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The Day American Women’s Suffrage Battle Was Won: USA, August 26, 1920
 Guillermo Ramón Adames y Suari - PVNN
September 05, 2010
This article is about women: When they finally were granted the right to vote in the US. That day was basically the start of the vote by women around the world. Other women around the world were also trying to be considered as equal. We cannot ignore that the first attempts of women’s vote were again in the US when they could be elected. This was in 1788 but women could not vote.
In 1893 New Zealand women could vote but women could not be elected. New Zealand women could be elected only after 1919. In 1902 Australian women could vote with some restrictions. In 1906 the Finish women won the right to vote and the Norwegian women could be elected since 1907 but could only vote since 1913. By the end of the 1920’s most of Europe and Canada had granted the vote to women. Latin American women’s vote movement, started in 1929 by the Equatorial women despite the fact that it was restricted. Mexican women were granted the vote in 1947 under some conditions. It is until 1953 that they have full voting rights. The last ones are Kuwaiti’s women in 2005 and coincidentally so, vote appears this very same year in Saudi Arabia for men.
Over a span of time of 30 years, women in various ways were obtaining through movements their right to vote. Women’s vote rights appears more or less in the same path all over, first, being able to be elected then full voting rights or vice-versa.
What is interesting about the US is that in July 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, organized the Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights Convention. A 19 year old girl who attended the meeting was Charlotte Woodward: by August 26 1920, Charlotte was able to cast her vote. She was apparently too ill to actually cast a ballot. So the story goes. But Americans still had to fight for a federal suffrage, earning State by State. All sorts of lobbying appeared left right and center, already so.
WWI was the trigger when women took jobs at factories while men were on the front and Carrie Chapman Catt reminded constantly to the President and Congress that women’s work should be rewarded with recognition of political (and sex) equality; at the time the words “gender equality” were not the terminology in use. In that light, President Wilson started to support women’s suffrage. The problem was that the US Constitution had to be amended. The law had to pass. And it was on August 26, 1920 that the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution became law.
What’s the score today? It would be inconceivable that women would not vote. This right that was so long denied today is somehow against men. Out of share numbers, there are more women than men. Not only in the US, but all over the world. Nowadays, those “share numbers” are the ones which make the difference: Yesterday women’s vote was denied, today women’s vote is courted. Yet in some places, still as of today, women will not be “accepted” to rule even if they were elected. Some places, particularly in the Mid-West, women are still considered as “the good American mother/women at home”. In Mexico things are not any better.
There has been a case in the southern state of Oaxaca. Despite the fact that a lady was elected, ancestral practices decide that there must be a man who rules. Men, usually married, go to look for a job particularly in Mexican big cities or try “the American dream”. In both cases they simply don’t vote. So “the share numbers” mentioned above operate in favor of electing a lady to a post. It will take still more time until we can treat each other as equals. Surprisingly the very same type of phenomenon appears in religion. Women priests are only accepted in some religions. If we consider that women will evolve “rightwise” outside religion, they might evolve also in the religion’s hierarchy. Likewise qualified women are hardly considered for responsibility posts.
In the US, some women make their way through, but it is still more the exception than the rule. Fortunately, for bright and qualified girls, there are more and more exceptions and the future looks brighter and easier for them. Like the vote, I do hope that opportunities for good brains are open around the rest of the world.
Guillermo Ramón Adames y Suari is a former electoral officer of the United Nations Organization. Contact him at gui.voting(at)gmail.com |
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