TOP 10 REASONS WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE - #1

- In the 90th anniversary year of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, is there any better way that we could celebrate - THAN TO VOTE !!!!!

TOP 10 REASONS WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE - #2

- despite arrests and violent treatment in prison, women continued to picket the White House during 1917, until President Woodrow Wilson agreed to support the "right to vote amendment." Remember these women and their courage. VOTE TOMORROW!

TOP 10 REASONS WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE - #3

- in a country where we can travel to the polls and vote in perfect safety, it is silly not to!

TOP 10 REASONS FOR WOMEN TO VOTE - #8

It is more fun than paying taxes! - of the 2 responsibilities we have as citizens.

TOP 10 REASONS WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE - #10

- It is a stake in YOUR future!

COURTED BY PRESIDENTS, Part 3

At the age of 2, Jane Addams lost her mother. At 4 she contracted tuberculosis of the spine, which caused a curvature in her spine and health problems the rest of her life. She was inspired by those who worked with the poor and wanted to be a doctor. After graduating from nearby Rockford Female Seminary at 21, her father died. The following fall, she along with her sister Alice, her husband and their step mother went to Philadelphia so the 3 young people could attend medical school. They only managed a year before the step mother’s health required them to return home.
The next year, her brother in law, already a doctor, did surgery to improve her spine. She traveled for 2 years and then returned home, struggling to find focus for her life. She strongly resisted the expectation that the role for all women was to marry and devote their lives to their family, as set forth by John Stuart Mill, in his book “The Subjection of Women.”
She'd had a nervous breakdown after her father’s death and at this point she struggled with depression. But reading had always given her strength. She became a Christian at 26, and set about exploring how religion and her interests might enable a life worthy of her. It took three years, but when she came home from Europe, she knew where her life was headed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Addams

COURTED BY PRESIDENTS, Part 1

An avid reader from childhood and scholar in many fields, Jane Addams, founder of Hull House in Chicago, was a Christian, an advocate for human rights, and could hold her own in local, national and international affairs.
“Addams worked with labor as well as other reform groups toward goals including the first juvenile-court law, tenement-house regulation, an eight-hour working day for women, factory inspection, and workers' compensation. She advocated research aimed at determining the causes of poverty and crime, and supported women's suffrage. She was a strong advocate of justice for immigrants and blacks, becoming a charter member of the NAACP. Among the projects that the members of the Hull House opened were the Immigrants' Protective League, the Juvenile Protective Association, the first juvenile court in the United States, and a Juvenile Psychopathic Clinic.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Addams

BALANCE IN MARRIAGE Part 1

In the 19th century, there was lots of tension and even fear among both men and women over the idea of changing the balance between men's and women's roles in marriage. Men feared the loss of control over their households and thus their lives. Women feared the freedom and thus the loss of structure, routine and ultimately security that might come with change.
So it was that women fighting for women's rights found themselves fighting against women as well as men. Perhaps some saw their less than equal lives as the price they had to pay for security and the right to be able to bring up their own children. It was not a legal foregone conclusion that their mother should care for them. Men had all the rights and final say over their children's lives and how they were raised. At the time there were cases of men, who could afford child care arrangements, throwing out their wives and preventing her children from seeing her ever again.

ANGELINA GRIMKE’S CONCERN

‘Sisters in Christ I feel an interest in you, and often has the secret prayer arisen on your behalf, Lord "open thou their eyes that they may see wondrous things out of thy Law"—It is then, because I do feel and do pray for you, . . .’
She was appealing to the better natures of southern women in the midst of a culture that more or less accepted slavery in her “APPEAL TO THE CHRISTIAN WOMEN OF THE SOUTH” a personal crusade she was waging in 1836. She joined her voice with her sister Sarah’s in a courageous effort.

http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abesaegat.html

VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965

On this day, 45 years ago, this passed into law. It was the culmination of years of struggle to enact the right to vote, for former slaves, first granted in the 15th Amendment in 1870.
Local and state authorities had used many ways to prevent or delay former slaves from voting. Law suits had not worked to open up the process and encourage voter registration. Following the murders surrounding the Selma to Montgomery March in Alabama, Congress found the will to overcome the opposition and bring this issue to become law. It took 95 years!

Our whole nation is better for having more of us involved in the voting process!

http://www.justice.gov/crt/voting/intro/intro_b.php

FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT OF 1850

This law enraged and at the same time made abolitionists fearful of being put in jail. Suddenly law enforcement personnel were required to aid the capture and return of all runaway slaves, or risk a $1000 fine. Any citizens providing food or shelter to fugitive slaves were also liable for a $1000 fine and 6 months in jail. It is said that this law inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Sojourner Truth and others considered it more of a nuisance, and made it a little more dangerous, but did not diminish their commitment to the cause of justice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_Slave_Act_of_1850

THE FEMALE WRITER – GEORGE SAND, 1804-1876

She lost the last of her family, her grandmother, and inherited her family fortune at 17. In the next year she was married and realized it was a mistake. Her husband took over all rights to her property. Like many women writers in this country, this English woman expressed her frustration and outrage at the injustice.
“Women are forced to lead a life of imbecility, and are blamed for doing so. If they are ignorant they are despised, if learned, mocked. In love they are reduced to the status of whores. As wives they are treated more as servants than companions. Men do not love them: they make use of them, they exploit them, and expect in that way, to make them subject to the law of fidelity.”
She expressed much of the bitterness and frustration felt by countless numbers both here and in England. Fortunately for her, she had the talent to support herself, despite the loss of her fortune to her husband.

SOME STEPS IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

So far, these posts have concentrated on how the documents written at the founding of our republic did not uphold the rights of all its citizens. But it was a starting place, and a foundation on which to work for better understanding.

For more than 200 years, God has prompted many to put their own liberty on the line in order that others might gain their own previously denied rights. Our whole nation has gained whenever those disenfranchised individuals are able to live lives of opportunity.

Peggy Gunness has described how liberty is a faith issue for those who believe in God. “…God needs us to be partners with Him in bringing this world and the peoples of this world to the fullness of life for which we were all created.”

We do not yet live in a perfect country, but I am thankful for any progress we have made so far!

http://www.explorefaith.org/chron_070200.html

HER HOME WAS A PRISON

Legally and culturally, women were tied to their homes. She had no rights of her own, and so could not make her own decisions. A woman was not allowed to do anything alone. She was always accompanied in public. Her freedom to converse with others had strict boundaries, and she was never allowed to speak in a public forum. This was a problem as the Seneca Falls Meeting was planned. These prohibitions had started to change in the 1840’s, but women had no experience speaking in public. Fortunately, they had male supporters like Frederick Douglass. And they had been successful in issues of social change like abolition. You can hear that dedication and passion for justice in Mrs. Stanton’s words from “The Declaration of Sentiments.” Imagine the courage it took to assert the idea that women should be involved in public issues, and more importantly tell women they had a stake in the issues.

“Resolved, therefore, that, being invested by the Creator with the same capabilities and same consciousness of responsibility for their exercise, it is demonstrably the right and duty of woman, equally with man, to promote every righteous cause by every righteous means; and especially in regard to the great subjects of morals and religion, it is self-evidently her right to participate with her brother in teaching them, both in private and in public, by writing and by speaking, by any instrumentalities proper to be used, and in any assemblies proper to be held; and this being a self-evident truth growing out of the divinely implanted principles of human nature, any custom or authority adverse to it, whether modern or wearing the hoary sanction of antiquity, is to be regarded as a self-evident falsehood, and at war with mankind.”

http://www.usconstitution.net/sentiments.html

PERSIA ABOLISHED SLAVERY IN 539 BC

Thanks to Cyrus the Great, slavery was ended and the captives were sent home to Israel. Cyrus even helped them rebuild their homeland. A replica of the stone cylinder where this edict was written hangs in the UN headquarters, as an example of an ancient act of human rights.
I would hope that modern day Iran and Israel would take note.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline

WOMEN COULD VOTE IN WYOMING TERRITORY

The first paragraph of the 14th Amendment would seem to grant rights to ALL citizens. However this is a federal document and the right to vote is up to the several states. Even though it says the states may not deprive anyone, they spent decades trying to do just that. Women found ways of exploiting local laws that did not prohibit their voting, until the laws were then changed. The Wisconsin Territory, however allowed women the vote in 1869. Colorado men voted in 1893 to allow women to vote. Utah and Idaho followed in 1895 and 96. Large groups of women worked in local communities and states to raise awareness and very slowly sentiments changed.
http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_Am14.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_women%27s_suffrage_in_the_United_States

DESIRE FOR LOVE AND ACCEPTANCE

Beyond anything else, we all have the basic need for love and acceptance from someone. For some of us, that need is fulfilled by God and the grace that is offered. But we also need recognition from people around us. When our basic human rights are not recognized by others, and more importantly not even by our own country, the heart and soul cries out for justice.
That may help us all understand why women joined the fight against slavery, and abolitionist men and women joined the fight for women’s rights!
It is this basic human need for acceptance that gay and lesbians folks desire from both their country and its citizens today.

http://www.deepspring.org/library_books/library_books_aaron/Aaron_32.html

OBERLIN COLLEGE – AFRICAN AMERICAN AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS

Oberlin was the first to regularly admit African American students in 1835 and women in 1837. Mary Jane Patterson was the first African American woman in 1862 to earn a B.A. degree.

The college was active in the Underground Railroad. In 1858 they were involved in the rescue of a fugitive slave that was nationally covered in the press.

Clearly the ministers that developed Oberlin College set up an institution with a passion for justice.

A RULE OF THUMB

A RULE OF THUMB - is a general principle that night be applied in many and varied situations based on experience. It may not work across the board.

The reason I include it here is because of a mistake. There is a widely held understanding that it refers to an English law which allowed a man to beat his wife with a stick no bigger than the mans thumb. THIS IS NOT TRUE. THERE NEVER WAS SUCH A LAW!

A satirical cartoon from 1783 seems to have fostered this huge misunderstanding. Since that time it has justified cruelty and bad judgement. We should all know that there is NO reason to abuse another person.

Its always important to do research and learn the truth. It turns out it does not mean what I and a lot of others thought. IT IS A MISTAKE THAT HAS BEEN PASSED ON SINCE 1783. YIKES!!!

Please share ths with friends and family.

PEACE

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/rule-of-thumb.html