I didn't want to vote today...but I did. And it came down to this: remembering the ladies from almost 100 years ago who fought like hell to put forth a law in which women could vote. And knowing my personality type -- full of spit-and-vinegar like the rest of them -- I would have been front row and center with them on this fight if I was alive back then.
Hey, maybe I was...in a last lifetime.
But in THIS lifetime, I at least owe them the respect and honor, especially on THIS election day, to vote because I know all of them would have voted today if given the chance.
I think what irritated me the most about this election, above everything else, was that short spurt of time recently when some of the pro-Trumpers were sending around a hashtag prompting interest in repealing the 19th Amendment since they realized that if only men were going to vote, Trump would win.
And somehow that disgusted me. I don't know why. Maybe it was that group of Deplorables who actually had the audacity to believe that they COULD repeal the 19th Amendment...or the mere fact that they thought women (and then minorities thereafter) SHOULD lose their right to vote.
It had me really thinking...WTF?! What have we become as a people...as a nation?
Even worse...yesterday Rose was describing to me that some of her female friends allowed their husbands to cast their mail-in votes FOR them instead of them exercising their right to vote themselves, for what they thought or believed in. When I heard that, I knew right then and there that I would be going out today to cast my ballot because, unlike some women who refuse to make their own decisions, I CAN make my own decisions because I actually OWN my own life!
People, what freaking CENTURY are we in anyway?? Some women quite possibly still think it's 1916 when their husband would make the decisions for both of them. Fast forward, ladies. We're in 2016 now. So...for those of you who don't want to think for yourselves yet, shame on you. Time to get your heads out of your asses. Vote. Buy your own house. Pick out and purchase your own car. Start your own business. You know, live your own life on your own terms and think for yourself if you're not quite doing that yet. You have POWER. Use it, my ladies! And use it well!
(Do I really need to go into detail about why I believe women need to be able to stand on their own two feet these days? Please don't make me go on that tirade.)
So, for those of you sitting on the fence wondering what to do...just think of the pioneers who fought at every turn to give us what we have now. Think of what they went through and the sacrifices they made, some with their lives.
Of course, I'll never know the depth of those sacrifices and the closest to my understanding about the women's-right-to-vote movement was a movie I saw on HBO years ago. But I think all of us can imagine what it could be like to fight for something we believe in, tooth-and-nail until the death if needed.
Unfortunately, many of us have gotten "soft" and lazy and perhaps a tad entitled-feeling about our rights and about what we have here in the United States. Stop feeling entitled. Stop being so lazy. Stop being disconnected from your fellow human beings.
And, in the very least, be grateful for where we've come from, what we have now, and what we could potentially and permanently lose for going in the wrong direction.
Or what we could lose casting the wrong vote.
Or for casting no vote at all.
See you at the top!
Your mentor,
Monica Main
