Today, February 27, 2015, Leonard Nimoy has passed away at the age of 83. As I am sure everybody reading this knows, he played the legendary role of Spock, a half human half Vulcan, in the original Star Trek movies along with William Shatner as Captain Kirk and Nichelle Nichols as Uhura. Nimoy and the character that he played was not only a part of Star Trek and science fiction history, but also real history. African Americans received the right to vote on August 6, 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended all state and local laws requiring segregation just three and two years before Star Trek premiered. Also, one year before the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Star Trek featured Nichelle Nichols, one of the first African American, female characters on American television that did not play a servant when she played Uhura.  In chapter 12 (page 371) of Major Problems there is a picture of the original Star Trek cast showing “ethic diversity and inter-species harmony”. RIP Leonard Nimoy.

This semester I am taking a Women’s Studies 101 class. This past week we were required to watch a movie called Iron Jawed Angels. It is an HBO movie that takes place during the first wave of feminism, specifically in America, in which women fought for the right to vote. The movie revolves around characters such as Alice Paul, played by Hilary Swank, Lucy Burns, played by Frances O’Connor, Ruza Wenclawska, played by Vera Farmiga, and Ida Wells-Barnett, played by Adilah Barnes. It displays how Alice Paul and other suffragists protested for a Constitutional Amendment. These women were harassed, mostly be men as depicted in the movie, as they marched and stood in protest. The movie also shows how the suffragists were put in jail and mistreated after being charged with “obstructing traffic” because they stood on the street in protest. By the end of the movie, all 216 suffragists are released from jail and on August 18, 1920 the 19th Amendment is passed by Congress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO70ZjZ0wrw

In the video, all of imprisoned women start a hunger strike where they don’t eat as a form of protest. As a result, Alice Paul, played by Hilary Swank, is horrifically and repeatedly force fed.