Do you know what tomorrow is ?

[Lunabelle]

Ninety one years ago, women were given the right to vote! Can you believe it has only been 91 years since the 19th amendment to the constitution was ratified? I can't believe there even needed to be an amendment.



http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/19th-amendment-adopted

[no_hypocrisy]

1. In 1980 I marched down Fifth Avenue with Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug,

and Betty Friedan to celebrate the 60th Anniversary.

[Kath1]

14. March

Thank you for being there... and being here! Steinem, Abzug
and Friedan are icons of women's rights.

[customerserviceguy]

2. It took till 1971

for women in Switzerland to get the vote, one year ahead of Bangaladesh.

[Lunabelle]

3. Wow. Switzerland?

And I thought they were light years ahead if us about things like this! :(

[happyslug]

6. That was only in certain rural Cantons, cantons that till then voted by sword count

What I mean by voting by Sword Count, is every one in the Canton would meet in one place and their vote would be taken, by voting yes by raising your sword upward, No by keeping the Sword in its scabbard. Since only men wore swords, only men could vote in those Cantons.

In most of Switzerland voting was done by ballot and in those Cantons women could vote. Please note the Voting by Sword could NEVER be a secret ballot and thus women knew how their fathers, husbands and Sons voted.

More on this tradition see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landsgemeinde

Only two Cantons still hold such mass meetings, and one of them only gave Women the right to vote in 1990:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appenzell_Innerrhoden

The granting permission for women to vote Nationally was done in an election in 1971, The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland ordered it for local elections in the last Canton that forbade women from voting in 1990.

http://www.votefraud.org/swiss_appenzell_vote.htm
http://history-switzerland.geschichte-schweiz.ch/chronology-womens-right-vote-switzerland.html

[customerserviceguy]

8. And in Wyoming

women could vote in 1869. I guess the rural US is different from rural Switzerland.

[happyslug]

10. Rural US of 1869 is different from the Rural US of Today

The Progressive wing of the Democratic party in the 1890s to the 1930s was based in the Rural South and West (Yes, the areas most GOP today). The main reason was as long as the US had small farmers, they tended to be Progressives. As the we turned to Corporate Farms, and rural areas lost population, they tended to turn Conservative and the GOP.

The areas of GOP greatest strength was New England, the American North AND the urban areas (Some exceptions, the Democratic Party was a opposition party that could get elected in New York City, Chicago and a few other cities, but in most urban areas the population was solidly GOP and even in New York and Chicago the GOP was the stronger of the two parties (less so in New York City, more so in Chicago, remember I am talking of the 1868 to 1930 era NOT today).

The parties have almost switched positions since the 1800s, many ways do to the urbanization of the US (The 1920 census was the first census where more Americans lived in Urban area then in Rural areas, today the numbers tend to be 1/3 urban, 1/3 suburban, 1/3 rural). The GOP ignored the workers in the Inner cities, just assumed they would vote for them, and when the working class started to vote Democratic with FDR, the GOP became in effect the minority party in the US. A similar situation occurred with the African American Population, solidly GOP from the Civil War till the 1930s (with about a 1/3 of African American voters voting for Nixon in 1960, through much lower percentage in races when FDR and Truman were involved, Truman almost received 90%$ of the African American Vote, a shocker at the time for he was from the South).

Things change, but as you see with the African American vote for Nixon in 1960 at times slowly. The Rural North is about to turn Democratic, its heart is still with the GOP for that who the Rural North has supported since the 1860s, but is slowly falling away from its first love, the GOP.

A similar situation occurred in the Rural South since the 1940s, It was solidly Democratic in the 1930s, but as the Democratic Party embraced Civil Rights the Rural South turned to the GOP. This was a slow process, for example Humphrey in 1968, while losing to Nixon, won Texas for example, afterward Texas became a GOP stronghold. In much of the rural south the Democratic Party is still the stronger of the two parties when it comes to local election (Alabama for example only elected its first GOP controlled Legislature since the reconstruction era of 1868-1876 in 2010. These rural southern local Democrats tend to be conservative but it shows that people do NOT like changing parties with out good cause. While the South has switched parties in National Elections, Governor elections, and in its growing urban areas, the rural south still prefer Democrats over Republicans.

Just a observation that it will take decades for the party switch to be complete, but I see the Rural North, New England and the Midwest (Pittsburgh to the Dakotas) to turn solidly Democratic even in its Rural Areas. The GOP will continue to make inroads in the American South, but no change on the National level (With much of the rural South staying Democratic do to opposition to the Suburban based GOP of today's south).

[iverglas]

16. sorry, but that's false

Women in Switzerland did not gain the vote federally until 1971.

The last canton to "grant" women the vote was forced to do so by the Federal Supreme Court in 1991.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage#Switzerland

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/7/newsid_2738000/2738475.stm

1971: Swiss women get the vote

Swiss women can now vote in federal elections and stand for parliament after a national referendum.

The official result shows 621,403 of the all-male electorate supported the vote for women and 323,596 were against.

All of the Swiss political parties, both houses of parliament, and many church and business leaders supported the vote for women.

... The poll was almost a complete reversal of a 1959 referendum, when women were refused the federal vote by a 2-1 majority.

... But out of 25 of the country's administrative regions, only five cantons and three half-cantons voted against universal female suffrage.

... At home, men retain control of their wives' property and capital, and the husband has the right to decide where he and his wife will reside. <in 1971, I assume?>

[happyslug]

7. But is at least one Rural Canton, women could NOT vote till 1990

See my post above for details.

http://history-switzerland.geschichte-schweiz.ch/chronology-womens-right-vote-switzerland.html

[Suich]

4. "Women's Equality Day"

on my calendar!

[laconicsax]

5. Let's not forget:

Mississippi didn't ratify it until the '90s

[Quantess]

9. What? Are you serious?

[happyslug]

11. Once 2/3rds of the state have approved an Amendment, no further state action is needed.

For example, the Bill of Rights was not ratified by Massachusetts, Georgia and Connecticut, till 1939, but 2/3rds of the state ratified it in 1791. Why did Massachusetts, Georgia and Connecticut ratified the bill of Rights in 1939? The 150th anniversary of the passage by Congress of the Bill of Rights would be 1939, so those three states, which had been in the Union when the amendment was proposed, finally ratified it. Yes, officially the Bill of Rights did NOT become effective till 1791 when Virginia ratified the Bill of Rights but Congress had passed it in 1789 and sent the Bill of Rights to the States in 1789.

http://www.usconstitution.net/constamrat.html#BoR

As to Women's right to vote, Once Tennessee approved the amendment on August 18, 1920, it became part of the US Constitution. The subsequent ratification by
the following states had more to do with local in state politics then any real issue:
Maryland Mar 29, 1941
Virginia Feb 21, 1952
Alabama Sep 8, 1953
Florida May 13, 1969
South Carolina Jul 1, 1969
Georgia Feb 20, 1970
Louisiana Jun 11, 1970
North Carolina May 6, 1971
Mississippi Mar 22, 1984

http://www.usconstitution.net/constamrat.html#BoR

Please the note the following state REJECTED the Amendment, Georgia on Jul 24, 1919; by Alabama on Sep 22, 1919; by South Carolina on Jan 28, 1920; by Virginia on Feb 12, 1920; by Maryland on Feb 24, 1920; by Mississippi on Mar 29, 1920; by Delaware on Jun 2, 1920; and by Louisiana on Jul 1, 1920.

Most amendments are passed within a few years of Congressional approval, but it took from 1789 to 1992 to get 2/3rds of the states to approve what is now called the 27th Amendment (It was actually the Second amendment passed by Congress, the Bill of Rights followed, but the Bill of Rights were ratified almost soon afterward become the First through tenth amendments, while the proposed First and Second amendments lingered on for years).

What is now the 27th Amendment was ratified by several states in the early 1790s, by Ohio during a Congressional pay grab in 1873, but then took off on its own after Maine ratified it in 1983, finally getting 2/3rds vote in 1992.

Side note: the proposed first amendment governed the number of Congressmen per population, and that the number of Congressmen in Congress could NOT drop below a certain number once that number had been reached. It is now considered moot since we have 435 congressional members in the House.

The amendments passed by Congress but NEVER ratified:
http://www.usconstitution.net/constamfail.html

[happyslug]

12. You are wrong, it was in 1984.

See my previous post for details.

[laconicsax]

13. I stand corrected.

For some reason I thought it was in '95 or '96

[Book Lover]

15. Correction: Our right to vote was recognized

and for our sisters in New Jersey, their right to vote was *re*recognized:

"New Jersey, on confederation of the United States following the Revolutionary War, placed only one restriction on the general suffrage—the possession of at least £50 (about $7,800 adjusted for inflation) in cash or property.<3><4> In 1790, the law was revised to include women specifically, and in 1797 the election laws referred to a voter as "he or she".<19> Female voters became so objectionable to professional politicians, that in 1807 the law was revised to exclude them. Later, the 1844 constitution banned women voting, the 1947 one then allowed it—but, by 1947, all state constitutional provisions that barred women from voting had been rendered ineffective by the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage_in_the_United_States#New_Jersey

I don't mean to appear to disagree wit the importance of your post; I do feel it very important to use the right phrasing, though. Our rights are not given, they are recognized by whatever authority has hold over us at the time.