100 years of suffrage : women’s journey to the ballot box
Voilà cent ans que les Américaines ont obtenu le droit de vote (ballot box urne)
Le combat des Américaines pour le droit de vote.
Elles s'appelaient Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony ou Elisabeth Cady Stanto. Grâce à elles, et à des milliers d'autres militantes, les Américaines ont obtenu le droit de vote il y a exactement 100 ans, en 1920. Retour, en compagnie d'un professeur d’université, sur l'histoire de conquête du suffrage universel...
It is incredible to me that any woman should consider the fight for full equality won. It has just begun.” - Alice Paul, 1920 2. The year 2020 was the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment which gave women the right to vote. In a proclamation, Donald Trump wrote: “We remember the trailblazers like Susan B. Anthony who worked tirelessly to achieve a more just and equal United States, and we recognize the myriad ways in which women contribute to our society and strengthen our country.” The previous day, Trump issued a pardon to Susan B. Anthony, one of the suffrage movement's leaders, who had been convicted of voting for Ulysses S. Grant illegally in 1872.
3. County Commissioner Carla Arthaud shared her thoughts on the commemoration : “Today, more than 68 million women vote in elections thanks to the Susan B. Anthony amendment, which guaranteed women the right to vote. It is a very special day.”
4. Dr. Frank Varney, history professor at Dickinson State University, explains the role of women in society at the turn of the century. Suffrage for women, or the right to vote, was proposed to and defeated by a Congress ruled by men several times before it was granted.
4. at the turn of the century ici, au tournant du XXe siècle / to defeat ici, rejeter / to rule ici, dominer / several plusieurs / to grant accorder, adopter. 5. “People who have power never willingly give it up,” Varney said. “We see it in the feminist movement, the civil rights movement, and every other movement. People who control the system always seem to feel it's working, and with or without malice, they don't want to change it.”
6. Women weren't allowed to own property until 1848, and they themselves were considered property. “If a woman was married and her husband died, her oldest male child would become the owner of the property,” Varney said. “If you did own property – what you owned would become the property of your husband as soon as you got married, and he could dispose of it without your permission. If a woman did have a job outside the home – which very few did – her wages were
the property of her husband. As bad as we think things were ... they were probably even worse than a lot of us recognize. Women were property.”
7. The main argument made to women to prevent them from voting was that they were already represented through men, Varney explains : “Ladies, you don't need to vote. Your husband votes; your father votes; your brother votes, and they would certainly never vote in anything against your best interest because they care about you; therefore, you are represented,” Varney explained the argument. “I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense on the surface of it until you consider, of course, that you may not agree with those people, or you may not have them.”
8. Women gaining the right to vote did not suddenly make them equal to men, nor did it change some men's perspective of them. Varney recalls watching a special on the presidential election of Warren G. Harding, the 29th President of the United States. “Harding is generally listed up there with the worst of our presidents” Varney said. “I remember they said that the reason Mr. Harding got elected was it was the first election that women were allowed to vote in and they voted for Harding because he was handsome.”
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