The prevailing cultural system appreciates and places superheroes in high esteem. This is true despite of these beings, regardless if they are humans or aliens, are only works of fiction and can only be seen in various forms of popular entertainment, such as in comics and films. In this regard, perhaps it is a safe premise that the society’s acceptance of super heroes is reflective of its desire to instigate progressive changes to their social and physical environment, and that these highly developed beings personify all the qualities that the society aspires to find in a single person, yet cannot. Hence, it may be a form of escapism that superheroes are popular among the young, the not-so-young and practically all the members of the society, in that they rely on these heroes to finally offer a lasting solution to perennial social problems that have been plaguing mankind for so long. Superheroes, then, are instigators and leaders of social advancements. Taking all these in consideration, this paper will argue that the hardships that Alice Paul had to overcome in finally having the U.S. Constitution’s 19th Amendment approved, in her role as the leader of the National Woman’s Party, is worthy of the highest social esteem that she can rightly be considered as a superhero.
The argument that Alice Paul’s exploits are credible enough as to be considered a superhero necessitates that a proper definition of the word ‘superhero’ must be presented in this paper. Here, it must be noted that the late Judge Learned Hand, in an infringement case between Wonder Man and Superman, has already implied that a superhero must champion the wellbeing of those who are oppressed and must fight the evils that exist in the society where he or she belongs. In the same manner, the author Peter Coogan defines superhero as one whose mission is “prosocial and selflesshis fight against evil must fit in with theprofessed mores of the society and must not be intended to benefit of further his own agenda” (Coogan 31). Hence, these aforementioned statements affirm the popular notion that indeed, superheroes must advocate social progresses that are ultimately beneficial to everybody, and not just a particular sector of the community.
Consequently, there is a conflict in assigning super-human qualities, or superpowers, to Alice Paul, given that she is just a mortal human being just like anyone else reading this paper. Evidently, Paul does not need any defining attribute to be rightly considered as a typical pop-superhero, whereby the three elements are present—mission, powers, and identity (Coogan 39)—a divine mission to save the world, super-human abilities, and a secret identity to hide his ‘super’ doppelganger. In contrast, Paul can be regarded as a real-life superhero because she has championed a very basic right of women that have been denied from them prior to her existence: the right to vote. This she had achieved not by using any out-worldly superpowers that are very common in comic book characters, but by displaying unyielding and uncompromising resolve against all odds, even in the face of incarceration, social rebuke, and even death. Given these scenarios, it is then worth mentioning Paul’s biographical background, the challenges she has faced, and her achievements as a champion of women suffrage.
The Adventures of Alice Paul
Alice Paul was born on January 11, 1885, in Moorestown, New Jersey. She is the eldest of four daughters, born of William Paul, a banker and a successful businessman, and Tacie Parry. Alice came from a well-to-do family, so much so that “she grew up in material comfort, nurtured by devout parents who instilledQuaker principles of social justice, equality and service” (Hartmann 1). Alice attended the Swathmore College in 1901 where she earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology in 1905. It must also be noted that the basis for her choice of college was because “her grandfather was one of the founding fathers of the institution” (Reiter 1). As such, all the above-mentioned attributes of Alice strengthen the claim that she had lived a financially comfortable life, and this makes it even more improbable that a person with her background would later choose a life of hardship, for the sake of others. This is especially true when considering that it would be much easier and comfortable for her to simply pursue her academic calling as a biologist and not to meddle with social affairs that would eventually cause her to suffer, both emotionally and physically.
True to the nature of superheroes that their self-realization comes as a result of traumatic or enlightening events, Alice has been forced to face her life challenges with equal fortitude as other superheroes. Hence, just as the superheroes’ “metamorphoses became both more overt as superhuman powers resulted from events that transformed their bodies” (Chambliss and Svitavsky 18), Alice seem to become even more unswerving in giving women the right to vote as she endured more sufferings and pain. An example of this is her hunger strike in an Asylum Hospital, wherein she was forced feed after seventy-eight hours due to the danger of death. Here, it was reported by the New York Times that Alice was “greatly exhausted” (Special to the New York Times 1) due to force-feeding, and that Alice had also endured this kind of feeding when she was imprisoned in London. It was in London where Alice met Christabel Pankhurst, who indoctrinated Alice on the importance of using drastic actions to advance an aim. Alice was very active in the militant British suffrage movement when she was there from 1908 to 1910. In contrast with the more docile suffragist movement in America, its British counterpart actively endorsed “direct and visible measures, such aswindow smashing, and rock throwing, to raise public awareness” (Reiter 1). It was these measures that Alice had deemed pertinent to apply in the American suffrage movement, not only to gain needed attention, but more importantly to fast-track the amendment of the U.S. Constitution to finally allow women to vote.
Paul saw the American suffrage movement, spearheaded by the National American Women’s Suffrage Movement, or NAWSA, as too acquiescent to actually succeed. This is true as evidenced by its leader’s admission that the “fight for suffrage was losing stamina and she was sure that it was not going to be won in her lifetime” (Reiter 1). Hence, in 1916 when NAWSA deemed that Paul’s techniques would damage their organization, she left the group to form the Congressional Union, which was later renamed as the National Woman’s Party (Hartmann 1). NWP’s strategies were indeed more aggressive, since they aimed at defeating the Democratic Party candidates, thus indebting the winners from other parties. More so, the NWP held picket lines in Washington, DC in 1917, to pressure the administration into allowing women to vote. This was repeated in April of the same year, wherein the NAWSA and several mobs attacked the NWP members, which resulted to the latter being imprisoned in the Occoquan Workhouse prison. However, Paul and her colleagues managed to smuggle out information about their inhuman treatments and hunger strikes which garnered public sympathy that eventually led to their freedom. In 1919, due to Paul’s resolve the U.S. Congress passed an amendment on women suffrage. In 1923, Paul wrote a draft to the Constitution stating, “men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States” (Hartmann 1). This evidently was a precursor to many achievements that women will gain in terms of equality issues, first and foremost of which is the right to vote.
It took an Alice Paul, a woman born rich yet pursued to live a life of struggles and hardships, for mankind to finally see the folly of refusing women the right to vote and to correct the mistakes of past countless American generations. This she had done successfully despite of being imprisoned, violently attacked, and tortured via force feeding while in captivity. Indeed, a person with lesser mettle, regardless whether male or female, would easily abandon the pursuit of women suffrage at the first sight of social rejection, especially if this includes direct danger to one’s freedom and life. However, Paul had proven in many occasions that she is not one to leave an endeavor unfinished, even in truth the personal benefits that can be gained from women suffrage is very minimal. Hence, Paul’s advocacy is beneficial only to the society and not to herself. Ultimately, this is the same attitude that delineates mere mortals from superheroes, in that while the former is preoccupied with self-interest, the latter is ready and willing to risk his or her life for the good of the many.
Works cited
Chambliss, Julian, and William Svitavsky. “From Pulp Hero to Superhero: Culture, Race and Identity in American Popular Culture, 1900-1940.” Studies in American Culture 30.1 (2008): 1-34. Print.
Coogan, Peter. Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre. Austin, 2006. Print.
Hartman, Susan. Paul, Alice. American Council of Learned Societies, Feb. 2000. Web. 2 April 2016.
Reiter, Anna. “Fearless Radicalism: Alice Paul and Her Fight for Women’s Suffrage.” Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History (2014). Retrieved from <http://archive.armstrong.edu/Initiatives/history_journal/history_journal_fearless_radicalism_alice_paul_and_her_fight_for_womens_suf>
Special to the New York Times. “Hunger Striker is Forcibly Fed.” The New York Times. 9 Nov. 1917. Web. 2 April 2016.
