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HOW THE FEMALE VOTE HAS CHANGED AMERICAN POLITICS THEArticle by Sidney Seybold 19TH AMENDMENT Photos Courtesy of

This year, on August 18, 2020, the United male partners, considering there are millions Equal Credit Opportunity Act did not include In addition to legislation in Congress, the women to vote. Native Americans couldn’t This article is dedicated to the late Su- States celebrated the centennial of the ratifica- more of them voting. So what have they done sex or marital status in its nondiscrimina- has been an integral part of vote until much later, with Utah as the last preme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, tion of the 19th amendment, which granted with this political power? tion policy, so Congresswoman Lindy Boggs furthering women’s rights. In Reed v. Reed, state to allow them to vote in 1962. In ad- who died on , 2020 at the women the right to vote. Before its ratification, Since the passage of the 19th amendment amended the act to include those guidelines. the court ruled that women could not be paid dition, black women were subjected to poll age of 87. A pioneer for women’s rights, she women in 18 states, mostly in the west, had full and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, more wom- Senior Molly Halladay-Glynn attributes this less than men for the same job, upholding the taxes and intentionally unreasonable literacy fought to end sex-based discrimination and suffrage, 22 states had partial suffrage—mean- en have been elected to Congress, which has to the idea that women are better advocates precedent set by the Equal Pay Act. tests until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Even dedicated her life to creating the change ing women could vote in some elections—and subsequently created more legislation aiming for their own needs than men are for women’s The female vote has also played a role in today, voter suppression still exists for many she wanted to see in the world. Ginsburg eight states had no female suffrage. to improve the lives of women. Equal access to needs because of their personal experiences. the judiciary system. According to the Roper minorities and felons. has inspired the next generation to chal- For decades, women in many states, mostly credit, equal pay and fair health guidelines are “Even though men totally should still care Center for Public Opinion Research, in the Still, the election polls and the issues and lenge the status quo and to never give up in the southeast, had been kept out of the poll- just a few of the initiatives that women have about women’s rights, I feel like women under- 1992 presidential election, 45% of female vot- people on the ballot look very different to- on their dreams, no matter what obstacles ing stations. Anti-suffragists opposed suffrage pushed for in the last 100 years. stand more and therefore will fight harder for ers voted for , however just 38% day than they did just 100 years ago. In 2020 stand in their way. for various reasons. Many argued that women “All different kinds of women from women those types of ideas, and it’s just really import- voted for George H.W. Bush Sr. One year alone, the Center for American Women and didn’t want the vote and should be kept out in China to black women, Native women— ant to have a woman to represent us and to later, Clinton appointed Justice Ruth Bader Politics at states 584 wom- of politics, but one opinion in the early 20th everybody had their hat in the game on what fight harder for those issues,” Halladay-Glynn Ginsburg to the Supreme Court of the United en filed to run for Congress, and 261 will be century was that women would vote like their they needed to be able to get access to, and said. States, making her the second woman in US on the ballot this November, up from 234 in husbands and therefore make their vote point- the one way that people can make change is Furthermore, 15 female representatives cre- history to be on the Supreme Court. 2018. Although there is still much to be done less. through policy,” social studies teacher Tatiana ated the Women’s Caucus to focus on wom- As a justice, Ginsburg voted in favor of to achieve equality, great progress has been However, history has proven the anti-suf- McKinney said. “Being able to vote, it really en’s issues, such as in 1990, when they took women’s rights in cases like Young v. Unit- made by fearless leaders, especially by the lead- fragists wrong, as the female vote has become opens the door for you to be able to say I want on the National Institutes of Health for not ed Parcel Service, Inc., [UPS] which, as the ers of the women’s rights movement. very important. According to the Center for this candidate because they’re going to support using female test subjects. They wouldn’t even American Civil Liberties Union states, resulted “I am very very proud of our country and American Women and Politics at Rutgers Uni- women.” conduct research on female rats. Because of the in requiring “employers to provide pregnant the progress that we made,” social studies versity, in every major ethnic category, more For example, according to the lifestyle mag- caucus, later in 1993, the NIH Revitalization employees with the same on-the-job accom- teacher Robin Grenz said. “So we have women women have voted than men in every presi- azine Woman’s Day, before the Equal Credit Act of 1993 went into effect and stated that modations...as they do to other nonpregnant in politics. We have women in powerful po- dential election since 1964. In the 2016 elec- Opportunity Act of 1974, single women could “(A) women are included as subjects in each employees who are similar in their ability or sitions. We have women doctors and lawyers tion alone, 73.7 million women voted, while be denied credit cards, and married women project of such research; and (B) members of inability to work.” and justices, and I think that we should be only 63.8 million men did. Therefore, it is im- needed the approval of their husbands for minority groups are included as subjects in Finally, it’s important to note that the 19th proud of that progress.” possible to say that women only vote like their credit. According to , initially the such research.” amendment in practice only allowed white

Biographies’ Source: National Women’s History Museum

Ida B. Wells Mabel Ping-Hua Lee Susan B. Anthony

Ida B. Wells founded the Alpha Suffrage Chinese-American immigrant Mabel Ping- Susan B. Anthony was an abolitionist and Born a slave in 1797, Sojourner Truth gained Alice Paul dedicated her life to advancing the Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an abolitionist Club that taught Chicago women about the Hua Lee fought for women’s suffrage starting was friends with fellow suffragist Elizabeth freedom in 1827; she was a prominent aboli- political status of women, specifically through and pioneer of the women’s suffrage move- importance of voting. She also helped Illinois in her teenage years. She organized a suffrage Cady Stanton. The two gave speeches around tionist and women’s rights champion. Truth the 19th amendment and the Equal Rights ment. Stanton helped produce the Seneca women gain partial voting rights in 1913 parade in in 1912 and fought the U.S. about suffrage and founded the delivered speeches about slavery and women’s Amendment, which was never passed. Paul Falls Convention, the original women’s rights and marched with the Illinois delegation at for the voting rights of Chinese women, who American Equal Rights Association. Later rights. Her most famous one, “Ain’t I a Wom- created the National Women’s Party as well as convention, and wrote “The Declaration of a NAWSA suffrage parade in Washington were excluded from the 19th amendment due they started the National Woman Suffrage As- an?”, which she shared at a women’s rights organized marches and pickets outside of the Sentiments,” which modeled the Declaration D.C., despite being told to march in the back to the Chinese Exclusion Act. sociation to focus on passing a constitutional convention in 1851, outlined her experiences White House to pressure President Wilson of Independence and listed the grievances behind the white women. amendment for women’s suffrage. with gender and racial inequality. into supporting the 19th amendment. women had suffered from men.