Women’s Right to Vote
“Helen, honey, I’m finally home!” said my husband, John. Greeting him with a smile on my face, I thought to myself I was home all day. “After kissing me on the cheek, he said “Wow that smells great! What’s for dinner?” I pointed at the wooden table in the kitchen to the hot plate of beef stroganoff, his favorite. We set down and as he was telling me about his busy day at the Central Railroad, I nodded and grinned but my mind was somewhere else.
John stopped for a minute to chew his food when I said, “The presidential election is coming up, whom are you voting for?” He gulped down his food and looked at me as if it was none of my business and said “William McKinley of course! Why do you care?” I replied “Because I’m an American citizen just like you and women deserve the same rights as men, that is first and foremost the right to vote!” I said. Seeing how aggravated I was he slowly put his hand on mine and quietly said “Honey, I just think it would be the best for you to be comfortable at home and not have to worry about any of this. Your place is at home.” I shook my head, looked him straight in his green eyes and started tearing up. He had no idea how much this meant to me. “I have to obey the laws, yet I don’t have a voice in making them? It’s an important factor in life that I don’t have a part in just because of my sex? I can be a wife, mother, or sister but I don’t deserve this role in our society?”
It was in this very moment something changed in my husband. I honestly think that the thought of women voting had never crossed his mind. It was as though he had simply accepted things as they were, without giving it a second thought. Though he was a very firm man, he cared for me very much and seeing me this distraught moved him. As we set silently my hair fell down my fists and my tears dropped down and all of a sudden I felt a warm hug from my husband. Hugging me he said “I’m sorry for being so blinded all this time, I know you’re right, we are in this together.”