Today is the 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment.
I am going to celebrate it by quoting one of my ancestors, Ms. Lydia Jane Pierson.
“We sometimes hear men, advocating the cause of woman, talk of elevating and educating her, as if she must receive all things at his hand. We only ask to be allowed to enjoy the common gifts of Heaven. We have no patience with the phrenologist, who attempts to establish woman’s inferiority by pretending a difference of formation in the heads of males and females. — That such teaching is libelous, any person can convince himself by noticing the heads of those around him; especially let him go into a school of young children. We know that he will find no one distinguishing, general characteristic. This assumption of phrenology has made the whole science false and contemptible in my estimation. Women have heads as large, in proportion to the size of their persons, as men have; and until it shall be proved that the ox is more intelligent than a dog, because he is larger, we will never believe that man is wiser than woman because he has more bulk of flesh, blood and bones.”
–Letter to the Ohio Women’s Convention, April 19th, 1850
I am a woman and I like to vote.