…when your local Historical Society’s annual luncheon is in celebration of the 19th Amendment.
I looked twice , thrice at the postmark and the date. Is it possible that Monroe County, Pa, sent this in 2025? Hasn’t any denizen of the Poconos (except me) heard that the 19th Amendment is currently about as popular as the 18th, at least among those Americans from whom we expect fealty to the will of the people?
This is touching, heartwarming, and makes me glad I live where I do. Come visit us on the Pocono Plateau—IF you dare!
Plenty of people, on this site and others, have advocated repeal of the 19th amendment. I just resent it. The Left wants to deny women even exist—and the Right thinks we shouldn’t have the vote. It’s demoralizing, if you’re a woman, that’s all.
OK, you made me look up the XIX Amendment, just to be sure I was not missing anything.
Now, I am (proudly) not a lawyer, but I find that Amendment to be uncomfortably short from a legal perspective (Think about the Billable Hours!) and genuinely quite ambiguous given today’s language.
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
That may have made sense back in 1920, but there is no mention of who is having sex with whom – and we certainly don’t want people having sex in polling stations. There is not a single mention of men, women, homosexuals, lesbians, transgenders. Did States really all agree on what they were proposing when they put Amendment XIX on the table? A rewrite should definitely be a serious topic at the Historical Society’s luncheon!
You will notice the only sexual discrimination in our ecclesiastical law is to exile men that women claim have raped them subject only to the following conditions:
It is found that the act of procreation occurred within 3 months of the accusation.
The woman has not publicly proclaimed her sexual acceptance of the man or has publicly withdrawn a prior such acceptance.
The only price a woman must pay for the right to vote (ie: sovereignty) is the same price any man must pay for the same right.
So I’ll ask you, Hypatia:
Do you think women in combat roles should be subject to any less strict tests of merit than men?
To your question 1: No.
To your question 2: I’m not sure what you’re getting at. I think originally it had to do with land ownership, didn’t it? I can see that it should.
What are you getting at? That in general, men have been in charge? No argument. But it’s also true that today, women have more rights, we can own land and other property, we must pay taxes, we can bear arms, we participate in warfare if it comes to that. I have a feeling you want to say that because women do not make as good soldiers s men do, not as powerful, we shouldn’t be allowed to vote, have a say in government? I know this may sound defensive but it really isn’t, I’m just asking what you have in mind.
And I acknowledged that.
The only women who ever comment here, as far as I can remember, are @Roxie , who is kinda a “dea ex machina”—and me.
I display the submissive behavior my femininity dictates to me.
That is not sarcastic or bitter; it does: it commands, and I obey. It is meet and right so to do, as the liturgy puts it.
But when the question is civil governance, I can’t see that I should be disenfranchised, solely because of sex. If I, or any woman, make the effort to remain informed, why should we not be counted among “we, the people”?
That’s all.
I am not your enemy, gentlemen.,
Please, Hypatia, I’m addressing you as an intellectual equal appealing to your stated expertise by asking you to descend with me to re-examine the foundation of civil society in human nature as is required of any founders be they founding fathers, mothers or theys – particularly in light of scientific advances in the understanding of human nature as represented by anthropology.
Won’t you engage me on that level since it really is the appropriate one given your educational background?
Jumping straight to the conclusion you do about the “should” about anything is premature until we have addressed the “is” as best we can ascertain it.
Then please clarify your position, dear @jabowery . What are you asking me to admit?
That it is “human nature” that men be in charge? Agreed.
That as an anthropologist, I do not know of any primitive society where men are not in charge? Agreed.
So what this is coming down to is what those undeniable facts mean for us, today.
Given the 20th century’s intellectual movements which, of course, includes anthropology, it is anything but obvious to me what your “those undeniable facts” are. I remember meeting with Margaret Mead, a direct student of Franz Boas, “The Father of American Anthropology Anthropology”, when she was at Simpson College in my home town as I was a high school newspaper reporter trying to understand what all the hubub was about. Ms. Mead most certainly was not averse to women’s suffrage nor a great many other innovations of the 20th century regarding the sexes including that gender roles are socially constructed, not innate.
When Gould and Lewontin started their newsletter attacking E. O. Wilson – all but trying to get him fired from Harvard despite tenure – over sociobiology, I subscribed because it was quite apparent to me that there was a knock-down-drag-out war going on over the boundary between anthropology, sociology and ethology right in the midst of enormous earthquakes in sexual relations as well as race relations and such foundational issues as fertility rates.
Hell, even when I was in high school writing class I foresaw in science fiction form a kind of planetary suicide due to birth control as a result of what AGI theorists might call “wireheading” aka “reward hacking”.
So when you ask me what I’m getting at – that’s an enormous question that I’ve done more than my share of thinking, and proposing about quite openly to try and get some sort of realistic conversation going on.
This has been extremely punishing and I just turned 71 which, although not old by comparison to the present company around here, is old enough to make me despair of there ever being anything that can be called a “conversation”.
But I’ve set forth my proposals here multiple times, the most general of which is just get technological civilization out of the biosphere already – and I’ve done more than my share of work to put my money where my mouth is in that regard.
Me no understand. But then, I owe my life to a tetanus injection, and maybe to a properly functioning water treatment plant. Before technological civilization, we had as many as 1 woman in 3 dying in childbirth, and as much as 50% of the children dying before age 5. Do we really want to get technological civilization out of the biosphere?
drinking AND voting! And I’ll wager there are lotsa women like me out there.