Women’s Right to Vote Only First Step

On December 1, the “suffragettes” of North Dakota met at the State Heritage Center to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920 giving women the right to vote. It was a long time in coming. Too long.

Historians mark the beginning of the women’s suffrage campaign at a meeting in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848 when 300 attended a convention “to discuss the social, civil and religious rights of women”.

It was a long, tedious fight, full of frustration and male animosity.

After the Civil War (which was not very civil) and the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to give black men the right to vote, women questioned the fairness of giving African-Americans men the right to vote but not white women. So interracial arguments stalled the movement.

Around the turn of the 1900s, women’s right to vote became enmeshed in the battle over alcohol, an issue in the forefront for many women whose husbands stopped at the pub on the way home from work and have nothing left for bread and shoes for the kids. That made men dubious about giving women more power in society.

In 1912, Teddy Roosevelt and his rump Bull Moose Party endorsed women’s right to vote. Several years later, President Woodrow Wilson joined them.

According to Expedia, Tennessee clinched passage of the Nineteenth Amendment with the necessary thirty-fourth vote after a brutal fight in the legislature.

All the while North Dakota was hardly a leading advocate for women. The 1889 constitutional convention granted them the right to vote for only school offices. In March of 1920, the voters approved baseball on Sunday but denied women use of the absentee ballot.

On the issue of granting full voting rights to women in the November, 1914 election, North Dakotans voted “No” by a vote of 45 percent in favor and 55 percent against.

In November, 1920, one would think that there was a radical change of heart in North Dakota with the approval of the Nineteenth Amendment by a vote of 69 percent “yes” and 31 percent “no”. North Dakota voters just saw which way the wind was blowing and joined the crowd.

Let’s take another look at the purpose for which the Seneca convention was called in 1848: “…to discuss the social, civil and religious rights of women.” With the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, the goal was met as far as social and civil rights were concerned but what has happened to the religious rights of women? Not much.

Over the past few months, I have been spending a lot of time analyzing data and opinions relating to the subjection of women in Christian denominations. It has made me a feminist.

When it comes to the roles of women in churches, the issue becomes different than the secular argument for equality in the workplace. God has to be taken into account.

Equality in the church means the qualifications to serve in any role available to men. In this regard, the Catholic and Baptist Churches tend to be most oppressive. They stand adamant on keeping women out of the pulpit.

The most common defense is the statement by Paul in First Corinthians that women should sit down and be quiet in church. If they have questions, let them ask their husbands at home.

They have disregarded the culture within which the infant church had to survive in a hostile climate. The women in the TwentyFirst Century are not the women of the First Century. Their intelligence and competence will outshine men in many situations.

It may take another Seneca convention of Christian women from all denominations to move the agenda for women’s rights in religion

Lloyd Omdahl is a former North Dakota lieutenant governor and University of North Dakota political science professor.