So let me tell y’all a story. January 12, 1915—picture this. A bunch of dudes in the U.S. House of Representatives are sitting around, deciding whether women should get the right to vote. And surprise, surprise—they said “nope!” They couldn’t even give women a constitutional high-five. The vote didn’t get the two-thirds majority it needed, because 204 guys said, “Nah, we’re good,” while 174 were like, “Maybe we shouldn’t be jerks?” The jerks won that day.
But let me tell you, that “no” lit a fire. The suffragists said, “Oh, we’re not just gonna sit here and be polite about this. We’re gonna march, picket, and starve ourselves if we have to.” And they did. Alice Paul and her crew got real bold with it. They were like, “You’re gonna see us in the streets, you’re gonna see us outside your windows, and if we have to, you’re gonna see us in jail!” And after five more years of being loud and proud, they finally got the Nineteenth Amendment passed in 1920. That’s right—women officially got the right to vote. Cue the applause, right?
Hold your claps for a second, though. Because let me tell you who didn’t get to party when that amendment passed: women of color. Black women? Still fighting voter suppression. Native women? The government was like, “Are y’all even citizens?” (They weren’t, until 1924.) And let’s not forget our Asian and Hispanic sisters who got sidelined, too. It wasn’t until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that a lot of those barriers started coming down. So yeah, women could vote—but only if they made it through an obstacle course of racist nonsense.
And now here we are, 2025, and you’d think we’d be done fighting for basic rights, right? WRONG. Oh, you thought equality was a one-time purchase? Nah, it’s a subscription service, and they’re trying to cancel it every month. Reproductive rights? Hanging by a thread in so many states. Some women have to cross state lines just to get healthcare. It’s like they’re on some weird, dystopian road trip. Gender pay gap? Still here. Women are getting paid less to do the same work as men, and don’t even get me started on what Black and Latina women are making—it’s disrespectful.
And voter suppression? Oh, that’s back, baby! They’re closing polling places, making voting harder, and putting up new hurdles like they’re running a track meet. Guess who that hurts the most? Women. Single moms, working moms, women with two jobs and three kids. It’s like they want to say, “You got the right to vote, but we’re gonna make sure you’re too exhausted to use it.”
So yeah, we’ve made progress, but every time we turn around, there’s another fight. And ladies, let me tell you, the patriarchy is like that ex who won’t delete your number. You block him, and he shows up on a new app with the same tired nonsense. But here’s the thing: we’re not giving up. Just like those suffragists didn’t back down in 1915, we’re not about to let our rights slip away now.
We’ve got work to do. And if history’s taught us anything, it’s this: when women fight, we win. Might take a minute, but we win. So let’s keep marching, keep voting, keep making noise. Because equality might be a subscription service, but we’re the ones who decide if it gets canceled.
