On This Day in 1920...

Women FINALLY won the right to vote!

Today is the anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which on August 26, 1920 granted women the right to vote. It had been a battle waging for over 100 years, led by brave, strong, resilient women to whom we owe so much.

On this day 88 years ago, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify. A Nashvillian named Harry Burn (the youngest member of the TN legislature) broke the tie with a "yea" vote for women. The legislators had come decked out in their colors: the Suffragists wore yellow roses, the Anti-Suffragists red. Well, Harry came wearing red, but voted in opposition to the color because of a telegram he had tucked in his suit pocket--one from his MOTHER, urging him to back the women.

If you're interested, the full article is here: http://www.blueshoenashville.com/suffragehistory.html

Some of the arguments against women's suffrage included:
- Women are emotional creatures, incapable of making sound political decisions.
- If women become involved in politics, they will stop marrying and having children, and the human race will die out.
- Most women do not want the vote.
- Women are already represented by their husbands.
- Women are too "precious and innocent" to become embroiled in public life.
- The physcial nature of women "unfits them for direct competition with men."

Last night Michelle Obama thanked Hilary Clinton for putting "18 million cracks in the glass ceiling." Well, she is certainly only one of many, including all our mothers, aunts, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and more. Hopefully we've all had a woman in our lives who urged us to speak with our own unique voice, to know without a doubt that the whole of our worth is most definitely NOT determined by our sex.

We've come along way, baby--but we've still got a long way to go. Currently, women earn only 76 or 77 cents to the man's dollar, for the same job. Equal work for equal pay is a dream that still has yet to be realized.

Rock on, sisters.

* Photos borrowed from www.womenshistory.about.com.

Backpacking in the Shining Rock Wilderness

Spent a glorious overnight with my fabulous friend Liddell, and dog Scout, in the Shining Rock Wilderness Area of western North Carolina--a pristine lay of mountainous land accessible from the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We hiked out from the Black Balsalm parking "lot" on Saturday morning, and headed 6 miles or more into Shining Rock, where we found a beaut of a campsite in an enchanted glen. We ate mac-in-cheese, woke to chill and mist, played on huge blocks of white quartzite, and had a great time. We hiked back out on Sunday, ran into a group of High Rocks Fall campers with an old friend of ours as their guide, and headed home in different directions. Scout and I spent Sunday on the same couch, sore and happy.

As Liddell likes to say, "We are good at life. We are definitely winning."