Sunday, August 24, 2008

Canadian Women Given Right to Vote in 1918

Because I never took advantage of a complete education and because my choice of reading matter is psycho-crime, there's much history that still comes as a surprise to me. The fact that women were not allowed to vote in Canada until 1918 (in Quebec it wasn't until 1940) boggles the mind.

I'm a female and have always known we have to fight harder and longer just to establish basic rights. Men rule the world...today...but it won't always be so and the sooner the better. People of color have been held back because the people in power wanted to hold on to that power as long as they could. The same cruel and unfair laws apply to the way women have been held back.

When I was a young woman I had been brainwashed to firmly believe that women doing the same job as a man should be paid less. My, how times and attitudes have changed. And it was all started by a small group of women somewhere who had begun to think for themselves and realized the total unfairness of society at that time. And they had the courage to speak up and try to change things.

As far as I know, there is only one area that men can excel over women and that is in physical strength. Women carry other strengths, though, and the ultimate one is that we can bear children. There was a freaky story lately about a man who was pregnant but it turned out that the man was actually born a woman who had a sex change. Ewww! We shouldn't be fiddling around too much with nature.

My mother was born in the year that women were given the vote in Canada (except Quebec). I was born in the year that Quebec women were given the right to vote. It all seems archaic that there ever was a time women were so terribly suppressed and it makes me all the prouder of how far women have come in such a relatively short time.

Real men have discovered that women are an asset and deserving of respect. Real women should never settle for less. That's what I've taught my daughters, my granddaughters, and my grandsons.



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