, my thread and needle for hand sewn masks in war against the unforeseeable foe, I have created a strategic ritual for cleansing and I have prayed in my household for a solution. And I as a woman am preparing my self for a strategic vote; one that will create balance in the universe. As the gods knew and Minerva for sure, that the other side of un-ruled life is chaos. And that through chaos nothing is articulated, nothing cane be seen. The weaving of many threads and the many talents and crafts of poets, doctors and politicians must be woven carefully to create a tapestry or a coat of many colors we can all wear.
The idea of channeling the energy of Athena had me dumbstruck and rooted al at once.
And then the image flashed in my mind of the 1913 Suffrage Parade in Washington. Riding atop a white horse leading the parade was lawyer and activist Inez Milholland a leading five thousand suffragettes up Pennsylvania Avenue, along with 20 parade floats, nine bands, and four mounted brigades. Inez like our mythic heroes –is equal to conquistadores, explorers or pioneers and founding stories that explain the development of cities and nations.
Further in the reverie of COVID 19 I think of our cities and recall that most myths have two sides: a civilization story where nature is locked out and humans exalt in the disconnect, or there are the degradation stories where the city is spoiling the landscape and there is a sense of guilt for degrading the intact system of nature. The goddess Athena is now an international symbol of wisdom, arts, and classical learning. Western artists portray Athena as a symbol of freedom and democracy. As the woman of suffrage, Inez and Alice found their symbol, let’s all of us find our white horse to ride to the voting booth while recalling the myths, the legends, and the very real heroes that make greatness as simple as a circle on a ballot.