Today's good thing was brought to my attention by a friend's facebook post. She works at Chase Law School and posted a group picture of the graduating class of 1921 with the following observation: When the two women pictured above started law school in 1919, it was illegal for them to vote. Imagine that!
What extraordinary women they must have been. I wonder if they were supported by their families -- they certainly weren't supported by their culture. I wonder what their friends thought. They took the bold step of studying for the legal profession and yet they were forbidden to take part in the political process. And this was less than 100 years ago.
I remember learning about the fight for women's sufferage when I was a teenager and eagerly asking my grandmother, who lived through it, what it was like. The answer was disappointing. She didn't really pay attention to things like that. She was more interested in nail polish and romance novels. I expect there are a lot of women like her -- then and now.
I'm hardly an activist myself. I think politics is a dirty dirty business and I stay as far away from it as I can. It's hard to support any politician when you make the assumption that ALL of them are lying to you and are ultimately working for their own interests.
At heart, I'm a Libertarian. I don't want anyone to tell me what to do and I don't want to control anyone else. Live and let live as long as you don't hurt anyone else. Government regulation and the tax code have become tyrants that overshadow everyone's lives. Government surveillance and misinformation remind me, shockingly, of what I was brought up to believe were the characteristics of the Soviet Union during the cold war.
So, I guess I do have strong feelings about politics. Maybe I need to be more like the women pictured above and act on my beliefs.
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