laur martini

“In 1921, early suffragettes often donned a bathing suit and ate pizza in large groups to annoy men…it was a custom at the time”

The First Amendment does not protect you from:

Criticism: If you’re a comedian who makes a bad rape joke, people are allowed to point out that you’re not funny as well as an asshole.

Shame: If you tweet something racist about President Obama on your public Twitter account that’s connected to your first and last name, people are allowed to say that is bad.

The Right to Anonymity: If you take creepy photos of women without their consent and post them on Reddit, people are allowed to try and figure out who you are and post your information on the internet. No one is entitled to anonymity. It’s up to you whether to make it easy for people to find you.

Mockery: If you put yourself out there that means your peers (and news outlets) have the right to LOL and comment.

Consequences: If you publicly express yourself in a manner that is offensive, hurtful, or just plain dumb, strangers might contact your friends/family/school/employer and tell them what you did. That is not infringing on your right to free speech; it’s pointing out how you choose to exercise that right. Like the rest of the federal constitution, the First Amendment protects us from the government, not from private companies, which may be able to fire or otherwise punish you for stuff you say, even if it’s outside of work. The laws protecting the free speech of private employees vary from state to state, aside from specifically protected speech like labor organizing. Here are some guidelines for public employees and students.

Inez Milholland Boissevain at the National American Woman Suffrage Association parade on March 3, 1913 in Washington, D.C.

Inez was a suffragette, attorney, journalist, and social justice advocate. During the summer between her sophomore and junior years at Vassar College, Inez joined Britain's militant suffrage movement, participating in several English demonstrations.  When she returned to Vassar, she organized the college’s first suffrage meetings in direct disobedience to the anti-suffrage college president.  

After graduating from Vassar, Inez attended New York University’s School of Law.  As an attorney, she practiced divorce, criminal, and labor law.  She was a member of a number of prominent social justice organizations including the National American Woman Suffrage Association, the Women’s Trade Union League, the National Child Labor Committee, and the NAACP.

Inez helped to organize the March 3, 1913 parade in Washington, DC.  In the photo above she is preparing to lead the parade dressed in white robes and astride a white horse.  She carried a banner that read, “Forward Out of Darkness, Leave Behind the Night, Forward Out of Error, Forward Into Light.“

Four months later, Inez married Dutch importer Eugen Jan Boissevain.  She proposed to him and considered this a mark of the new freedom of women.

During World War I, Inez served as a war correspondent and peace advocate.  She returned to the US in 1916 and embarked on a pro-suffrage speaking tour of twelve western states.  On October 22, 1916, Inez collapsed while giving a speech in Los Angeles. She died of pernicious anemia at the age of thirty on November 25, 1916.

You know how the Powerpuff Girls get their superpowers from Chemical X

X

as in the X chromosome