Focus FeaturesFeminism is everywhere in Hollywood right now, from our TV screens to our computer screens. It seems that the conversation is finally moving forward, thanks to years of struggles and a few well-timed passionate pleas the industry's biggest (and most influential) stars.
And while the current movement is certainly something worth celebrating, it's also a good time to look back on how far women's rights as a whole has come—and how long the fight has really lasted. Because even though most of us can claim to be savvy about the lack of diversity among movie directors or the wage inequality plaguing the biggest actresses, what we know about the origins of feminism is far less vast.
Take Suffragette, for instance. The Carey Mulligan and Meryl Streep-fronted flick, which is in theaters now, follows a group of women in London as they fight for the right to vote, and has provided to be a great learning opportunity for many viewers—if we're all being honest, we didn't know much about the topic, and we don't know much about what went down in our own country either. As such, we've teamed up with Suffragette 19, an initiative to honor everyone who worked so hard to pass the 19th Amendment and bring women the vote in the U.S.
Ahead, five facts that you never knew about the movement. Prepare to use it as dinner table fodder, but just make sure to thank Carey and Meryl, and all the other brave women, too.
1. The first state to grant women's voting rights is one you'll never guess. That's because it wasn't even a state when the rule was passed. Wyoming was the first to pass a women's suffrage law before it even joined the union. In fact, in 1990 Congress even threatened to withhold statehood because of the law. As expected, the government eventually backed down. Go Wyoming!
2. The first group to protest at the White House was totally badass. They called themselves the Silent Sentinels, and they held vigil in front of 1600 Pennsylvania for two-and-a-half years (six days a week) until the 19th Amendment was passed. Much like Mulligan's character and her comrades, they were arrested and endured torture and force-feedings.
3. The fight for birth control rights is almost 100 years old. Margaret Sanger opened the first contraceptive clinic in 1916—and it was promptly shut down.
4. The Equal Rights Amendment has technically never been ratified. And the bill's journey has been harrowing. It went to the Senate in 1923, the House of Representatives in the 1970s, and has been pushing for approval ever since.
5. The United States is one of the worst countries for female leaders. It's not new information that we've never had a female head of state, but at least 50 countries have beat us to the punch. How's that for depressing?