The Buskirk-Chumley Theater will screen the film “Suffragette” at 7 p.m. Saturday.
The film is presented by Girls Inc. of Monroe County in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment passing. Tickets for the event are $25 for adults and $15 for students and attendees 18 and under. The proceeds will benefit Girls Inc. of Monroe County.
The film is a historical drama set in 1912 London about a young working mother named Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan) who suddenly gets pulled into the suffrage movement. Throughout her journey to support women’s right to vote, she is kicked out of her home, prevented from seeing her son, fired from her job and arrested multiple times.
“I think that this film in particular really shows the lengths that women had to go to to get the vote,” said Martha Whitmill, director of development and communications at Girls Inc. of Monroe County. “We probably wouldn't be able to vote in this year’s election if we didn’t have women who were just as brave in the U.S.”
The film is about 106 minutes and is rated PG-13.
Whitmill said although it seems unconventional for a youth organization to promote a more graphic film, it is important for people to understand how hard women in the past had to work for the rights women have today.
“I think that oftentimes there are people that want to gloss over and have a romanticized version of what minorities and women had to endure to get the rights we have,” Whitmill said. “I think if we don’t confront the realities of what people had to do to get them, then we take those rights for granted.”
Following the screening there will be an hourlong panel discussion on the effect of the 19th Amendment and female leadership. The panel will include Monroe County prosecutor Erika Oliphant; City Council Member Susan Sandberg; Beverly Calender-Anderson, the director of Community and Family Resources Department; and Charlotte Zietlow, Monroe County’s first female County Commissioner. Barbara Brosher, presidential communications and public affairs specialist at IU, will be the moderator.
Whitmill said the panel will focus o how society has benefited from having women in leadership positions and how getting the right to vote opened the door to having fantastic female leaders.
“We never would have been able to have Ruth Bader Ginsburg had we not had the suffragette movement,” Whitmill said. “We wouldn’t be in existence today to inspire girls to be strong, smart and bold if we didn’t have women who were strong, smart and bold who fought for them.”
An hour before the screening, a champion-level donor reception will be organized for the panelists and for people who have committed to donating $85 a month or $1,000 a year to Girls Inc. of Monroe County.
Whitmill said that people should consider the lengths, such as planting bombs in mailboxes, that the suffragettes went to, including in order to achieve their goals.
“Being good and quiet isn’t going to get you far,” Whitmill said. “If there is something that you need to fight for, then you should go ahead and fight for it.”
