beatonna:

Here is a collection of anti suffragette posters, postcards and cartoons. They&rsquo;re old, and comically out of date, but looking at them gives me something like despair, because as a woman today I cannot imagine facing that attitude, and fighting it.&nbsp; Going out there and demanding better, and getting this kind of &hellip; unbelievable ignorance and intolerance in your face.&nbsp; This article has also been making the rounds.&nbsp;
I can&rsquo;t believe that in 2012 I read about an American congressman who really believes that women&rsquo;s bodies have a way of shutting down pregnancy if they are &ldquo;really&rdquo; raped.&nbsp; I cannot believe a lot of the things I have seen come out in American news lately.&nbsp; I can&rsquo;t believe that the person who posted those images on &ldquo;A History of Feminism&rdquo; probably agrees with them, judging by the other content there.
You are voting today, right?
As Rose Winslow wrote from prison in 1917:
&ldquo;All the officers here know we are making this hunger strike that women fighting for liberty may be considered political prisoners; we have told them. God knows we don&rsquo;t want other women ever to have to do this over again.&rdquo;

I live in Missouri where Todd Akin &amp;#8212; the congressman you mentioned &amp;#8212; is running to replace Claire McCaskill in the US Senate, and I am very quietly terrified that some day I might have to jump through degrading hoops to prove I need birth control pills, that I may need to buy a gun to be a last line of defense against sexual assault due to lack of assistance I would&nbsp;receive&nbsp;if I became a victim.
I am terrified that my neighbors may put in someone who refuses to&nbsp;acknowledge&nbsp;that I, as a human being, do not deserve rights equal to others in regards to my autonomy and safety.