“There never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers.”
― Susan B. Anthony
On Election Day in 1920, millions of American women exercised their right to vote for the first time. It took activists and reformers nearly 100 years to win that right, and the campaign was not easy: Disagreements over strategy threatened to cripple the movement more than once. But on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was finally ratified, enfranchising all American women and declaring for the first time that they, like men, deserve all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.” —www.history.com
Whichever side of the aisle you’re on 96 years later, it is your right and responsibility as a citizen to help chose the most powerful leader in the world. Although American women have made great strides during the last century, we have many more strides to make. Our salaries remain lower than men’s; pregnancy and motherhood still can impede our ability to be promoted; sexual harassment still exists in the workplace; women currently hold 84 of 435 seats in the House of Representatives, or 19.3%, and 20 of 100 Senate seats, or 20%.
Unless we make our voices heard about issues that affect our lives and livelihood, and will affect the lives of our grandaughters, we likely will continue to defer to those who don’t think women and men are absolute equals. Surely, our country faces troubling matters that go beyond the status of women, and we must also consider which candidate is most closely aligned to our positions on them when we vote next Tuesday. But, please think where we might be if passionate women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott hadn’t stood up for their ‘sisters’ in the 1800s. And exercise your right in 2016.