A few weeks ago, my mom sent me an email that described the decades long struggle of women to win the right to vote in the United States. A right that we not only take for granted today but we don’t always use. In the last presidential election, 8 million women registered but did not vote; another 36 million potential female voters were not registered at all, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Imagine living as a woman in the early 19th century. You would be barred from most professions, have little opportunity for education and could not vote. If you were married you would legally be the property of your husband; everything you have would belong to him. It was considered improper for women to travel alone or to speak in public.
The 19th Amendment was proposed on June 4, 1919 and ratified on August 18, 1920. Only 88 years ago, on November 2, 1920, more than 8 million women voted for the first time in American history. It was 144 years after Thomas Jefferson proclaimed equality as the foundation of our government that women were granted the right to participate in the electoral process. The right to vote was not won easily. Although women lobbied, paraded and picketed peacefully, they suffered brutal attacks by police, soldiers, and onlookers. They were arrested and imprisoned in filthy jailhouse conditions. The deplorable situation culminated in what became known as the “Night of Terror”, November 15, 1917:
“Under orders from W.H. Whittaker, superintendent of the Occoquan Workhouse, as many as forty guards with clubs went on a rampage, brutalizing thirty-three jailed suffragists. They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head, and left her there for the night. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed, and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, who believed Mrs. Lewis to be dead, suffered a heart attack. According to affidavits, other women were grabbed, dragged, beaten, choked, slammed, pinched, twisted, and kicked.” [Barbara Leaming, Katherine Hepburn. New York: Crown Publishers, 1995. Page 182.]
The women started a hunger strike to protest and endured force-feedings that were designed to be tortuous, usually resulting in vomiting. By the time suffrage was won in 1920, 168 NWP activists had served time in prison or jail.
The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution reads:
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
Don’t take your right to vote for granted in the upcoming 2008 election. Whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent, it doesn’t matter. Your vote does, however. Each one of us is a catalyst for change only if we act.
Resources:
- Library of Congress: Women of Protest
- U.S. Census Bureau: Voting
- United States Senate: Constitution of the United States
- Women’s Voices, Women’s Vote
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Damn right ! Vote, vote and vote !
In France, women can vote since the aftermath of WWII in 1945, and since even if during our 1789 revolution some people were for women’s suffrage.
For more, have a look at Wikipedia’s page :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage
I thank you so much for posting the story. Women need
to put this important right on top of their list of things to do. get out and VOTE!!
Jaypea 13