“The fight must not cease; you must see that it does not stop.” Susan B. Anthony spoke these words 106 years ago, yet it looks as if the fight against inequality for women continues to this day. Examples of this abound. According to a recent Fox News report the scandal over members of the Secret Service soliciting prostitutes is drawing the ire of women who contend such alleged misconduct would not have happened if more women were agents. Director Mark Sullivan revealed that only 11 percent of Secret Services agents are women. In addition, women are still not allowed to be priests in the Catholic Church. College Times reported recently that women make less than 78 cents for every dollar than men earn in the workplace—and in 99% of all occupations, women earned less than men.
And the battle continues as female voters find themselves in the center of the ‘mommy wars,’ the ‘reproductive right wars’ and the ‘war against women’ as the 2012 election looms closer. The fight for female voters this year is becoming more urgent as the general election comes into sharper view—a fight that was totally unimaginable at one time.
In my extensive research for various national historical projects on women’s history, I was immersed in the lives of those 19th century women who were discouraged from speaking in public, going to college, serving on a jury, and having a profession. If they were married, they were not allowed to sign contracts and could not even have their own children if they divorced. Imagine if roles were reversed and it were men who were deprived of the right to vote, to be forbidden to share in the ownership of property with their spouse, or to be denied their children if divorced. What would happen?
It took 144 years—from 1776 to 1920—for women to have the right to vote. It was truly a battle. Women were imprisoned and brutally treated when they picketed the White House for that right in 1917. Yet a whopping 35 million eligible women didn’t vote in 2004.
Today’s women should not be complacent about their right to vote. Understanding the sufferings those heroines endured just to get that vote should spur women into action in the 2012 election. It also means that the fight that Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul and many others undertook as a lifetime struggle still goes on today. Coline Jenkins, the great-great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote: “Never forget that you stand on the shoulders of those who came before you. And never forget, future generations will stand on your shoulders. In your lifetime, what will you do for them?”
Great question—What will you do for them?
Tom Mach is the author of “Angels at Sunset” (a 2012 Nobel Prize Award-nominated historical novel detailing women’s struggle for equality) and has recently formulated a resolution declaring 2012 as the Centennial for the passage of women’s suffrage in Kansas. He can be contacted at www.tommach.com.
