Learning About Suffrage

Iowa women reflect on what they remember when learning about the women’s suffrage movement for the first time and why it’s important to study it.

Transcript

I think my thought was, well, why would they keep women from voting? They have opinions too.

In Our Own Words: Learning About Suffrage

What do you remember feeling when learning about the women’s suffrage movement?

I remember being really intrigued by it.

It kind of made me feel, I respected women a lot more.

I was kind of angry that there was so much opposition to the idea. It made me kind of mad that people didn’t want women to vote.

I was shocked that it took so long…. You sort of say, isn’t this a no-brainer? How can we be a democracy and say half the nation can’t vote?

Well, when you look back on it, you think, why the heck did it take so long? You know? But I guess in a society that is set up so that the power was in the hands of the male part of the population, it's understandable because there would be a lot of pushback about giving power up.

They had such a strong connection with the world around them and they worked so hard to get us the right to vote so I think it’s important that we learn about them and what they went through just so we can really appreciate what we have now today.

Considering this is an issue that is still super prevalent, it’s important to learn about the women’s suffrage movement, women’s history and appreciate their struggle but also use the same tactics and leadership to be able to inspire our current and future movements.

If I didn’t know about the suffrage movement and feminism, I don’t know if I’d be as involved or as interested as I am today.

The other important reason to study the suffragists is out of gratitude, right? Because the way our society is today, the opportunities that that women have, they open the door for so much of that through their commitment and dedication over a century. Really to bring about securing the right to vote and the right to vote, it is not the end all be all. But it's an important start. And to have that fundamental right enshrined in our constitution, came about because of, because of their dedication. And so I look back today and I think about the incredible opportunities that I've had in my life, the opportunities that my daughter will have and you know, we'd be remiss to not recognize the connection to the work of those who came before.

How long ago does the fight for women’s suffrage seem?

To me it feels like something that didn’t happen long ago… A hundred years, to me that does not seem like that long ago. It really seems recent. Like a hundred years ago women were really fighting to have something that I have now.

It still feels like a really prominent issue now. And maybe not in the same way, you know we’re not fighting for the right to vote but women are still super underrepresented in political office, there’s lots of discrimination and harassment that still persists.

In a sense, it seems like it was eons ago, but in another sense, when you see what those women were asking for, it could’ve been 20 years ago, you know. Because while we’ve come an incredibly long way, there’s still a lot of things that haven’t been done yet.