I registered to vote in 1975 the year I turned eighteen. My best friend and I stayed up half the night talking about how we were going to be different then our parents. We would choose our party, vote our minds, and to heck with anyone else in our families or friends felt. It was a heady feeling - a feeling of being in control and of being powerful at the same time.
Since that time, I have not missed an election. Usually I am one of the first twenty to show up in the morning. I have crawled to the polls when I was so sick I could barely stand up. I have ranted at people that they must vote - that men and women have put their lives on the line and have died for us to vote. I have backed my candidates staunchly and felt that I, too, was making a difference.
Until now - until this year.
I will not be voting this year.
You see, I am not represented this year in the Presidential race. I might have been, but as it turns out the popular vote does not count for much.
I am a woman.
Some might say my reaction is sour grapes. Initially I would have agreed with them. Yet with all the swapping of delegates and changing rules to suit the moment, one thought has surfaced and remains with me.
The Democratic Party would rather have a man, even an unqualified one, than a woman as President. Is he a nice man? From all appearances, he seems to be and yet that is not enough for me. I have voted nice but inexperienced men in before and they have been eaten alive. Whatever I felt personally about the female candidate's life choices in total, I was voting because she had swum with the sharks and survived. That said a lot to me about being able to trust her - not only her decisions on issues, but also her ability to play the political game.
I have heard people say, "Not this woman, this time." Again, I wonder, if not this woman who had shown her capability as well as survivor-ability, when? The answer is - never. As long as men are unwilling to share the political power, we will never have a woman president. As long as men are in charge, a woman never will be. Everything that I have fought for since I came of age, everything I have believed in as been for nothing. In this time, in this century, it should not have to be so hard. Women should not still be at the starting gate just because men are still controlling when the whistle blows.
Am I giving up? No, but I am giving in. We will never have a woman in the White House, unless we form our own Women's Party and stop playing the game with the boys. It is time to change the rules and enter our own team member with our own platform. It is time to present a woman not only in light of her own accomplishments, but on the solid platform and shoulders of all the women of our country.
I urge all women to join me this year by refusing to vote. Just because we have, the lesser of two evils does not mean that it is not still evil. Let us band together and take the best of both genders, and work to put up a candidate that can give us real concrete change in the areas of education, health, economic, and social justice.
I say it is time to stop exhorting the men to "remember the ladies" a la Abigail Adams. I say it is time to say, "No representation, no vote."
