speech on woman and their fight for equality
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I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to speak with you today on this occasion of Women's Equality Day. This is an opportunity to honor one of the most significant events in the history of our nation - women receiving the right to vote. Women's suffrage was a huge step in the movement for women's equality.
In the words of Maureen Reagan, daughter of president Ronald Reagan, "I will feel equality has arrived when we can elect to office women who are as incompetent as some of the men who are already there." Women's Equality Day commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Before that, it's hard to imagine, but women could not participate in one of the most basic freedoms we have. It's the right to make your voice heard. Half of the people in our nation were silenced and not allowed to participate in making decisions for our democracy. It's truly shocking to imagine today.
Before we get into that, I want to make it a little more realistic for all of us sitting here. I want to go back to the beginnings of our nation and review who was allowed to vote historically. Do you think you were included? Many of us, I would even say most of us, would not have been allowed to vote in the early days when we were a young nation still figuring out how we would build our democracy. If you will, I ask you to play along with me for a few minutes as we explore who would have been allowed to vote.
(NOTE TO SPEAKER - AT THIS POINT, YOU MAY ASK YOUR AUDIENCE TO PARTICIPATE BY STANDING OR BY RAISING THEIR HANDS OR SIMPLY READ THEM THE INFORMATION).
Everyone please put your hands up. Go ahead and put them up high so we can see. We're going to pretend the people here today are going to elect the next president, and the only ones allowed to vote are the people who could have voted in early America. Let's get started.
If you are younger than twenty one, please put your hand down. You would not be able to vote.
If you are a woman, please put your hand down. You would not have been allowed to vote.
If you are of any other racial background other than white, please put down your hand. You would not be allowed to vote.
If you do not own the land your home stands on, and I don't mean if the bank owns it! If you personally do not own land, please put your hand down. You would not be allowed to vote.
Finally, if you have ever been judged criminally insane, you can put your hand down. (PAUSE FOR LAUGHTER) You would not be allowed to vote.
Thank you, you can all put your hands down. Only the people with their hands up until the end could have voted if we were in early America - Only white, wealthy males over 21. In fact, in the first election at Jamestown, only six percent of the people were allowed to vote! Imagine if that was still the case in America today - if six percent of the population decided our fate and ninety four percent of the citizens were excluded from voting. We would have a very different country.
Thank goodness that's not the case. America has gotten greater with time as we have extended the vote to more people and recognized that freedom and inclusion are part of our strength. But women's right to vote didn't come easily, just like drastic social change never comes easily. The women's suffrage movement had its formal beginnings in the first women's rights convention in 1848 at Seneca Falls, N