On October 11 2016, FiveThirtyEight's editor-in-chief Nate Silver posted two comparative demographics predicting the 2016 US presidential election polls: one if women could vote, and one if women could not vote.
Donald Trump would win the poll without women voters.
Supporters of Donald Trump reacted immediately, posting tweets with the tag, "#repealthe19th", their main goal to take away women votes from the upcoming presidential election in order to get him elected. This hashtag soon became trending on Twitter, invoking a mix of passionate responses from citizens on both sides of the election.
A little bit of backstory to the 19th Amendment...
Before it became ratified on August 18, 1920, women had to lay nearly 70 years of groundwork to be able to vote. Sparks to the women's suffrage movement began in Seneca Falls, New York, where hundreds of women gathered under the direction of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott for one cause: gender equality. It was here where Stanton delivered the famous line, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal."
However, even after this flame was set on American soil, the women's suffrage movement had been set back by other political events. For example, around the mid-1800s, they shifted focus on supporting the civil rights movement during the Civil War. While their support proved to be valuable to African-Americans in the end, women suffragettes sacrificed the momentum of their own fight to aid this other social reform.
In the 1890s, the National American Woman Suffrage Association was formed and led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. They emphasized the importance of women's role in society as well as "maternal commonwealth", which called to expand female spheres of influence in the community. The role of women became especially vital during World War I, influencing many to advocate more for women's suffrage.
Finally, around the late 19th and early 20th century, states (Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and Idaho being some of the very first) began to allow women to vote, and in 1920, the 19th amendment was finally ratified in the US Constitution.
Today, supporters of Donald Trump are willing to erase centuries of hard work in order to get their candidate elected. Though they are actively advocating for their candidate, I personally feel like it would be extremely offensive to those who worked tirelessly to help America move forward into becoming a better country. Women are a huge part of society today- an vital part, nonetheless. By wrongly taking away women's votes, America would be committing a crime that would perpetuate us further and further into the past.
FiveThirtyEight's editor-in-chief Nate Silver posted this graphic on Twitter on October 11, 2016
http://fivethirtyeight.com/politics/
Very interesting post! I found a New York Times article that interestingly tracks the voting preferences of various groups (including men and women) over time. It's interesting to see the partisan sways amongst different subgroups of American society. I think it's important to understand the backstory of things such as #repealthe19th, and ensure that we are not sensationalizing these stories. As the Washington Post reports, the hashtag was driven more by itself than by its genuine far-right supporters.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/10/13/yes-repealthe19th-trended-but-not-for-the-reasons-you-think/
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/elections/exit-poll-analysis.html?action=click&contentCollection=Election%202016®ion=Footer&module=WhatsNext&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&moduleDetail=undefined&pgtype=Multimedia
Thanks for sharing these articles! I agree that we should not over-sensationalize these stories- it can be dangerous to dramatize these kinds of trends and give it enough momentum to cause serious damage within society. Just curious, what do you mean by the idea that "...the hashtag was driven more by itself..."? Was the hashtag driven by the outrage of others who were opposed to the idea of repealing the 19th amendment?
DeleteThis is a very interesting post. It's intriguing that people would actually want to take away the right to vote from deserving classes, which as you said these people have worked many years to earn. If the 19th Amendment were repealed, though, then who or what would stop it from creating more barriers? Would that mean that only males could vote, so none of the other self identified genders? I feel that if people had the power to take away the vote based on gender, then they would also have the power to take away the vote based on class, ethnicity, etc. Overall, repealing the 19th Amendment is a very bad idea because it takes down the ideals of what America was founded upon.
ReplyDelete