Me and my vote

Maybe I’m a crap feminist, but until this day a year ago – Suffrage Day – I never knew what women went through to get the vote.

At a commemorative event, I heard the story of Frances Parker, 1875-1924 – the most hard core kiwi lady you’ve never heard of.

In 1896, Parker travelled across the globe to attend Cambridge. Almost straight away, she fell in with a dodgy crowd: feminists.

Her first prison sentence was for taking part in a demonstration. Another was for a politically motivated window-smashing raid; still another was for trying to set fire to Robbie Burns’ cottage.

Parker was awarded a Suffrage medal for a hunger strike in prison. I saw it in Te Papa: each bar on the medal represented an episode of force feeding.

It never made the papers – the women we revere today were regarded as a cranky, troublesome menace at the time – but the force feeding was sometimes rectal. In Parker’s case, it left her injured and very ill. These women were tortured.

The Suffragettes’ motto was ‘Deeds, not words’. They weren’t kidding.

I was late to the Suffragette party, but I learned earlier about other struggles for the franchise.

In 1990 I was in fourth form at a Catholic school in Invercargill, with an unwoken feminist conscience, but a forest green uniform of a jersey and kilt that smelt like dog when they got wet in the Southland rain, as they inevitably did when I traipsed to the bus stop, carrying my ****ing viola.

Social studies classes were held in a shabby prefab, by a teacher who had his foibles, as we all do, but was deeply committed to impressing social justice on the teenagers in his care – something I appreciated only much later.

He’d demonstrated against the Springbok tour in 1981, for the enfranchisement and citizenship of black South Africans – a position that took some intestinal fortitude down south. He was said to have copped an egg in the face for his troubles. I probably remember him with more fondness than he remembers me.*

In that prefab, we watched Eyes on the Prize, a documentary about the civil rights movement in the US. On the grainy footage of the VHS tape, people were beaten, set on by dogs and with water cannons, their homes and churches burnt, because they demanded to vote.

This stuff had happened in living memory: when my own parents were about the same age as fourth form me. I almost couldn't fathom it.

I may have been an unexceptional student, but those social studies classes had their effect. I’ve never forgotten. And so I think about my ability to vote not as a privilege, and not even as a right, but as a responsibility – part of the rent I pay for sharing occupancy of this primo spot on the planet.

It’s like Frances Parker sits on my shoulder, her medal pinned to her prim blouse, urging me not to be half-arsed about my civic duty. ‘Bring your WHOLE ARSE to bear’, she whispers, ‘for this is democracy’.

But it’s not just about voting.

We say twee things about how much voting matters – but no one got beaten, imprisoned, force fed so I that could take a gentle stroll once every three years to a church hall in Trentham, make two ticks, then enjoy a leisurely brunch.

They fought to vote because there were desperately important things they wanted to vote for. They had a vision of the society they wanted to create; voting was one tool to build it.

Of course, I think about voting in this romantic way because I’m old.

If you’re young, and you’re reading this – which you’re probably not, because it’s the blog of a slightly nutty middle-aged woman, and you’ve got something more snazzy to do, like visit the local milk bar – then for the love of God, please vote. We need you.

There are a bunch of people, pundits and politicians, on the television you no longer watch, rabbiting on about ‘the real issues’, decorating themselves in big words and self-importance.

They make you feel like voting doesn’t belong to you, like you have to know everything about everything to deserve a voice. They’re wrong.

That failure lies with us, the oldies. If our young people feel too dumb to vote, or can’t see the point, then we’re doing society wrong. And if they’re not connecting voting with their ability to bring about change for the good, we’re doing it even wronger.

I heard the advice, and I liked it very much, that we should ask our kids what they care about, and vote on that basis.** It's taking what was won by people before, and handing it on to those who will go next.

I’m going to take my kids to the polling booth on Saturday. I want them to know it’s theirs as much as it’s mine.

____________________

* I was a dick.

** My eleven year old suggested I vote for anyone who would make me less boring. I believe the children are the future, but only until such time as we can replace at least the cheekier ones with robots. Now THAT would get my vote.