LJ Idol - Week 16 - Reinventing the Wheel
There's a saying that many people from my generation were introduced to modified as a joke: If it's not Baroque, don't fix it! The reality in the hidden wisdom that Cogsworth shared with me has always stuck with me. If something isn't broken, don't fix it.
Those of us familiar with U.S. History know that in 1920, with the ratification of the 19th amendment to the constitution, women earned the right to vote. What few people know is that this isn't exactly true. A subtle difference, but the truth is that in 1920, women won back the right to vote. You see, until 1777, women had the right. That year, New York revoked the right of women to have a say in government. Other states soon followed, and in 1787, the Constitutional Convention decided that the regulation of qualifications for a voter were up to each state. In 1807, New Jersey, the last state to hold out, took away their women's right to vote.
Please, tell me what was so broken with the system in 1777 that the only fix was to declare women as non-citizens of the United States of America and strip away their right to vote? Reasons thrown about included the idea that women are ruled by their emotions, that women aren't educated enough to understand the issues, and that women will simply vote the way their husbands tell them, and so double one man's vote unfairly. All hold very little weight in reality. The truth is that nothing was broken.
Thankfully, 143 years later, women were able to fix what men had broken, bringing back the rights and responsibilities women had since the beginning of our nation. The radical change we brought about through the years of women's suffrage wasn't a total reinvention of who is a citizen and a voter. All we did was reinstate what had already worked just fine before they broke it.
Those of us familiar with U.S. History know that in 1920, with the ratification of the 19th amendment to the constitution, women earned the right to vote. What few people know is that this isn't exactly true. A subtle difference, but the truth is that in 1920, women won back the right to vote. You see, until 1777, women had the right. That year, New York revoked the right of women to have a say in government. Other states soon followed, and in 1787, the Constitutional Convention decided that the regulation of qualifications for a voter were up to each state. In 1807, New Jersey, the last state to hold out, took away their women's right to vote.
Please, tell me what was so broken with the system in 1777 that the only fix was to declare women as non-citizens of the United States of America and strip away their right to vote? Reasons thrown about included the idea that women are ruled by their emotions, that women aren't educated enough to understand the issues, and that women will simply vote the way their husbands tell them, and so double one man's vote unfairly. All hold very little weight in reality. The truth is that nothing was broken.
Thankfully, 143 years later, women were able to fix what men had broken, bringing back the rights and responsibilities women had since the beginning of our nation. The radical change we brought about through the years of women's suffrage wasn't a total reinvention of who is a citizen and a voter. All we did was reinstate what had already worked just fine before they broke it.