19th Amendment: Time to go further?
We at the Progress would like to present two slightly different spins on the 19th Amendment, which gave women the constitutional right to vote 88 years ago on August 26, 1920.
For your consideration:
Proposition of 28th Constitutional Amendment postponing male suffrage, among other things
The amendment to read as follows:
Any male citizen shall, until the presidential election of 2136, be disenfranchised of his right to vote in all elections, be they local, state or federal, as recompense for the 128 years running 1792 to 1920 during which time women were unable to formally guide the nation through election of its leaders.
Males will, however, be allowed to hold office at all levels of government.
(Note: If male leaders are inclined to engage in unpopular and undemocratic wars or to refuse to end like wars already underway, females will be asked to pull a Lysistrata, the lead female role in Aristophanes’ Greek anti-war drama, and refuse all amorous advances until troops are withdrawn.)
Ultimate Fighting Championships will be temporarily delayed, triple-stack burgers shall be removed from fast-food menus, and t-shirts reading God’s Gift to Women must be stored, buried in time capsules not to be reopened until 2136, at which time, owners’ descendents will be asked to retrieve the article and write an essay on the garment’s significance in the new American landscape, and to explain how that significance has changed since early 21st century America.
(Note: It is expected that many such shirts will go unclaimed. Those will be framed to be featured alongside trucker flaps adorned with full-figured chrome women as an installment in the Museum of Modern Art entitled MalEvolution: Look How Far We’ve Come, Ol’ Red, White and Blue.
No, fellas, it’s not exactly fair. But some evils are just plain necessary.
Let’s just think of the 28th Amendment as a way to give gender equality a kick in the rump by handing the nation’s yoke to the gals for a while. Imagine - fewer wars, more sex. It’s a win-win.
Show your support for the 28th Amendment by sending the Progress a letter of approval. Opponents need not respond.
19th Amendment: Time for repeal?
As a contrarian and editorialist at this anniversary of women's suffrage, I've been axed to call for repeal of the 19th Amendment, the one what gave women the vote in the first place. But in good conscience, I cain't. What if people was to actually listen and reverse the thing? Menfolks would never forgive me.
That's 'cause male liberation began with women's suffrage. A man's vote weren't his'n a-tall 'til his wife got one. Oh a single man could vote his conscience, I reckon––if he could find one. But that's aside the point. If you think I'm just a-funnin' 'bout this liberation talk, take a look at history.
With the 19th Amendment endorsed by the president in January 1918, the House approved it. But Senators stalled debate ‘til October, when it failed in the Senate by three votes. They’ve always been bad to pull that poop.
Well the ladies didn't like it much, and in that fall's elections, they got several cigar-chompin', chauvinist main-opposers voted out of office. When Congress reconvened in 1919 (the fresh and the repentant), you better believe they passed that sucker.
But it begs a fair question: How'd them women accomplish it afore they had the vote? Easy, I say. Let any wife call a strike on cookin' and smoochin', and given about a week, she could steer her votin’ man around like he had a rudder on his fanny.
If you think the secret ballot was any safeguard 'gainst that kind of coercion, forget about it. Networking with the barber's wife and the saloonkeeper's woman, sister suffragette was sure to hear how her man had declared hisself politically. Heaven help the boy if'n he hadn't come down on the side of the suffrage candidate.
I figure men findly supported the vote for women so they could have one of their own––a vote, I mean. They'd be through havin' to share one with their wife or votin' hers by proxy.
Truth is, a woman before suffrage (in the South, at least) was a gilded steel magnolia, the velvet glove of power and suasion back of a male figurehead. Why else is the woman always a-standin' round so stern-like with her chair-bound hubby all domestic and subdued lookin' in those Victorian struck-portraits?
Suffrage done changed all that, y'know. Now a woman can move to the fore and mire gloveless through the muck as good as any boss politician, a-flingin' mud and talkin' smack like a TV wrassler. You've come a long way, Baby.
“Both the great parties have failed. I wish we might have a woman's party now, and see how that would work.”
Some wild-haired trouble-maker penned that back in '73. It was 1873. Mark Twain's the one who said it. And The League of Women Voters gives us reason to hope.
But if after 88 years of votin' females, Ms. Clinton amounts yet to the best we can do, I say let's keep a-tryin. That's what I say.
Sincerely,
Jasper Pickens |
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