Women Must Vote
It’s shocking to realize that it was less than 100 years ago (88 to be exact) that women were finally granted the right to go to the polls and cast a vote. We owe our grandmothers and great-grandmothers generation a HUGE debt of gratitude.
They were jailed for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the right to vote. They were hurled into dark cells, chained from above and left to hang by their arms all night, beaten, choked, kicked, force fed and otherwise abused. They were willing to pay this awful price because they were passionate in their belief that it was a citizen’s right, regardless of gender, to have an equal say in who would be elected to run our country.
In times of change it’s expected that the status quo will feel especially threatened.
President Woodrow Wilson and his cohorts tried to have suffragette Alice Paul declared insane in order to permanently institutionalize her. Thankfully, the doctor was unwilling to make such a rash decision, and declared her strong and brave, not crazy. It seems that at that time in our history, courage in women was often mistaken for insanity.
Perhaps we as a country are at such a crossroads once again. Currently, there are many issues being debated that can cause one to wonder if the “other” is crazy. Staying with the status quo seems risky, given recent history. Going with a new idea seems scary – untested. Yes, change is hard, even when things around you are falling apart. I liken it to a battered child still clinging to the parent that abuses them – but whom they also see as their lifeline.
It takes collective courage, vision and compassion to change course. Will it be women, once again, who step up to the plate to help change course because they cannot abide the unfairness, greed, and sense of entitlement that permeates our current government?
God, I hope so.
Whichever way you lean, let’s have the courage of our convictions and honor the struggle of our sisters of the past and cast our vote. Sitting this one out is not an option. We owe them that much.
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:16 am
Thanks for your thoughts on the importance of our role as women to combine our vision and compassion to collectively contribute to the course of our country’s future. Great website, too, by the way.