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Election Day!
Nov. 6th, 2012 03:39 pmI voted! There wasn't as much of a line as I'd expected, but I went in the afternoon so I may have missed the morning crush.
Please, fellow US-people, vote today. No matter who you're voting for, although it will shock no one to know I voted for Obama - everything about Romney scares me, from the platform of his party to his terrifying social policies to his running mate's Randian economic plan. Especially fellow women out there, since it really wasn't that long ago that we couldn't. 1920 seems like ancient history, but I own movies made before the government deemed me capable of deciding who should be president. I knew my great-grandmother, who lived through getting the vote. I have more than one client who was born when their mother couldn't cast a ballot.
Less than 100 years ago Alice Paul was sent to a psychiatric ward and force fed in an attempt to break a hunger strike protesting being arrested for picketing the White House in a demonstration for women's suffrage. (When the US entered WWI those protests were deemed to embarrassing to let continue, leading to spectators being encouraged to abuse protesters while police looked on.)
In 1916 Inez Millholland collapsed while giving a speech for women's suffrage and died a month later. Her last words were "Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?"
In 1873 Susan B. Anthony was arrested for "knowingly, wrongfully, and unlawfully" voting for a member of Congress "without having a lawful right to vote,....the said Susan B. Anthony being then and there a person of the female sex." She fought most of her adult life for the vote and died in 1906 without ever being able to cast a ballot legally.
Women's suffrage only came after 70+ years of protests, arrests, hunger strikes, deaths and disappointment. Today not only did no one blink an eye when I went to vote, but the person who signed me in was also a woman. That is awesome.
Let's never take it for granted.
Please, fellow US-people, vote today. No matter who you're voting for, although it will shock no one to know I voted for Obama - everything about Romney scares me, from the platform of his party to his terrifying social policies to his running mate's Randian economic plan. Especially fellow women out there, since it really wasn't that long ago that we couldn't. 1920 seems like ancient history, but I own movies made before the government deemed me capable of deciding who should be president. I knew my great-grandmother, who lived through getting the vote. I have more than one client who was born when their mother couldn't cast a ballot.
Less than 100 years ago Alice Paul was sent to a psychiatric ward and force fed in an attempt to break a hunger strike protesting being arrested for picketing the White House in a demonstration for women's suffrage. (When the US entered WWI those protests were deemed to embarrassing to let continue, leading to spectators being encouraged to abuse protesters while police looked on.)
In 1916 Inez Millholland collapsed while giving a speech for women's suffrage and died a month later. Her last words were "Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?"
In 1873 Susan B. Anthony was arrested for "knowingly, wrongfully, and unlawfully" voting for a member of Congress "without having a lawful right to vote,....the said Susan B. Anthony being then and there a person of the female sex." She fought most of her adult life for the vote and died in 1906 without ever being able to cast a ballot legally.
Women's suffrage only came after 70+ years of protests, arrests, hunger strikes, deaths and disappointment. Today not only did no one blink an eye when I went to vote, but the person who signed me in was also a woman. That is awesome.
Let's never take it for granted.
