Good Cause Always Worth The Fight

Elizabeth Cady Stanton stopped wearing bloomers. They were much more comfortable than the corsets and petticoats and long skirts that women wore in the mid-19th century, clothing that even a man of the time acknowledged was invented by his gender “to divert the ladies from improving their minds.”

But Stanton gave up her “loose trousers” because her wearing them was controversial and diverted attention from her real mission in life: Equal rights for women, including the right to vote.

Saturday the country celebrated the 75th anniversary of women finally getting that right. Read the biographies of the women who fought almost a century for this right and you’ll be amazed at how hard, long and bitter their struggle was. The women were arrested, imprisoned, ridiculed.

Somehow, though, the detail of Stanton’s bloomers stuck with us. She did all that hard work in the most uncomfortable clothes. She gave up bloomers for the cause. Women today complain about pantyhouse. Imagine marching in corsets and long layers of petticoats and skirts!

Most of the women who fought for suffrage also died before their dream came true. The campaign began with the 1848 convention in Seneca Falls N.Y. “Only Charlotte Woodward, who was 19 when she attended the convention, voted in 1920 at the age of 93,” writes Christine Lunardini in “What Every American Should Know About Women’s History.”

Susan B. Anthony died in 1906. Her final public words? “Failure is impossible.”

She was right.

Any woman (or man, for that matter) involved in any type of campaign for social change - in your school, church, community - should read biographies of the suffragists when you feel discouraged. It’s easy to check out of a good cause. To decide that the hassle, heartache and stress is simply not worth it.

The women’s biographies will reinforce a truth that often gets buried in our instant-gratification culture. True social change can take decades. People involved in a struggle for positive change might not live to see the long-term effects of their hard work. But it does pay off. Susan B. Anthony knew it at the end of her life. Failure is impossible.

One final thought. Feminists complain that the suffrage movement is not adequately covered in school. This fact might never change, but each person in each family can keep the story alive in a simple way.

When your daughter, granddaughter, niece or family friend turns 18, accompany that young woman to a place where she can register to vote. Then, when she is finished, tell her the gift came from Susan and Elizabeth and May Arkwright Hutton, a suffragist who worked for the vote in Idaho and Washington. Happy Birthday.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Rebecca Nappi/For the editorial board