‘Votes for women!’ — 110 years ago marked the first time in California’s history that voters approved a marriage law that excluded women, and the first time that women won the right to vote in a federal election.
‘Votes for women’ — it was a time of great excitement for feminists, progressives and lesbians. ‘Votes for women’ meant that the California state legislature approved an anti-miscegenation law that excluded women from the franchise for more than a century. It was a vote that represented a major defeat for women’s civil rights as well as a major victory for feminism.
The Californians gave women the right to vote, but only in federal elections. But the women of the state did not understand, and had no concept, of what this vote meant in a political context. It meant that women were no longer slaves for men. It meant that women could vote in races other than elections for public office. It meant that women could vote in national and state legislative races that had nothing to do with women’s suffrage. And it meant that women could vote in local races in Los Angeles County.
In her article, ‘Votes for women’ (1910), Susan B. Anthony urged women to organize and vote to make California a federal state. In the first ballot that she received, she received 5,633 votes. When they counted the ballots, they found that there were 10,058 votes under the ‘X’ for women who did not want to vote in federal elections because they were not allowed to vote for senators and representatives to Congress.
At the time, women in California were not allowed to vote in federal elections where there were no women legislators because of the Anti-miscegenation law that the women’s suffrage movement had fought for. The women of the suffrage movement had argued that the law denied them their fundamental rights as human beings, and they fought to have women given the right to vote in federal elections.
In 1913, women gained the right to vote in federal elections where there were no women legislators, but the vote was restricted to those who were not allowed to vote in federal elections because of the anti-miscegenation law. This time was the second time women obtained the right to vote. The women’s vote in federal elections was not restricted to those who were