This year’s Women’s History Month (March) takes its name from an exchange on the floor of Congress between Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: Nevertheless She Persisted. In February 2017, Senator McConnell used the phrase when describing Senator Warren’s refusal to stop speaking during the confirmation hearings of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The phrase was quickly adopted by women’s rights advocates on social media to celebrate barrier-breaking women worldwide. The National Women’s History Project chose Nevertheless She Persisted as this year’s theme to honor “women who fight all forms of discrimination against women.”
For over 30 years, POV has featured documentaries about outspoken women activists leading the charge on issues such as civil rights, labor justice, sexual abuse, and immigration reform. Below are eight of our favorite films about pathbreaking women, available to screen for free through the POV Community Network. Don’t miss each film’s companion resources: a discussion guide, a standards-aligned lesson plan, a list of suggested reading, interviews with the filmmakers — and more!
American Revolutionary: the Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs | Grace Lee Boggs, 98, is a Chinese American philosopher, writer and activist in Detroit with a thick FBI file and a surprising vision of what an American revolution can be. Rooted in 75 years of the labor, civil rights and Black Power movements, she continually challenges a new generation to throw off old assumptions, think creatively and redefine revolution for our times. Screen the Film | Download the Discussion Guide | Explore the Lesson Plan | Check out the Reading List
Hooligan Sparrow | The danger is palpable as intrepid young filmmaker Nanfu Wang follows maverick activist Ye Haiyan (aka Hooligan Sparrow) and her band of colleagues to southern China to seek justice in the case of six elementary school girls allegedly sexually abused by their principal. Marked as enemies of the state, the activists are under constant government surveillance and face interrogation, harassment and imprisonment. Sparrow continues to champion girls’ and women’s rights and arms herself with the power of social media. Screen the Film | Download the Discussion Guide | Explore the Lesson Plan | Check out the Reading List
Don’t Tell Anyone (No Le Dias a Nadie) | Since the age of 4, Angy Rivera has lived in the United States with a secret that threatens to upend her life: She is undocumented. Now 24 and facing an uncertain future, Rivera becomes an activist for undocumented youth with a popular advice blog and a YouTube channel boasting more than 27,000 views. She steps out of the shadows a second time to share her story of sexual abuse, an experience all too common among undocumented women. Don’t Tell Anyone (No Le Digas a Nadie) follows Rivera’s remarkable journey from poverty in rural Colombia to the front page of The New York Times. Screen the Film | Download the Discussion Guide | Explore the Lesson Plan | Check out the Reading List
Ella Es el Matador (She Is the Matador) | For Spaniards — and for the world — nothing has expressed their country’s traditionally rigid gender roles more powerfully than the image of the male matador. So sacred was the bullfighter’s masculinity to Spanish identity that a 1908 law barred women from the sport. Ella Es el Matador reveals the surprising history of the women who made such a law necessary and offers fascinating profiles of two female matadors currently in the arena: the acclaimed Mari Paz Vega and neophyte Eva Florencia. Screen the Film | Download the Discussion Guide | Explore the Lesson Plan | Check out the Reading List
I’m Carolyn Parker: the Good, the Mad and the Beautiful | In 2005, Academy Award®-winning director Jonathan Demme set out to document the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina and the rebuilding of New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. When he met Carolyn Parker, what began as a historical documentary morphed into a vibrant character study of the courage and resiliency of this fearless matriarch and civil-rights activist. I’m Carolyn Parker is Demme’s intimate account of Parker’s five-year crusade to rebuild her beloved neon-green house, her church, her community — and her life. Screen the Film | Download the Discussion Guide | Explore the Lesson Plan | Check out the Reading List
Georgie Girl | What are the chances that a former prostitute of Maori descent could be elected a Member of the Parliament of New Zealand? Or of any parliament in the world? What if that person were also transgender? The odds may seem insurmountable, but such is the exhilarating story of Georgina Beyer as told in Georgie Girl. Screen the Film | Download the Discussion Guide | Explore the Lesson Plan | Check out the Reading List
What Tomorrow Brings | What Tomorrow Brings goes inside the very first girls’ school in a small Afghan village. Never before have fathers here allowed their daughters to be educated; now Taliban threats heighten their misgivings. From the school’s beginnings in 2009 to its first graduating class in 2015, the film traces the interconnected stories of students, teachers, village elders, parents and school founder Razia Jan. While the girls learn to read and write, their education goes far beyond the classroom as they discover the differences between the lives they were born into and the lives they dream of leading. Screen the Film | Download the Discussion Guide | Explore the Lesson Plan | Check out the Reading List
Storycorps Shorts: A More Perfect Union (3 min. short) | When Theresa Burroughs came of voting age, she was ready to cast her ballot—but she had a long fight ahead of her. During the Jim Crow era, the board of registrars at Alabama’s Hale County Courthouse prevented African Americans from registering to vote. Undeterred, Theresa remembers venturing to the courthouse on the first and third Monday of each month, in pursuit of her right to vote. Screen the Film
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