I was shocked when when a friend on Facebook shared an article about Trump supporters calling to #RepealThe19th to keep women from voting against Donald Trump on November 8th (the actual day to vote). I couldn't believe it -- surely there weren't people in the world who had actually publicly called to take away something women of the past had worked so hard to get? I searched the hashtag on Twitter and I was completely baffled. Hundreds of people saying women should have never been given the right to vote, wanting to silence women across America because they're certain Donald Trump will win by a landslide if only men vote.
I was shocked, confused, appalled, and frustrated. But more than anything, I was frightened by the number of tweets and re-tweets that I saw in support of #RepealThe19th.
Here's a brief history lesson for you guys. When the United States was founded, men and women didn't share the same rights. This included the right to vote -- men could vote, and women couldn't. In 1848, Elizabeth Cody Stanton and Lucretia Mott pushed the issue to the national level with a convention in Seneca Falls, New York. The demand for the right to vote because the focal point of the women's rights movement. In August of 1920, the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified and women were granted the right to vote.
70 years. These women fought for 70 years to be able to cast their vote for the man who would control the country they were a part of, and it has taken only a few weeks for people to decide that right should be taken away.
While seeing men voice their support for the #RepealThe19th sickened me, I was more appalled at the number of women who agreed with this atrocious notion. I mean, seriously!? Our sisters have dedicated their lives to giving you a political voice and you're willing to throw it way and allow a man like Donald Trump to step into a position of power. He has openly condoned sexual harassment of women. You have the ability to take a stand against misogyny and against men like Donald Trump, and you want to simply throw it away. Why?
#WomenWhoVoteForTrump is another popular hashtag that has flooded Twitter. As I was scrolling through tweets with this hashtag, I was surprised to see posts tagged with #WomenWhoVoteForTrump and #RepealThe19th. Again...seriously? Do you not see the huge hole in this logic? If you support the repeal of the 19th Amendment, you can't be a woman who will vote for Donald Trump because you supported the removal of your right to vote! I'm just saying.
The potential to lose my right to vote, to lose my voice and see the progress of my sister ignored, frightens me. To know that my daughter and all the other young girls in America are at risk of losing a voice that they haven't even had a chance to use yet frightens me. If society can so quickly and easily dismiss this issue, what else are they willing to dismiss and repeal? How soon before the society we live in begins to mirror American society at the beginning of the 1900s?
