League of Women Voters celebrates Women’s Equality Day
Special to The Messenger
On Thursday the League of Women Voters, the Southeastern Institute for Women in Politics and partner organizations sponsored a walk from the front of the S.C. Statehouse to the second floor lobby for a brief program and press conference to celebrate Women’s Equality Day.
The event’s theme was a call for all S.C. citizens to “Ask a Woman to Register, Vote and Serve!”
The program included a proclamation by the Women’s Legislative Caucus. Local and state women elected officials and appointees, past and present, were recognized. A request also went out to every citizen to do three things in the next 12 months: (1) Hold, or assist with, at lease one voter registration drive; (2) invite every woman to register and vote; (3) create “Voting Buddies” and ride together to the polls every election.
A goal of 20,000 new women voters by the end of 2011 has been set by the league and partners.
The plan outlines how everyone can reach out to more women to become more involved in the political process, inspire more women to run for public office and encourage more women to vote for qualified women candidates.
Women’s Equality Day was established by a Joint Resolution of Congress in 1971 and Aug. 26 was designated to commemorate the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote.
Although the struggle to win the right to vote began in the 1800’s, the 19th Amendment wasn’t passed by Congress until 1919 and did not gain the necessary three-fourth’s approval by the states until Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment in 1920.
Five Southern states (Georgia, North Carolina, Louisiana, South Carolina and Mississippi) clung to their pasts with furor. South Carolina did not ratify the 19th Amendment until July 1, 1969, and the ratification was not finally certified until Aug. 22, 1973. Once again, South Carolina was saved by Mississippi’s ratification in 1984 from being the very last.
The league celebrates the many courageous women and men who fought to win this fundamental right and the progress toward equality for women that has been achieved since that time.
In South Carolina, on this 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, however, women do not exercise this hard fought right to vote and hold public office in numbers representative of their presence in the general population.
Women make up 51.3 percent of the population, 55.3 percent of registered voters, and, in 2008, cast 56.3 percent of the total vote.
Despite being a majority in all these areas, women continue to be underrepresented in almost all levels of government, especially state government.
Currently, there are no women members of the S.C. Senate and only 16 women (13 percent) in the 124 membership of the House.