Suffrage? That’s bad right?
Unfortunately for many of the women shown above, women’s suffrage is a good thing. For those who aren’t clear, suffrage is the right to vote. Therefore, women’s suffrage is a law specifically stating that women have that right in the United States. As I was watching some of the accompanying videos of young men trying to get young women (and sometimes other young men) to sign petitions to end women’s suffrage, a few interesting thoughts came to my mind. It was honestly hard to choose which example to use. There seems to be a growing view in our society that the right to vote isn’t being taken seriously by most women today, especially the younger generation. After watching some of the video clips, I started to wonder if they were on to something.
For the sake of argument, it is possible that there was a misunderstanding of terms. I get the feeling a few people weren’t quite sure what was being asked. Suffrage? Suffering? Semantics — I get it. But the topic still raises issues. Aside from a few confused interviewees, the majority of the people in the video were asked several times to ponder the term, what it means and their thoughts on the issue. The results were still pretty scary. As informed women, especially like those shown in the video in a university setting, should we not be aware of the rights made possible for us so long ago? Granted, it has been a long time since women voting in this country has been an issue. But it also seems that for the younger generation of women today, voting is a right like any other that has always been there; almost taken for granted. How easily we forget the great strides made in women’s rights since the 1920s, that have afforded us so many of the rights we see today.
So this leads me to wonder, has voting become viewed as just a birth right rather than a liberty afforded to us long ago through no easy task? We often hear talk of the low voting statistics in this country and wonder where the passion has gone. With women making up more than half the population, as well as out-voting men in the 2004 presidential election, we should seize this opportunity to effect change in this country. It isn’t just a right we are born with; it is our duty as informed citizens.
women, voting, rights, suffrage
June 7th, 2007 at 7:26 am
One thing to keep in mind when viewing clips like that is that the interviewees are often selected to tell a certain ’side’ of the story (in this case, that women are uninformed). There are probably countless other people who were interviewed for this segment who gave fairly intelligent responses.
That said, research has consistently shown that all of the drives for the ‘youth vote’ are largely ineffective. They may register, but most don’t follow through with the action.
From talking with my students during last year’s midterm elections, many of them feel like they shouldn’t vote if they’re not informed (and we’ve already proven that many are quite uninformed!). Most of these students were women around 19 or 20. Most of the male students just said that their vote didn’t matter (keep in mind these comments are not representative, just my personal observation!).
The question then becomes when does someone become ‘informed’? Research has also shown that women are more likely to underestimate their level of political knowledge… so are we handicapping ourselves?
June 7th, 2007 at 9:11 am
You bring up a great point. Many of the videos that I viewed like there on YouTube were high school students and 99% of them gladly obliged the interviewer not stopping to listen and think about what he was asking. I chose this video because they did make a point show some of the women who knew what we being asked, were informed about the topic and even gave slightly intelligent answers. I think this video was about 50/50 with informed/uninformed interviewees. But if you look at that percentage, as well as your example of the students in your class, we are faced with the dilemma of making sure our youth votes are informed if we want them to participate in the democratic process.