On this day in 1920, women finally gained the right to vote on a national level, after a struggle begun as early as 1848 at the Equal Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York.
The heroines of the women suffrage movement included Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, and Jeanne Rankin, among others, and also included many men.
72 years had passed, and many women had been arrested for marching for the right to vote, including under President Woodrow Wilson, who, ironically, opposed the 19th Amendment, but under whom the amendment was added to the Constitution.
The effect of the right to vote for women took time to sink in, but in the past 25 years, women have become an important factor in the success of the Democratic Party on the Presidential level, with the Democrats winning the national popular vote five of the last six elections, including the two elections of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and Al Gore, who was denied the Presidency by the machinations of the Republicans in the close election in Florida in 2000.
Most of the women who have been political leaders in the last century have been Democrats, but there have been a smattering of Republican women Governors, Senators, and House of Representatives members, as well as Mayors of cities.
The vast majority of women have voted Democratic regularly, due to the fact that the Democrats have dealt with real issues affecting women.
Meanwhile, the Republicans have done everything possible to alienate the majority of women—on issues of reproductive rights, labor rights, the issue of rape, the problems of minority women and single mothers, and so many other issues that affect women.
Additionally, Ann Coulter and others have called for the removal of the 19th Amendment, because of the reality that a majority of women vote for the Democrats, an idea which will never occur in the real world.
This is a massive mistake by the Republicans, as without support of a large percentage of women—including minority, single, young, and educated women—the GOP is destined to continue to lose elections for President over the long haul!