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Renee CK

writer, editor, tweetable http://twitter.com/chicskirt

I'm a fun girl who's on a quest to figure it all out. I'm cynical but living the dream- I'm not sure how that happened exactly. Follow along in my blog for fun, mayhem, and merriment. There's never a dull day! (Or, go download my book!)...

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Hey You, With the Boobs. Are YOU Registered to Vote?

if not, why not?

I got an email last weekend from a friend that talked about the extreme sacrifices our foremothers made and horrendous treament they suffered, all for the right for us to be able to vote. 

I know, it seems like such a silly thing. You get 2 hours off of work to do it.  It’s twisted and confusing. There are smear tatics and broken campaign promises.  But, if you’re sitting around bitching about how things are in America and you didn’t vote, I don’t want to hear it.  Our last 2 elections have been won and lost by such narrow margins that if all those who make up excuses as to why they can’t vote had actually voted, things may be very different today.  It also seems that with the electoral college in place, your vote doesn’t even count- but that’s not true either.  Every electoral vote in a state is placed for the person who wins the majority of votes in that state.  I am very anxious for November to get here when the state of Georgia’s 15 typically republican electors are forced to put all 15 of those votes in the democratic box because the majority of Georgians voted for Obama. 

But, us as women, we have an even more important reason to vote.  It took a lot for us to be able to have the privledge to make a choice for ourselves. To be able to stand up and be counted.

A short history.  Anyone know who Lydia Taft was?  She was the first legal woman voter in America.  Know what year that was?  1920?  1915?  1895?  Nope. She voted at least three times between 1756 and 1768.  The reason she was able to vote?  Because she was Mrs. Josiah Taft.  Upon Joe’s passing, she was given the right to vote as his proxy.  Still, I don’t find it fair that you have to marry and lose a property-owning husband in order to vote.  Neither did the suffragettes. 

One of the suffragettes, Lucy Burns, was force-fed by five people holding her down and when she refused to open her mouth, her jailors shoved a feeding tube through her nostril.  She was most likely tortured as well.

Speaking of torture, do you know what happened November 15, 1917?  Our strong women dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House, hold marches, and stage protests.  Women were arrested beginning in June and once women were released from prision, they returned to march.  November 15, 1917, 33 protestors were re-arrested and taken to the Occoquan Workhouse, a prison known for serving rancid food, colorless slop infested with worms. Women were only given water from an open bucket.  They were denied medical care.  And treatment was harsh under Occoquan’s superintendent, W.H. Whittaker.

Feminist Sonia Pressman Fuentes documents this history in her article on Alice Paul. She includes this re-telling of the story of Occoquan Workhouse's "Night of Terror," November 15, 1917:

Under orders from W. H. Whittaker, superintendent of the Occoquan Workhouse, as many as forty guards with clubs went on a rampage, brutalizing thirty-three jailed suffragists. They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head, and left her there for the night. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed, and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate Alice Cosu, who believed Mrs. Lewis to be dead, suffered a heart attack. According to affidavits, other women were grabbed, dragged, beaten, choked, slammed, pinched, twisted, and kicked.

These women suffered so much in order to bring attention to the issue and earn us the privledge to vote.  And for us to say we’re too busy volunteering, keeping a home, working, or any of the other things that we can use as an excuse to keep from voting is simply unacceptable.  If you haven’t registered to vote, google online voter registration and find a place.  If you want me to make it easier, Declare Yourself has a wonderful website, albeit targeted to young voters, that provides information about voting, the election, and how to get registered. If you want to cut to the chase, I’ve even done that for you- the register to vote link can be found right here. I’ve done everything but fill out the form for you. 

Our foremothers did the hardest part- do not let their fight be in vain.  Stand up and be heard this election.  Do not silence yourself.  Do not ignore your duty to your country.  And do not let these wonderful women down.

For those who want to learn more about the Suffragettes, HBO has a wondeful movie, Iron Jawed Angels that tells the story.  The women were dubbed Iron Jawed Angels because, like Lucy Barnes, they would not open their mouths to eat the slop they were being fed.  Tough broads!  Have I seen it yet?  No, and probably won’t because I would be tossing my own cookies seeing them try to force feed the women.  But, if you can stomach it, I encourage you to watch.

VOTE!
Renee