On Nov. 7 we will have the opportunity to exercise a democratic right for which our ancestors fought for thousands of years. After their arduous struggle, this right was finally bestowed equally upon the inhabitants of the Western world during the 20th century. This right, of course, is the right to vote and far too few of us choose to exercise it.
In general, I consider myself a patriotic American. But quite frankly, I am embarrassed by the apathy that so many other Americans show towards our government. Whether we want the responsibility or not, the United States is a major world power, and our government’s decisions have an impact on the lives of people all over the world.
Many of those people would give an arm and a leg to have a say in American elections, yet U.S. Census Bureau records show that just 63.8 percent of eligible voters bothered to vote in the 2004 presidential election, one of the most hotly contested elections in our nation’s history, both here and abroad.
Non-presidential elections show an even lower turnout, with just 42 percent of eligible voters casting ballots in 2002. Many among the apathetic claim that their vote will make no difference, but clearly, the 36.2 percent of Americans who chose not to vote in 2004 could have easily changed the outcome of the election.
Most surprising is the low turnout among women – not because it is significantly lower than that of men (actually, it is currently higher, with 65.4 percent compared with 62.1 percent in 2004), but because women have spent the last two and a half centuries fighting ferociously for rights that many modern women take for granted.
While the women’s suffrage movement began on a small scale at the birth of our nation in 1776 with Abigail Adams’ request to her husband John that he “remember the ladies” and swung into full force in 1848 when the first women’s rights convention was held, American women have enjoyed the right to vote for only 86 years. Suffragists lobbied and held protests and marches, one of which ended in 100 women being hospitalized due to the violence of the oppositional crowd.
Also, their predecessors should not be forgotten; women such as feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft spent their lives being ridiculed for their ideas about equality, while writers such as French revolutionary Olympe de Gouges gave their lives – and their heads – for the cause. Yet even today, in spite of these efforts, not all citizens have a say in their own governments.
Saudi Arabia held its first elections in 2005, but did not allow women to vote, and in countries like the United Arab Emirates, the government is selected by appointments and neither women nor men may cast ballots. Portugal was the last nation in the Western world to allow women to vote, and they have enjoyed the right there for only 30 years.
The battle for a voice in government has lasted far too long and is still not entirely over. Yet, as Americans, we have the freedom and the opportunity to make our opinions heard. So how is it possible that, after the ordeals that so many people have gone through in an effort to give us a voice, in just one lifetime we have forgotten how to speak?
Chenin Simi is a comparative world literature and Spanish major.
