WOMEN were not allowed to vote until Aug. 26, 1920 when the 19th amendment to the US Constitution was made. The amendment acknowledged that women and men are equal.
It sounds crazy but back then, the right to vote had to endure a very long struggle. The obstacles were unimaginable but were faced head on by those who believed that women are equal to men and like them, had the right to participate in nation-building. So today, we commemorate Women’s Equality Day by listing a few things about how this day came to be.
Suffragettes. This is what the activists who once fought for the right to vote were called. It was actually intended as a derogatory term. However, before the suffragettes came about, the group called themselves suffragists and they were members of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) led by Millicent Garrett Fawcett. Suffragettes surfaced when Emmeline Pankhurst broke off the NUWSS and created her own group called Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) due to the fact that the NUWSS was not very inclusive and only fought for the right to vote for middle-class women who owned properties. The WSPU, unlike NUWSS which preferred peaceful protests, took their cause to the streets, and gathered more attention, gaining mostly negative impressions. This brought about the term “suffragettes.”
In 2015, a film entitled “Suffragettes” was released.
Jiu-Jitsu. The movement for women’s suffrage was greatly frowned upon that these women often faced violence whenever they took to the streets their cause. But they were also not afraid to resort to violence when provoked as they decided to train themselves and learn the art of jiu-jitsu, the Japanese martial art.
Force Feeding. When the activists were arrested, they would go on a hunger strike calling the attention of the authorities. As a response to this, the police would force feed the women by inserting steel tubes down their throats.
Fanny Parker, a suffragette, met the harshest way of force feeding as biographies suggest that she was force fed through her vagina and rectum.
Limited. When the suffrage movement won and women were finally given the right to vote, the right was only given to middle-class women 30 years old and above who owned properties or who were married to those who had properties. It took 10 more years for women to receive equal suffrage to that of men.
Women for Men. The movement that brought attention to women’s suffrage did not only elevate women’s rights but also that of men too. Before the suffrage movement called the attention of the US government, working class men who didn’t own properties were denied their right to vote. After the suffragettes won, all men were given the right to vote.
Women were elected before they could vote. At least one was, as recorded in history. The state of Montana’s Jeanette Rankin was the first congresswoman elected to the House of Representatives three years before the 19th amendment. It then shows that women were allowed to run for office before they were given the right to vote.
The right to vote was not easily given to women. It was paid for by the blood of the many suffragettes who offered their life to the cause. Not voting would be equivalent to disrespecting and putting in vain what it took to get women in this position. Celebrate Women’s Equality Day!