Why Hillary’s Nomination Belongs to All Women: Past, Present and Future
Andrea Dew Steele
President and Founder, Emerge America
Watching Hillary Clinton accept the nomination for President of the United States last week was one of the greatest thrills of my life. As the President and Founder of Emerge America, I spend every single day working to elect more Democratic women. That one has risen to lead the party - and hopefully come November, our country - means more to me than I can put into words. When I look to my colleagues, many of whom have dedicated their careers to the advancement of women in politics, I know they share my overwhelming emotion. In many ways, this moment feels like ours.
In the days that have followed Hillary’s acceptance speech, however, I’ve spent more time reflecting about what this means to other groups of women: to the fighting feminists who came long before us, and to all the young girls like my daughters, who already know with unquestionable certainty that women can do anything. When I think about the significance of Hillary’s nomination as a whole, I realize that it’s much bigger than me. It’s much bigger than one generation. This moment belongs to all women - past, present and future.
This moment belongs to the suffragettes, who labored for decades for the right to vote. Most of them never had the privilege to cast their vote at all, let alone to vote for another woman. The suffragettes understood that their movement was about more than voting. It was about ushering in an age where women could wield power, where they could gain equal rights in marriage, healthcare, property, education and the workforce. And when the age came where women could take their seat at the table, they began to shape a world where an abandoned teenaged housemaid could grow up to raise the first female nominee of a major party for president.
This moment belongs to my two daughters, Carmen and Gabrielle, and to all girls like them too. Their generation may not have been on the front lines of the suffragist movement, or known a world before Roe v. Wade, or watched as women like Shirley Chisholm, Geraldine Ferraro and Nancy Pelosi broke barriers. But last week, they watched Hillary Clinton shatter that highest glass ceiling. They will grow up in a world where “Madam President” is a realized title, not just a fantasy. To them, the image of leadership will be far more diverse. After all, in 2024 there could be 16-year-old American teenagers who have never had a white male president.
The United States still needs roughly 140,000 more women in elected office to reach gender parity in politics. And hopefully starting now and into the future when my daughters’ generation floods our political offices with women we can start making greater progress towards that goal. After all, my daughters might not have done all the work it took to get to last Thursday night. They might not even realize all the work it took to get to last Thursday night. But they will be the ones who take the torch from us and run with it - maybe even someday for president.
Read More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-dew-steele/why-hillarys-nomination-b_b_11321618.html?utm_hp_ref=elections-2016
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I know some have reservations on a woman POTUS. I don't. I think she will rock your world on what she will accomplice. And I mean that in the most positive way.
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We fought for our right to vote as women. You men never did. Well unless you were a black man. Sad women, black and white and black men weren't fighting as one back then. We were all looking for our civil rights. We are stronger together, we always will be.
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They wanted to take away our voice and our vote.
They want to control our bodies, their right not ours!!!! I say helll!!!!!!! NO!
Beyoncé says it far better than I do. She hates the GOP as well. She rocks.
We are one woman
WE ARE ONE AND WE SHALL SHINE.
Ya, I am yelling.
And I LOVE this thread.
Thank you for being here.
They 
Hope they get better soon. 
Methinks that some here still focus too much on their own anti-woman biases and projections. 
I live in a country that has had FIVE separate women presidents (one served two separate terms) since women finally received the vote here at a federal level in 1971. I do not find the article to be "weirdly" US-centric.
It is, if anything women-centric. I personally find it LONG past time for the US to join the world in showing that we do not simply pay lip service to women's equality! While it is true that other countries have beaten us to having a woman leader - with mixed results (here our women have been outstanding leaders and I am also a fan of Angela Merkel - not too impressed with either woman leader in the UK, however) - that does not diminish Hillary's accomplishment in the least. And will not when she is elected in November.
That may be my own pro-woman bias and projection. But I am hardly alone in that. 
The country in question in my case is Switzerland. !!!! http://history-switzerland.geschichte-schweiz.ch/chronology-womens-right-vote-switzerland.html
The French-speaking cantons began implementing the women's right to vote from 1959 on for local and cantonal elections - which is still late, but see below. As was the case with women's suffrage everywhere, a majority of courageous and enlightened men ultimately supported a woman's right to vote in the US. http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/women-recall-how-men-voted--yes-/29379110
But even in the US, having the right to vote and being able to exercise it involved ongoing struggles, especially for minority women. See., e.g., the situation of AA women: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_woman_suffrage_movement
Despite the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, African-American women, particularly those inhabiting Southern states, still faced a number of issues. At first, African-American women in the North were easily able to register to vote, and quite a few became actively involved in politics. One such woman was Annie Simms Banks who was chosen to serve as a delegate to Kentucky’s Republican Party in March 1920. White southerners took notice of African-American female activists organizing themselves for suffrage, and after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, African-American women's voter registration in Florida was higher than white women's. Because of white people's fears about them wielding political power, African-American women found themselves targeted by a number of disenfranchisement methods. These included having to wait in line for up to twelve hours to register to vote, pay head taxes, and undergo new tests. One of the new tests required that African-American women read and interpret the Constitution before being deemed eligible to vote. In the South, African-American women faced even more severe obstacles to voting. These obstacles included bodily harm and fabricated charges designed to land them in jail if they attempted to vote. This treatment of African-American women in the South continued up until the 1960s.
Native Americans form another minority group in the US that, like AAs, is STILL subject to strict voting rights laws - in fact, the last barriers to Native Americans voting finally tumbled in 1957. http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/jazz/jb_jazz_citizens_1.html
June 2, 1924
Native Americans have long struggled to retain their culture. Until 1924, Native Americans were not citizens of the United States. Many Native Americans had, and still have, separate nations within the U.S. on designated reservation land. But on June 2, 1924, Congress granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S. Yet even after the Indian Citizenship Act, some Native Americans weren't allowed to vote because the right to vote was governed by state law. Until 1957, some states barred Native Americans from voting.
But some states, e.g., ND and AZ, still have draconian requirements. Fortunately, ND's at least have now been blocked. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/federal-judge-blocks-n-dakotas-voter-id-law-calling-it-unfair-to-native-americans/2016/08/01/47a903e0-582c-11e6-9767-f6c947fd0cb8_story.html
For more info on NA voting rights, see http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/10/29/history-indian-voting-rights-and-why-its-important-vote-140373
Switzerland may have been late to the Women's Suffrage party. But the Swiss have made up for lost time since. They have instigated no barriers to voting for ANY Swiss citizens who are eligible to vote and women have been involved meaningfully in Swiss politics since 1971. Swiss women are as a rule more liberal than Swiss men, especially those men in southeastern Switzerland.
deals principally with women in the UK, I heartily recommend that anyone who has not seen it, do so immediately. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3077214/
Everyone will recognize in that film the same anti-women biases that we still see today. These women - whoever and wherever they were - were ALL heroes, every single one!
Some background on the real women who inspired the film: http://www.biography.com/news/suffragette-movie-history
Thanks for the OP, ss2!
. . .in various versions. . .
". . .the rising of the women means the rising of the race. . ."
". . .the rising of the women means the rising of us all. . ."
". . .the rising of the women lifts up the human race. . ."
ETC.
