The Women's Vote: Not Uniform

They’re not all the same, you have to know they’re not.

Although I joined a sorority first semester of freshman year at my large, public university, I didn’t sign on to have my beliefs just become slowly blurred by the other 110 fine, young, well-accomplished women in my chapter.  I hoped to be able to use my chapter as another outlet where I could be myself, share my views and further push my leadership qualities–using each of these to help the overall morale of my chapter, in a pursuit to push my sorority to continue to prosper. 

My hopes during my active years have been fulfilled, and my, have I learned a lot about working so closely with so many young women.  (Quite often, I am thankful for the dynamics that men bring to the workforce.)  Until the days leading up to the 2004 elections, I felt no major glitches in my chapter’s push for diversity amongst its body of women.

It’s funny how a sign can change your feelings about a person when you realize the way people think and how naïve a person can be.  She, a member of my sorority, said she placed it on the front of the sorority house to “remind people to vote.”  “Great,” I thought, “she wants people to get out and vote.” What followed was a long conversation about how I felt that a sign with a certain candidate’s name plastered on it doesn’t remind people to vote.  The sign hopes to tell a voter to vote a certain way.  But, she said she just wants people to vote.  I told her that we could make a sign together saying “Vote!” 

Soon after, the sign came down, but it frustrates me to think that she removed it only to appease my frustration.  However, it frustrates me even more if that is truly the reason she took it down and not because she realized how she could be swaying the vote of even one person. Endorsing one side and placing that endorsement front and center on the chapter house makes it seem that the entire body of an organization supports a certain party or issue. 

If you want people to vote, just tell them to vote.  The real clincher is that by placing that sign—endorsing one particular candidate for president—on the front of our house and representing over 100 very different women, she was telling the world just what they already think they know. 

They don’t think all the same or do all the same.  And, I promise you—women—they’re not all the same.

 -Susannah J. Cox