An Open Letter to Women in America
Women in America have fought long, strenuous battles to have a vote, a voice and control in the laws and policies that affect our lives. It is because of women like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Margaret Fuller and countless others who risked – and in some cases, sacrificed – their lives so that women today have what we have. It is because of them that we can do something generations before us only dreamed of doing – vote.
August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment granted all women the right to vote. Before this monumental decision, there was a movement dedicated to gaining women’s equality. The Women’s Suffrage gained momentum in the early 1800s, but it wasn’t until the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 that the movement really began. It was at this convention that Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton stood up and publicly stated that “all men and women are created equal” and that women deserved to be given the same rights men had, granted to them by the U.S Constitution. With the start of the Civil War, this particular phase of the Women’s Suffrage movement burned out, but not all was lost. In 1890, a new generation of the suffrage movement began with the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, they argued that women “deserved the vote because they were different from men.” After years of protests, arrests, and even deaths, women got what they were fighting for; they were granted the right to vote.
In the 2008 election, only 65.7% of eligible female voters voted. While in this current election, women are “casting early ballots in disproportionate numbers”, it’s not enough. Women are still underrepresented in congress, a woman’s right to choose is still under attack, women still make 80% of what men make, and America has yet to have a female president.
Susan B. Anthony said it best: “There never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers.” When women don’t go out and vote, it’s not only a disservice to all women, but it’s disrespectful to the generations before us who fought and died for our rights. Generations of women before us were denied education, health care, work, and even basic human rights that were so unquestionably granted to men. They were beaten, arrested, harassed and tortured trying to gain the right to vote; and here we are, rewarding those before us who fought so valiantly for our rights, with hundreds of thousands of women choosing to stay at home on election day. To the women who choose to stay silent, remember that there was a time when women had no voice. To the women who refuse to vote, remember that not too long ago, women staying home on election day wasn’t a choice – it was a requirement. To all women, remember that our fight isn’t over. It’s up to us, it’s up to our vote, to continue to break through the barriers and glass ceilings, and keep the movement our ancestors started so many years ago alive. Nothing women have today came easy, so now and forever, go out and vote.