September 10, 2018
By Arthur H. Gunther III
(also on Facebook)
If I were a woman and it was Nov. 6, 2018, I would vote as if it were as important as childbirth, a fulfilling career, a great relationship or just being happy with whatever lifestyle was desirable. Those wishes aside, this is the time for women — it has arrived. We Americans require the strongest of female conviction and action — now.
Suffrage is nearing its 100-year anniversary, at least for white women. The me-too movement is outing out boors and worse. Women with articulation are winning congressional nomination primaries in Boston and New York City. There are increasing revelations in male bastions such as the Catholic Church of abuses hidden by men. And there is a man in the highest office of the land who should have been kneed decades ago.
Would that more women were in powerful seats. Would that more women were heard in their commonsense voice. Would that more women were recognized as not only equal to men but often superior. Would this were all so, and the nation, the world would not be so deeply in the horror it is.
Some faiths honor the mother of renewed humankind. Children’s books hail the mom. Women are often the remembered teachers. Who tells us how to tie our shoes? Who wipes the tears?
Then why do we — men, sometimes women — abandon their wisdom, their learned ways, their ingenuity, their gifts?
Vote Nov, 6, men and women, but especially women. Vote for candidates, hopefully many female, who will insist on ordinary decency, who will push us all to our better side.
It’s as if Mom is getting us ready for the first day of school. Clean clothes, lunch made and packed, and, most of all, the greatest, reassuring hug that carries us through the last day of school, even life. Women rock, and we all need more of their mojo now.
Vote.
The writer is a retired newspaperman. ahgunther@yahoo.com