Happy 200th Birthday Elizabeth Cady Stanton!
Happy Birthday Elizabeth Cady Stanton. You are 200 years young! Born on November 12, 1815, you were the mother of the suffragist movement and a pioneer for all women’s rights. You’re great but I have to wonder what you spent all your birthday wishes on cuz we’re still fighting for some of the same damn things you were!
It’s unfortunate to tell you Elizabeth that despite trying to be the first women ever to run for US House of Representatives, Congress is only made up of 17% of women today. Our right to control our own bodies is still up for debate. Many of us are denied the right to marry each other. We make up a slight majority of the workforce but are underpaid compared to men by 23%. And very few up us are ever chosen for positions of executive leadership within Fortune 500 companies. Not to mention, how much reality TV and pop culture is setting us back. The basic civil rights Western women enjoy are seldom experienced in developing nations. Most girls in those areas barely get an education and it’s estimated that 50 million girls under the age of 17 in developing countries are married; millions more are at risk of being forced into child marriages.
So before you blow out those 200 birthday candles in that pie in the sky, we would really appreciate it if you donated that wish to us women. We could use a little more help to reach equality. We could use more ladies like you willing to fight for our cause. And we could really benefit from, at least, the extinction of the high heel and painful bikini waxing. We, ladies, sure would appreciate any help you can send out way. Happy Birthday Elizabeth Cady Stanton, until next November 12 we’ll be thinking of you and continuing your cause.
To read more about Elizabeth Cady Stanton online at The Progressive click here.
To read more about where women’s equality stands today click here.
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Just a quick fyi that you have posted a picture of Susan B. Anthony, not Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Look up photos of Stanton; they are easy to find. Stanton and Anthony were very good friends, Stanton a stout, matronly woman with eight children, and Anthony a slender and dark-haired single woman. The two women could not be more different looking than one another, but they shared many ideals.
OOPS… I was in error in my last post… The photograph is of CLARA BARTON, not Susan B. Anthony (although it looks more like her than Stanton).
Darla – It has been fixed! Thanks