27 Badass Images Of Women Winning And Exercising The Right To Vote

In 1921, Missouri voters passed a ballot measure amending the state constitution to allow women to hold political office. This was also the first election after the passage of the 19th Amendment, granting all U.S. women the right to vote.

The ability of women's votes to affect women's lives revealed itself instantly, and it's as pressing as ever in 2014.

Women's reproductive rights are being threatened in three states with anti-abortion constitutional amendments on the ballot. The 2014 midterm elections will determine how policymakers approach social programs and the minimum wage, both of which stand to impact many more women than men.

Women determined the outcome of the 2012 election, but new voting restrictions in 22 states could disproportionally impact women.

Nobody called Susan B. Anthony a "Beyoncé voter" or implored Elizabeth Cady Stanton to bypass the polls and "get back on Tinder or Match.com." Granted, they couldn't. But our women's suffrage foremothers didn't take shit from anybody, and we shouldn't either.

In that spirit, here are 27 images of women voting throughout history. Get inspired, then get to the polls:

National Women's History Museum

In 1872, Susan B. Anthony registered and ultimately voted in a Rochester, New York election. When it was discovered that she had cast a vote as a woman, she was arrested for "voting illegally" and brought to trial. She was ordered to pay a $100 fine. She never did.

APA/Getty Images

Good luck telling this suffragette to ditch the vote and "go back on Tinder or Match.com."

Museum of London/Heritage Images/Getty Image

When life hands you stiff, uncomfortable apparel, make a pro-suffrage billboard. Emmeline Pankhurst, among the most famous voices in the English suffrage movement, advertises a march for women's suffrage in 1909.

Learnnc.org

The National American Woman Suffrage Association parodies the scare tactics of anti-suffrage propaganda with the document "Why We Oppose Votes For Men." Reason #1: "Because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this."

Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

A suffragette stands with a "Votes For Women" banner in 1910.

Imgur

You'd have to be pretty intent upon suppressing women to defy this simply logic. (via Imgur)

Museum of London/Heritage Images/Getty Images

A satirical board game, produced by English suffragettes in 1910 depicts the struggles women were forced to confront. Players move through obstacles like demonstrations, arrests, hunger strikes, and force feeding to reach the House of Parliament at the center of the game -- a symbol for the right to vote.

Underwood Archives/Getty Images

Women assembling in San Francisco to to secure passage of a California state amendment granting women the right to vote.

Museum of London/Heritage Images/Getty Images

Produced by a suffrage group in London, this 1909 poster highlights the double standard applied to men and women, and just how senseless it was to withhold from women the right to vote.

Stock Montage/Getty Images

Suffrage badass-in-chief Alice Paul leading celebration of Tennessee's ratification of the 19th Amendment looks a bit like the front row at a Beyonce concert.

United States Library Of Congress

A pro-suffrage postcard from 1913 is forceful and adorable. "For the work of a day; for the taxes we pay; for the laws we obey; want something to say."

Bryn Mawr College Library

"At Last." So reads the cover of The Suffragist magazine in June, 1919, printed following the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote. (via Bryn Mawr College Library)

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Remembered fondly in pop culture as "Evita," Eva Peron helped secure the right to vote for women in 1947 as First Lady of Argentina. Here, she celebrates with Argentine women in 1951.

Al Moldvay/The Denver Post via Getty Images

In 1957, Colorado women evoked the early suffrage movement in protest of local political groups that still did not allow women to vote on committee issues.

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Nuns arrive at a polling station in 1959.

Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images

African-American men were granted the right to vote by the 15th Amendment in 1870. But even after the 19th Amendment extended voting rights to African American women, discriminatory practices effectively disenfranchised many African-American voters.

Gabriel Hackett /Getty Images

"Vote baby vote"

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In 1960, the Kennedy campaign produced a television ad of Jackie Kennedy speaking Spanish in an attempt to court Latino voters. It is widely recognized as the first time a national campaign recognized Hispanics as critical important bloc of the electorate.

Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images

Women line up in Baltimore to vote in the 1964 election. The Civil Rights Act, which included greater protection for black voters, was passed three months later.

Duane Howell/The Denver Post via Getty Images

Women Voters League Officials offer rides to voters in 1965.

ElizabethForMA on Flickr, under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC 2.0)

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 provided even greater protection to black voters against racial discrimination, but black women were advocating for important issues on the ballot long before that.

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A woman votes in style in 1970.

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Margaret Thatcher arrives to cast her vote in the 1979 general election. With the victory of her Conservative Party, Thatcher became Britain's first female prime minister the next day.