WOMEN’S EQUALITY DAY EDITORIAL from The Tennessean Newspaper, by Sandra Bennett, August, 2008

August 26th is National Women’s Equality Day, an opportunity to reflect on and salute the women who worked so tirelessly to give the women of today the right to vote.  The work began in Senaca Falls, New York in 1848 and ended right here in Tennessee on August 18, 1920.

Picture Tennessee in July and August of 1920, a time when we typically reach our highest temperatures.  Now picture these months with no air conditioning  Picture the women who came to our state capitol in 1920 to fight for the right to vote.  They wore ankle length dresses buttoned to their chin and a hat and gloves, which were the fashion of the day.

Think about the circumstances under which these women worked.  Besides not having air conditioning, there were no computers; no internet; no cell phones; no fax machines and, in fact there were very few telephones, especially in rural areas.  Communication was done through letter writing and telegrams.  Trains were the mass transit of the day and while the popularity of automobiles was growing, many people were still using wagons and buggies.

Carrie Chapman Catt, the national leader of the National American Woman Suffragist Association came to Nashville, Tennessee in mid-July of 1920.  She described it this way:  “The southern summer heat was merciless, and many legislators lived in remote villages or on farms, miles from any town.  Yet the women trailed these legislators by train, by motor, by wagons, and on foot, often in great discomfort.  They went without meals, were drenched by unexpected rains, and met with tire troubles, yet no women faltered.  I’ve been here a month.  It is hot, muggy, nasty and this last battle is desperate.  Even if we win, we who have been here will never remember it with anything but a shutter”.

These remarkable women endured hardships, made sacrifices and some spent entire lifetimes working to attain the right for women to vote.  And yet, right here in Tennessee, where the right for women to vote was won, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that of the 2,215,000 women in Tennessee who were eligible to vote in the 2004 Presidential Election, only 56% actually went to the polls.   That means there were 974,320 women in the State of Tennessee who did not exercise their right to vote in the 2004 Presidential election.

As we approach another important Presidential election in November, what better way to honor all the women who were in Nashville, Tennessee on August 18, 1920 than for every woman in Tennessee to make a pledge to exercise their right to vote in the upcoming election.  This is the least we can do ~ not only for them, but for ourselves.