A Century of Change and Female Empowerment (1920-2020)
This special edition of The Eye won first place in the Change the World category from the NH HUGEmanities Contest, open to both UNH and NH community college students. It was produced by NHTI’s Women in Literature students to mark the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, providing many, but not all, women with the right to vote. We dedicate this edition to the activists who saw the need for change and fought for women’s suffrage.
““There is no great[er] force for change . . . than a world of empowered women.” ”
A Century of Change … and the Change Continues
““From the cashier to the emergency room nurse . . . , the soldier on the front lines of the current national emergency is most likely a woman.””
““Wouldn’t it be fun if all the castles in the air which we make could come true and we could live in them?””
““I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet . . .””
““I would venture to guess that Anon . . . was often a woman.””
““i want to apologize to all the women i have called beautiful before i’ve called them intelligent or brave . . . you’re more than that””
Women’s March, Concord, NH (Photo by NHTI student Hannah Dennis)
About this Special Edition
This special edition of The Eye, the student publication of NHTI—Concord’s Community College, was written and produced by the students in ENGL287: Images of Women in Literature. As we read stories by writers ranging from Marie de France in the 12th century to Emily Dickinson in the 19th century and Judith Butler, Gloria Steinem, and Toni Morrison in the 20th century, we realized the power that women’s voices have to start conversations, often to challenge the status quo and injustices, and to enact positive and powerful changes. And they have been a vital part of more than 100 years of change that continues even today.
We turned our attention to the 21st century, reading works like the short story that went viral (before viral became connected with COVID-19) “Cat Person” in the New Yorker and we pondered the ability of the #metoo movement to bring new kinds change, increased gender equality and decreased violence. We see our own class members and women on campus on the front lines of this pandemic. Our group member Elisa Lommen worked in a busy supermarket throughout the semester. The building we formerly met in houses a nursing program whose students and graduates, many women and some men, train and work in medical facilities, treating us at our most vulnerable moments, guarding our very lives. Others had their lives put on hold, Hope Davids, the vice-president of this journal, being sidelined at her place of business closed.
Whether you think there are three waves of feminism or four, change is all around us, and we have the ability to be part of that change in NH, in the US, and around the world. The courageous pioneer Malala Yousafzai said, “We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced.”
This edition is an effort to provide space for voices and experiences of female empowerment in history, literature, and personal experience. To mark this special anniversary, the 100th anniversary, the 19th amendment, enacted on August 19, 1920, we have put together this special edition of The Eye. We are grateful to the members of our class who are editors of The Eye, Hope Davids and Kathryn Shaw, for allowing us to share this important message with readers.
Click the button above to read our stories, along with those of our sisters, mothers, and grandmothers. Whether on the golf course or in the workplace, women talk about experiences ranging from “the pink tax” to chauvinism and empowerment.
►What still needs to change?
►What advice do they have for young women today?
►Where have we been?
►And importantly, what will change and where can we go?
Photos Courtesy of Kathryn Shaw and Stacy Comeau
Hope Davids, the vice-president of The Eye, writes about the women’s history and rights, including the events that gained momentum at the time of the Civil War and led to the adoption of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
SENECA FALLS was the site of this historical women’s rights convention, which started on July 19,1848, and propelled the effort for women’s suffrage, which led to adoption of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Leaders like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott spoke, and the African American abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass lent his support. Stanton said, “A government is just only when the whole people share equally in its protection and advantages.”
Karley Richards explores the history of women’s athletics through her own family history and relationship with women’s ice hockey. The long view of her aunt’s history and her cousin’s success on the ice show how the world of women’s sports has changed. What has contributed to this change? In part, the federal Title IX act when prohibits discrimination and gender inequality of federally funded schools has helped, but it must be protected to protect the future for the girls of today.
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Ayva Walsh plays youth hockey in Concord, NH
Eye editor Kathryn Shaw led the effort to showcase female writers, favorites from childhood through adulthood who have let their voices shine in multimodal ways ranging from manuscripts to social media. Kathryn and her team explore intriguing women in history, such as Jeanette Rankin, a US Congresswoman elected in 1916 from Montana before women had won the right to vote. And they explore those writers who touch their minds and their hearts, ranging from Emily Dickinson to the “Insta poet” Rupi Kaur. We are enjoying their accomplishments and looking forward to our own!
OUR FAVORITE WRITERS
From Left to Right, Top Row: Oprah Winfrey, Emily Dickinson, Louisa May Alcott. Bottom Row: Sylvia Plath, Rupi Kaur, Sarah Orne Jewett
Uneasy Times for Women in Need of Family Planning Options
Our Contributors
Elisa Lommen is a senior English major at NHTI who has been accepted to Boston University for the fall semester. She is the 2020 winner of the Most Outstanding Writer award for NHTI. She plans to pursue studies in sociology and pre-law.
Olyvia Bergeron is an English major at NHTI and a graduate of John Stark High School. Olyvia’s semester has included studying mindful communication, images of women in literature, and more.
Stacy Comeau is an NHTI student with an interest in paralegal studies. She has been studying a wide range of subjects this semester, including accounting, anthropology, domestic relations law, and women in literature.
Karley graduated from Concord High School in 2019 and is on track to study psychology and sustainability at the University of North Carolina—Wilmington.
NHTI student Elisa Lommen was going to write about birth control, the progress that had been made in allowing women reproductive choice over the past century. Then COVID-19 arrived. Women began “sheltering in place” without easy access to birth control and safe, reliable reproductive care. Change is still needed in the United States and globally to allow women safe, affordable, accessible options to reproductive care and contraception.
Hope Davids is an English major at NHTI and the vice-president of The Eye, NHTI’s student literary journal. In the fall of 2019, she coordinatored the NHTI Campus Reads initiative with an emphasis on mental health support. Hope hosted a discussion of Susanna Kaysen’s memoir Girl, Interrupted at Gibson’s Bookstore.
Kathryn Shaw is an English major at NHTI, an editor for The Eye, a member of the Stage Lynx drama group, and a writer of fiction and poetry. Several of her works are published in the 30th anniversary edition of The Eye.
Hannah Denis is a freshman at NHTI. She is currently in the Liberal Arts program. Hannah is pursuing a degree in photojournalism and will be transferring next semester to New England College Institute of Art and Design where she will continue on in a four-year program.
Ashley Simpson is a Visual Arts major at NHTI, and she is excited to return to campus post-pandemic to complete her degree. Ashley worked with fellow students in the Women in Lit. class on infographics.
Student not pictured: Collette Tetreault
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Faculty Advisor: Paula DelBonis-Platt, Ph.D., NHTI, Chair of Liberal Arts
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