In honor of the holiday

Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans. The other day I watched a rerun of a 1999 documentary on PBS called Not for Ourselves Alone. It's the story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and their lifelong fight for women's suffrage, among other issues.

It was a beautiful documentary. The commentators were historians who specialized in the women, a curator from the Susan B. Anthony House, etc. All women. All thoughtful, intelligent and knowledgeable. The letters to and from Elizabeth and Susan were my favorite part. The beautiful language of their words, the passion they felt toward their cause and advancing the lives of American women. They were true friends, even though they were such different people, and they shared that true passion.

At the end they interviewed women who were around in 1920 when women were given the right to vote. Each recalled how she felt as she stepped into the voting booth, what an important thing she knew she was doing, how she wanted to make sure she voted for the right person. They didn't take it lightly. Neither should we.

I shed many a tear watching this wonderful documentary, but during this part I'm not ashamed to say, I cried very hard. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton worked their whole lives for the cause, knowing that women's lives would be better if they could vote, and they never lived to see that day.

Whether or not you've ever studied the women's suffrage movement, this is an excellent documentary and I highly recommend it. I dare all women to watch it and not feel proud to be female, grateful to live now, and cherish your right to vote. Please don't take that right lightly. These women (and many others) risked their lives and were shunned by many in "polite" society just so you and your daughters and granddaughters could live in a better world. We all know that it is a better world because women have equal rights.

On this day, our Independence Day, I salute Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and I thank them for fighting the good fight, for me and for all women in the United States. Women like them make me proud to be female.

"I wonder if when I am under the sod—or cremated and floating in the air—I shall have to stir you and others up. How can you not be all on fire? ...I really believe I shall explode if some of you young women don't wake up."
Susan B. Anthony, 1898

Happy Independence Day everyone!