The Pittsburgh Press (October 17, 1940)
We, The Women —
WOMEN’S VOTES ARE IMPORTANT
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Feminine Duty Is Definitely To Ballot
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By Ruth Millett
Any woman, eligible to vote, who doesn’t take herself to the polls and cast her ballot this year, ought to be ashamed to tell it.
If she does go around saying coyly, “I don’t know anything about politics; I leave that to the men,” she won’t be considered a cute little thing, even by the men she means to impress.
She’ll just be put down as a lamebrain. For the day is past when it was thought feminine for women to regard politics as none of their affair.
No wonder other citizens will look down their noses at the woman who doesn’t bother to vote. She is saying, in effect:
I don’t understand what is happening in the rest of the world. I don’t know that democracy is on trail.
I haven’t enough imagination to appreciate all the benefits that are mine under a democracy. If I did have, I’d do all my small part to prove it.
I haven’t sense enough to know that the right to vote, to have a voice in my own government, is the most priceless possession in the world today.
I’m too lazy to inform myself on public affairs, so that I know definitely which candidate I want to be President of the United States for the next four years.
If she knew just how much she was telling about herself, and how uncomplimentary it was to her, no woman with a grain of self-respect would say out loud that she doesn’t intend to vote, or admit after Election Day that she didn’t go near the polls.