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March is Women’s History Month. While we share, in general, the same history of time as men, parts of history are our own. For example, women spent 72 years working in an organized way for our right to vote. Some men did help.
Officially, the movement started at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. By that time, momentum had built. People, especially women, had been talking. Imagine how it was. Communication and travel were incredibly slow compared to our current time.
Amazing support for women’s ability to think, be informed, develop educated opinions had built, but was still controversial. Ultimately, two women called a meeting, a national gathering in Seneca Falls, N.Y. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized and got the word out.
Imagine, the right to vote being the cause you worked for all your life, and maybe you did not live long enough to see the 19th Amendment pass and cast your own vote. Imagine the news coming when women died in white-dress suffragette demonstrations that got violent.
There were years of strong women’s movements that led up to our working to get the vote for women. Notably, in 1833, the Female Anti-Slavery Society of Philadelphia was founded by Lucretia Mott, because the existing Anti-Slavery Society was only for men.
In 1829 Fanny Wright, apparently known for her presence in the abolitionist movement, spoke up for equal rights.
In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft published “A Vindication of the Rights of Women.”
And in 1776, Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, wrote a letter to her husband, expressing hope for congress to “Remember the Ladies,” and not put “unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands.”
In 1638, Anne Hutchinson was banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony, for criticizing puritanism.
Women have been working towards equality for a very long time. Let’s honor our history as we exercise our right to vote. Vote in every election, and let’s all remember what it took to get to where we are.
Mary Ricketson makes her home in Cherokee County. She is a licensed clinical mental health counselor in private practice in Murphy. She has a special interest in women’s issues.