YOUNG AT HEART
Why I Vote There shall never be another season of silence until women have the same rights men have on this green earth. – Susan B. Anthony Today, women can vote worldwide, excepting the Vatican. New Zealand was the first country to give women the right to vote in 1893; Saudi Arabia was the last in 2015. This does not mean, however, that it is always easy for women to vote. In many countries worldwide and, unfortunately, areas closer to home, women experience obstacles to voting including patriarchal systems, religious and cultural barriers, domestic duties, lack of education, lack of access to polling locations as well as harassment or even violence. Women won the right to vote in this country on Aug. 18, 1920, with the ratification of the 19th amendment — 100 years ago this year and 56 years before I was born. My mother, Marion, was born in 1950, 30 years after the women’s suffrage movement was successful. 28 | July-August 2020
My mother, my sister Kendle and I — none of us have known a world where we were not allowed to vote when we came of age. Neither will my nieces — Kendle’s daughter, Elinor, and my sister-in-law’s daughter, Aria. The same cannot be said for our grandmothers’ and great-grandmothers’ generations. My maternal grandmother, Gladys, was born in 1917 (we think… she was very secretive about such things). She was part of the first generation of American women who grew up with the right to vote, and yet, she never did. “Your grandmother never voted,” shared my mother. “Your grandfather wouldn’t let her.” While I find the idea laughable that a man, any man, would tell me whether I could vote or even how to cast my vote, this was not uncommon in my grand-
mother’s generation when women, especially homemakers, were not expected or encouraged to have political opinions of their own. I was surprised — surprised and disappointed — when my mother shared this information. Even more so by her next revelation. “And, remember,” said Mummy, “in the 1970s, I wasn’t allowed to open a bank account or buy a car without your dad co-signing.” “What now? Pause. Rewind!” I thought while wrinkling my face in distaste. “What if you (a woman) didn’t have a husband?” I asked. Mummy responded that you would have needed a male relative to act as a co-signer. It is rather disconcerting to consider — really consider — that my mother was not allowed to do some of the things I take for granted. Furthermore, this is not aawmag.com
