KillerMuffin
Seraphically Disinclined
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2000
- Posts
- 25,603
Our great grandmothers, the suffrag figheters
I was watching CSPAN today. Yes, I watch CSPAN, what of it??? Anyway, Phil and Marla Donahue, yeah Phil the Phormer Talk Show Guy, was on talking about their political views. In different rooms, they disagree. He is voting for Nader, and she is voting for... um, Bush or Gore, I didn't see that part. Anyway, Phil said, "I'll be sleeping in the attic til this is done, but we've agreed to disagree."
That made me think. What would Phil say a hundred years ago? "I'll be sleeping in the attic, but this family is voting for Nader."
Or would the conversation even have come up?
The women's suffrage movement began as the Women's Movement in 1848 in Seneca Falls, NY, where it was officially organized following a rebuff of women at the at the World Antislavery Convention in London in 1840.
Their prime objective was to win women the right to vote. After the civil war, the 14th amendment extended citizenship to slaves and included the word "male" as a qualification for voting. The 15th amendment provided that the right to vote should not be denied or abridged "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude" but not on account of gender. The Women's Movement sought the right to vote based on the 14th amendment's "priveleges and immunities" and "equal protection" clauses, but the courts upheld the states' authority to fix voter qualifications.
The states acted to improve the position of women, in the second half of the 19th century, all states passed the Married Women's Property Acts, which largely ended women's subordination under common law by dissolving the legal unity of husbands and wives. Married women finally controlled their own property and earnings. By 1900, women finally enjoyed most of the rights and priveleges of citizens, previously held only by men. However, they didn't hold the right to vote. Likewise they were exempted from jury duty, as well as poll and property taxes. This chivalrous attitude continued into the early 20th century when courts upheld the consitutionality of state and federal laws that were intended to protect working women, but not working men, by regulating hours, pay and working conditions.
In 1890 Wyoming entered the union with a state consititution providing for women's suffrage. During the next two decades women were given partial voting privileges by many states. Twelve states had given women the unqualified right to vote by 1920, when the 19th Amendment was ratified. Finally, women were given the equal right to vote nationwide and they established the principle of equal political rights for women.
They did not do this for themselves and their daughters and granddaughters to come without suffering for it. They faced censure, they faced abuse from their husbands, fathers and brothers, and some faced jail time. Some lost their families, outcast by their husbands or fathers and told not to return. They were ridiculed, patronized, patted on the head, and most often, just plain ignored. They fought long and hard, over 70 years from the time the movement was organized to the unqualified national right to vote and they did not give up. The movement was begun by women who never lived to see the accomplishment of what they fought for.
Because of these women, the Donahues, and everyone other married couple, can now agree to disagree over who they will vote for in the elections.
When you go to the voting booth on the 7th, before you vote for a single candidate, think for a moment of those women who sacrificed themselves to acheive the equal right to vote. Don't disappoint them by not voting at all.
I was watching CSPAN today. Yes, I watch CSPAN, what of it??? Anyway, Phil and Marla Donahue, yeah Phil the Phormer Talk Show Guy, was on talking about their political views. In different rooms, they disagree. He is voting for Nader, and she is voting for... um, Bush or Gore, I didn't see that part. Anyway, Phil said, "I'll be sleeping in the attic til this is done, but we've agreed to disagree."
That made me think. What would Phil say a hundred years ago? "I'll be sleeping in the attic, but this family is voting for Nader."
Or would the conversation even have come up?
The women's suffrage movement began as the Women's Movement in 1848 in Seneca Falls, NY, where it was officially organized following a rebuff of women at the at the World Antislavery Convention in London in 1840.
Their prime objective was to win women the right to vote. After the civil war, the 14th amendment extended citizenship to slaves and included the word "male" as a qualification for voting. The 15th amendment provided that the right to vote should not be denied or abridged "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude" but not on account of gender. The Women's Movement sought the right to vote based on the 14th amendment's "priveleges and immunities" and "equal protection" clauses, but the courts upheld the states' authority to fix voter qualifications.
The states acted to improve the position of women, in the second half of the 19th century, all states passed the Married Women's Property Acts, which largely ended women's subordination under common law by dissolving the legal unity of husbands and wives. Married women finally controlled their own property and earnings. By 1900, women finally enjoyed most of the rights and priveleges of citizens, previously held only by men. However, they didn't hold the right to vote. Likewise they were exempted from jury duty, as well as poll and property taxes. This chivalrous attitude continued into the early 20th century when courts upheld the consitutionality of state and federal laws that were intended to protect working women, but not working men, by regulating hours, pay and working conditions.
In 1890 Wyoming entered the union with a state consititution providing for women's suffrage. During the next two decades women were given partial voting privileges by many states. Twelve states had given women the unqualified right to vote by 1920, when the 19th Amendment was ratified. Finally, women were given the equal right to vote nationwide and they established the principle of equal political rights for women.
They did not do this for themselves and their daughters and granddaughters to come without suffering for it. They faced censure, they faced abuse from their husbands, fathers and brothers, and some faced jail time. Some lost their families, outcast by their husbands or fathers and told not to return. They were ridiculed, patronized, patted on the head, and most often, just plain ignored. They fought long and hard, over 70 years from the time the movement was organized to the unqualified national right to vote and they did not give up. The movement was begun by women who never lived to see the accomplishment of what they fought for.
Because of these women, the Donahues, and everyone other married couple, can now agree to disagree over who they will vote for in the elections.
When you go to the voting booth on the 7th, before you vote for a single candidate, think for a moment of those women who sacrificed themselves to acheive the equal right to vote. Don't disappoint them by not voting at all.
