Lo and behold. Women have the right to vote in the United States. As you all well know, this was not always the case. In fact, the United States declared its independence from England in 1776. Women were not permitted to vote at that time or for many years to come. Oh, we had an opinion. It is just that men didn’t want to hear it.
Women were not permitted to cast a ballot until the 19th Amendment was passed by Congress on June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920.
That is 144 years, ladies and gentlemen.
Yes. That glorious 19th amendment granted women the right to vote. My grandmothers were around 22 years old, collectively. I wonder what they thought of all of this. If I could only ask them now.
At any rate, achieving this god-given right of equality here in the United States required a lengthy and difficult struggle. The victory of allowing women the right to vote took decades of work, sacrifice, and protest.
So I should remind everyone that just a few days ago, on the date, May 15, 1869, the National Woman Suffrage Association was formed in New York. This good group was founded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
And now. Here we are. One hundred years later and women are still treated as subservient, where Christian men are making decisions about what we can and cannot do with our lives and our bodies.
And the significance of this spans out over the lives of women everywhere.
We work for less pay.
Women are underrepresented in government.
We pay more for personal items than men do. Clothes. Toiletries. And on.
Women are at a greater risk of rape and sexual violence.
Women are victims of domestic violence more than men.
Retired women are twice as likely as retired men to live in poverty.
Women with medical issues are not taken as seriously as men having trouble.
I could go on and on with this list.
But mostly, we still do not have equal rights.
And if we are not careful, we could lose other rights. Even our right to vote, if we are not careful. Do you say this could never happen?
We’ve seen so much in the past six years that I swore could never happen. People in power can be terribly scary. I would not put it past those power-mongers who want to keep their upper hand.
But today, let us give thanks for Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and for all the other amazing women who came before us and paved the way for suffrage. For all their sacrifices and hardships, giving us our right to vote.
Our world is better because of them.
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“The test for whether or not you can hold a job should not be the arrangement of your chromosomes.” —Bella Abzug
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“Feminism isn’t about making women stronger. Women are already strong, it’s about changing the way the world perceives that strength.” –G.D. Anderson
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“Women belong in all places where decisions are being made… It shouldn’t be that women are the exception.” ―Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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Vote to be equal. We need equality in the world, sir.
