Vote like your rights depend on it

The best protection any woman can have is courage.

— Elizabeth Cady Stanton

I’m in a bit of an emotional tizzy this morning after watching a bunch of YouTube videos with my ten-year-old son. I’ll be voting in about an hour, and this is such an important election.

For those of you thinking about sitting this one out, take ten minutes and check out some videos on women who have changed history.

We fought tooth and nail to get this far. To this day, some women believe that women shouldn’t be able to vote. If you are one of them, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand you and I never will.

The women’s suffrage movement began on a large scale in the late nineteenth century with a number of different groups formed.

Remember all those pesky labor and child labor laws that came about in the early twentieth century? Well, many of the advocates for these life-saving changes were these early “Women’s Era” groups, like the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement.

To be honest, who knows where we would be without the input of women in terms of social infrastructure.

Many of these activists, some of whom were a bit radical (but can you blame them?), wound up serving time in prison and starting hunger strikes. Always protesting, always standing up for change.

So, when did we stop caring about the sacrifices those have made before us? Help me understand. Do those same women who were against women’s suffrage actually still exist today? Just kidding, that was rhetorical. They do. Check out the wackadoo below:

And it’s not like she’s the only one. Many of the traditional Evangelical Christians, our President’s “religious” base, believe in “submission and dependence.” The only places where a woman should be considered a leader is in the home and in service to the church. And ultimately, even in those places she is to submit to a man.

Egalitarian Evangelicals are slightly more modern, allowing women to take actual leadership roles in the church (not just preparing snacks for afterward).

It would be interesting to research which sect seems to be defecting from supporting Trump.

But that’s really not the point of bringing them up. The point is this: There are still people out there who believe women should be submissive to men and that politics must be a “man” thing that we don’t need any say in, despite the major difference in society we have contributed to.

Sadly, your rights, including your right to vote (although that one will be difficult, depend on it. Women fought for the right to own property, to take birth control, to work, and for general equality. If you think we are equal now, you are living in a dream world, which must be nice.

All of the rights that women have fought so hard for will be in serious jeopardy if there continues to be a monopoly in the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government.

So, forget your pary lines, forget what your dad taught you, and really think before you cast your ballot today. Look at your candidates and ask yourself if they’re really working for you interests, or if they’re just good at pretending.