For some who take our most basic rights for granted, it may be hard to imagine that for nearly 150 years in our republic, American women were denied the right to vote. After decades of struggle, that included protest marches, arrests, physical attacks, verbal abuse, harassment and retaliation against women for advocating suffrage, Congress finally acted, passing the 19th Amendment, which became law on August 26, 1920.
The California Nurses Association will honor that tradition with a unique celebration marking the 90th anniversary on August 26 in Sacramento, Calif. We'll be marching around the West Steps of the Capitol from 4 to 6 p.m., joined by women and men from across the state. Please join us.
We will also highlight the disgrace of a billionaire, who happens to be female, who has the audacity to run for the highest office in California after having squandered the opportunity to vote for much of her adult life.
After a scathing report on her shoddy voting record in the Sacramento Bee last fall, Whitman went on Fox News to concede that "I voted in the 1984 election in California. I remember it clearly."
In another interview, among the few she does, Whitman acknowledged, "I was not as engaged in the political process as I should have been. I was doing lots of other things" such as "building companies" like eBay where among other priorities she laid off scores of employees and outsourced 40 percent of the work overseas.
And now she is finally voting this year, so she can vote for herself.
Nor is she validating her credentials as a woman who could lead a unified California, but instead cynically exploiting her wealth to own the airways and denounce any opposition to her royal privilege with pledges to spend up to $180 million out of her own purse by November.
The absurdity does not end there. A central plank of her campaign is to slash 40,000 public service jobs, a majority of them held by working women, and further cut the social safety net, which will also disproportionately affect those most in need of social services, single mothers.
And yet another badge of honor is her treatment of women employees as a corporate CEO, including the massive job cuts and the now notorious pushing incident of a subordinate woman to whom Whitman had to pay a settlement of $200,000 after an altercation about which Whitman is still not telling the full story.
Not exactly the model for women on this historic anniversary year.
Contrast that record with the struggles of women like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Lucretia Mott, Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell, Carrie Chatman Catt, Alice Paul, and so many others who were jailed, beaten, spit at, threatened, and yet defied it all in working day after day and year after year for the simple, yet powerful, right of women to exercise their franchise.
And who linked the fight for suffrage to other progressive causes. In a 1912 speech, Rose Schneiderman, suffragist and trade union leader, mocked those who opposed suffrage as un-lady like. "Surely these women won't lose any more of their beauty and charm by putting a ballot in a ballot box once a year than they are likely to lose standing in foundries or laundries all year round. There is no harder contest than the contest for bread."
Nurses were prominent in the suffrage drive, as they were in other democratic , social justice, and progressive movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. It makes sense.
As early pioneers in nursing were struggling with mostly male hospital administrators and doctors to establish the professional recognition and accreditation of nursing, and win improvements in nurses' professional standards, compensation, and working conditions, so too were many of these same RN leaders in the forefront of movements for unions, public health, social welfare, and many other causes.
Consider Lillian Wald. A public health nurse and one of the most noted social reformers of the early 20th century, Wald opened the Henry Street Settlement House in New York City to provide healthcare and other services to immigrant women and other poor residents. She was also a founder of the Women's Trade Union League at a time when most unions were closed to women, and an outspoken peace activist, and suffragist.
In her 1915 book, "The House on Henry Street," Wald talks with pride about a famous suffrage march she helped lead in New York City in 1913 with the Henry Street banner "with its symbol of universal brotherhood" and a "goodly company carrying flags with the suffrage demand in ten languages."
Helping Wald organize that contingent was her close friend Lavinia Dock, another public health nurse one of the foremost nurse writers and educators of her era, and a major suffrage activist. Dock was arrested for trying to vote in 1896, was among 13 women who made a 13-day "suffrage hike" from New York City to Albany in 1912, and a frequent pamphleteer for suffrage.
By 1917, Dock was in Washington working with noted suffragist Alice Paul where she led the first suffrage pickets from the National Women's Party headquarters to the White House and was jailed three times for participation in suffrage protests.
In an interview years later Paul recalled one of the most famous suffrage marches in Washington that caused a sensation by coinciding and disrupting the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson in 1913. "One of the largest and loveliest sections was made up of uniformed nurses. It was very impressive," said Paul.
Nurses, marching and singing for their rights, and justice for all. It's a proud tradition, one that Whitman has abused, but one we will celebrate August 26 once again.
I agree that the AFL-CIO/CNA are not attacking her because of her record on voting. You have rightly pointed out, she wants to reduce bloated public service jobs, and roll back entitlements that has people retiring at early ages on full pensions, etc. I am fine if the article was written came out with those self-serving reasons for why they are attacking Mrs. Whitman. The didn’t they hid behind this poorly-conceived smear article.
The article did not touch on any of the points you made in your response. Why? Because appealing to voters to oppose Mrs Whitman and support bloated public union jobs, support an economy-crippling regulatory framework, and supporting a budget crushing welfare system just isn’t selling well this election cycle. Instead they attack her ‘womanness’ and sense of ‘civic responsibility’. In my opinion, this is shockingly bad taste on their part. Shows a lack a backbone to hide ones self-serving interests behind the cause of women’s suffrage.
She is gaining ground not because of the money she spends, trust me. Have you seen the money that the AFL-CIO/CNA uses to lobby and influence elections… She is boxing way above her weight by going up against the unions and their deep pockets.
Perhaps they are afraid of her, because she does not need their money and can’t be bought by having them organize a ‘grassroots’ donation campaign for her. Have you thought about it that way?
Kai
Rather than attack Whitman on a substantial issue, say California’s bloated unsustainable budget or restrictive labor and tax policies that is forcing jobs out of the state, they would rather attack her on…wait for it…wait for it…her lack of lack of voting. C’mon, really,…how sad are you that you cannot manufacture a more compelling reason to attack her. Heck, if amount of voting was a major criteria fro running in an election, I think half of our politicians would have never gotten a chance.
I think that what scares the CNA the most is that Whitman is gaining ground, specifically because she wants to reform how unions are treated in California.
As women, the CNA should support Whitman because she is a strong leader and one of America’s most successful females. As bloated, self-indulgent union, I totally understand if the CNA decides not to support Whitman. Just don’t hide behind a veneer of women rights while doing so. It makes you look really really oily.
Kai
Thank you for your support (I think). I can see people not believing it. Although you would have to be pretty naive not to believe that Rose (Executive Director, National Nurses United, AFL-CIO and California Nurses Association) has an ulterior motive when signaling out Meg Whitman as not being 'enough of a voter' as a reason to protest. The fact that she then tenuously ties not voting to going against suffrage and nurses in general. I mean hear is a woman who ran one of the most successful companies in the world, a feminist role model.
Pretty lame, and they should fire the high-priced public consultants that crafted this laughable smear strategy for the the AFL-CIO & CNA. I am just saying...
For me, having an executive director of one of the largest political interest groups & lobbying groups in the US lecturing Meg Whitman about civic voting is a bit over the top, considering the fact that these guys go out of their way to subvert the political process whenever it is in their own self-serving interests...
They don't need to believe me...I report...they decide..(ha). Or perhaps they like their 'news' spoon-fed to them by highly-financed special interest groups... either way...their decision.
Kai
Nurses don't have to smear candidate Whitman. Her record of pushing and bullying an employee, and then buying the victim's silence, (as reported in the Los Angeles Times) speaks for itself.
"My Fair Lady" she's NOT! But, when Professor Higgins asks the question, "Why can't a lady be
more like a man?", seems to me we have an answer: Whitman is a lot like Schwarzenegger. Didn't he also have to pay out settlement $$ to cover up some man-handling, groping, and inappropriate behavior with co-workers?
Talk about an oily veneer; maybe being a bully and self-indulgent is your idea of a "strong leader" but I don't think the people of California are going to "buy" your line of reasoning.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/15/local/la-me-0615-whitman-20100615
http://cbs5.com/local/Arnold.Schwarzenegger.Anna.2.446312.html
Nurses know that experience, integrity, and competency will be the deciding factor in this election. The public trusts their nurses, and as a nurse, I believe Jerry Brown has the demonstrated competency, experience, and integrity Californians need and deserve.
Thank you for your response. I can see that you put some thought into why Whitman is not the leader for you. I can appreciate that.
I am a bit disheartened that AFL-CIO to reason along similar lines when attacker her in this advertisement/news item. If that really is pretty oily attacking her on the suffrage front.
Who doesn’t like nurses. I agree with you that they carry a heavy burden in our society and do it well. Public Unions? I am a little less excited about and the money that they put into steering and subverting elections is really disgusting if you ask. The above article/propaganda piece is a good example of this.
If you think that the problems in California are going to go away without getting pension and public unions in order, among other things, you are mistaken. But your vote is your vote and if allegations of bullying and paying for silence is what is driving your decision, then so be it. For me, that really wouldn’t be a main driver of my decision making when California is facing is many looming problems. And I certainly would not want to put someone in that helped get the state in that awful mess to begin with.
Public Unions love Jerry Brown, got them where they are today by setting everything in motion back in the day. I can understand them wanting to double-up on their investment.
Thanks again
Kai
Enough with the mindless ads. These two need to get into the ring and answer the questions of the citizens of California audience, enough hiding behind the ads, the commercials, etc.
We deserve better.
Meg Whitman's candidacy is a sham; a shameless self-stroking of her own ego by a woman who is running on a platform of failed policies. For a candidate to have been so politically apathetic as Whitman was for decades, and then suddenly have the urge to spend $100-$150 million to self-annoint herself "The Chosen One" is suspect.
Meanwhile the nurses have shown humor, grace and tenacity in opposition to the wreckless power hungry Whitman.
Whitman's platform of limitless "deregulation" is just another word for Capitalism run amok.
When nurses hear that we think of all the safety rules our employers would love to be rid of - like the ones that require a hospital not fall down in an earthquake or that nurses have a chance to take a lunchbreak in our twelve hour shift. California is having a tough time right now, and the last thing we need is another arrogant amateur for a governor.