Suffragettes gather in front of the nation’s capitol on March 3, 1913, for the womens parade on Washington. They are, from left:  Mrs. Russell McLennan, Mrs. Althea Taft, Mrs. Lew Bridges, Mrs. Richard Coke Burleson, Alberta Hill and Miss F. Ragsdale. In addition to offering political inspiration, they also offer great hat inspiration for the Womens Resource Center’s hat-making party next Thurs., March 10, to honor Womens History Month/Library of Congress

Silk flowers & murderous hatpins

Womens Resource Center tips its hat to suffragettes

by Joy Martin

If you can recall that scene in Mary Poppins where Mrs. Banks marches around her London flat cheerfully singing “Well done, Sister Suffragette!” then straighten your knickers and get cozy with a cup of tea. For March is Women’s History Month, and the time to toast Irish car bombs to more than spring break is here.

Merriment surrounding women’s history isn’t just a westernized hootenanny. Dozens of countries around the world, from Uganda to China, treat March 8, International Women’s Day, as a full-blown, no-school, no-work holiday. Gifts for girls and women range from mimosas in Italy to chocolates in Russia and a real treat for the Taiwanese ladies: the release of an annual government survey on waist sizes. Each survey is accompanied by a friendly reminder that weight gain can pose a hazard to women’s health.

But here in ‘merica (and the UK and Australia), the one day wasn’t enough, and folks pressured Congress to make room for 30 more days of honoring influential women from the past. Thus the 1911 establishment of International Women’s Day turned into Women’s History Week by 1979, and eventually a whole Women’s History Month in 1987, the same year the Durango Women’s Resource Center (WRC) opened its doors to La Plata County. 

“The place to go when you don’t know where to go” is their tagline, but little do locals know that the WRC is actually the largest resource database in La Plata County.

“A lot of people have us viewed as a crisis center,” Ashley Dickson, marketing and development director of the WRC, says. “But we have so many programs for women who just want to better themselves, from resume help to scholarship opportunities and coaching for creating small businesses. We’re a center for all women, no matter economic level, age, education or race.”

It seems people might shy away from eliciting help from the WRC, explains Dickson, because they might have a college degree or be in a high income bracket and think that someone more deserving should have access to the WRC’s services.

And because there’s a degree of shame when people have to ask for help.

“But how do people define transition?” asks Dickson. “Transition means so many things. You don’t have to be on the verge of losing everything, like your house or your job. Getting divorced, for example. That’s a crisis. That’s a transition.”

Dickson says that the nonprofit organization in the heart of Durango is here for women “when your life is getting in the way and you don’t know where to start.”

With a staff of four, led by Executive Director Liz Mora, and a collection of nine programs catered to specific generations and needs, from fifth-grade girls to 90-year-old women, this member-based organization sustained by individuals is focused on helping women support themselves and their family on their own.

“We want to create strong, empowered women starting when they’re 10 years old so they grow into strong, empowered adults,” says Dickson.

“Empowered women empower women,” says the WRC. 

Besides offering objective assistance to anyone who needs a hand (they don’t turn men away, either), the empowered women of the WRC happen to also be the perfect party hostesses, and they’ve crafted two classy events to celebrate this year’s Women’s History Month theme, “Working to Form a More Perfect Union: Honoring Women in Government and Public Service.”

(Just like a lady to pick such a loquacious title, but each year’s theme is actually a product of the National Women’s History Project, the same organization that pressed Congress to get this month-long bash going in the first place.)

“It’s been 96 years since women won the right to vote,” says Dickson. “So we zeroed in on the suffrage movement since it’s an election year. We thought that the fashion of the suffragettes was such a fascinating part of that society, so we picked a hat-making party and a movie screening of ‘Suffragettes.’ Besides, hats are so hot right now.”

Not so incidentally, today, March 3, also marks the 103^rd anniversary of the womens suffrage movement’s historic parade on Washington in 1913. And so, the WRC invites you to step back in time to the late-Victorian era and march in the shoes of some of history’s most rebellious characters: the suffragettes.

Suffrage movement? Your middle school history class pops to mind. Yes – it was that highly complex era that began in 1848 and wasn’t wrapped up till Aug. 18, 1920, when Wilson ratified the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted “woman suffrage,” a reference not to actual suffering but the right to vote.

In today’s world, with the first serious female presidential contender, the thought of women not participating in politics is practically inconceivable. “Fighting for the right to vote? It’s hard for us today to put ourselves in that perspective,” says Dickson. “We’ve come so far. It’s actually a preposterous thought for millennials.”

Colorado was ahead of the times (per usual), with women securing the right to vote 1893, but it was not an easy road leading to that victory. Surprisingly, in those days, the only visible opposition to woman suffrage was found in mining towns and tent camps across the state in the brewery industry, of all places. Brewers launched a last-minute campaign to frighten saloon patrons, however, “their scheme backfired when bar girls and prostitutes made known their sympathy for the suffrage cause,” according to the Women of the West Museum, which was founded in Boulder in 1991 but is now based out of Los Angeles.

“Western Women Wild with Joy over the Victory of Suffrage in Colorado,” read the 1893 headlines of Colorado women’s suffrage paper, the Queen Bee. By the next year, Colorado women elected the first three female state legislators in U.S. history.

Though photographs from the turn of the 20th-century reveal women to be dressed delicately, something deeper and more primal than a corset presses in the bosom of those cramped, stoic souls.   

Strange but true: An embarrassing vestige of the fight against womens’ right to vote.

“Fashion played a role in that time period,” says Dickson. “Especially for those women who were being prim and proper on the outside but fighting for the cause on the other side.”

And those fetching hats perched on their heads? Those weren’t just silk flowers, ostentatious feathers, and illustrious rhinestones. These political femme fatales also had murderous hatpins tucked into those folds of ribbons and lace. 

“Men feared the suffragettes were going to use their glass and brass hatpins as weapons,” says Dickson. “A fair enough assumption, considering that the suffragettes were turning to violence to invoke a sense of urgency for their cause.”

According to Smithsonian Magazine, the Hatpin Peril of the early 20th-century sparked the call from men all over the western world to establish an ordinance that “would ban hatpins longer than nine inches; any woman caught in violation would be arrested and fined $50.”

“If women care to wear carrots and roosters on their heads, that is a matter for their own concern, but when it comes to wearing swords they must be stopped,” one supporter of the law said.

After all, women had been pleading with politicians to give them a voice since time immemorial. But even the highly organized suffragettes weren’t getting anywhere by staging peaceful protests. So, as they say, they learned the language of men: war.

All of a sudden, these demure soldiers in petticoats were planting mailbox bombs and instigating all sorts of renegade guerilla warfare.

“There was such a badass factor to those women in a time when you did not equate women with being badass,” says Dickson. “For Women’s History Month, we’re grasping onto that passion. And maybe, while you’re making your hat, some people would reflect on that. Maybe not.”

The event’s sponsor, Alpine Bank, is opening its Main Avenue lobby for this free occasion that goes from 5:30 -7 p.m. Thurs., March 10. The WRC will provide wine, of course, and materials for crafting your hat, which you can buy from Animas Trading Co. for 15 percent off or find stuffed in the top of your closet. (Murderous hatpins not included.)

“Some of these designs are pretty dope,” says Dickson, who’s showcasing a Pinterest page on the WRC website dedicated to hat-making. “Flowers, big feathers, silk ribbons. It’s fun to wonder what your taste would be if you’d lived in a different generation. Besides, this is a chance to be creative.” 

After you’ve gotten your fill of being crafty, pull out that Steampunk costume you thought you’d never wear again and don your hat for the WRC’s next festive gala: movie night at the Strater on Tues., March 15, featuring the timepiece, and timely piece, “Suffragettes.”

This 2015 award-winning film stars Meryl Streep, Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter. Doors open at 5 p.m., tickets cost $5, and of course there are appetizers and a bar.

“The aesthetics of the Henry Strater Theater will tie in really well with Durango’s own Victorian history,” says Dickson.

So, in the spirit of Mrs. Banks, join the WRC and the ranks of dauntless crusaders for women’s rights over the last century and beyond, and “Cast off the shackles of yesterday! Shoulder to shoulder into the fray! Our daughter’s daughters will adore us and they’ll sing in grateful chorus: ‘Well done, well done, well done, Sister Suffragette!’”

To learn more or check out the dope Pinterest hat page, go to wrcdurango.org.