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Thank you, Grandma. Celebrating Women’s Entrepreneur Week!

October 19, 2015 by Lizabeth Phelps

Incredible as it may seem, one hundred years ago—1915—American women still did not have the right to vote on a national basis. This post’s image is a cartoon from Puck magazine in 1915: the torch of successful suffragists in the West awakens women in other parts of the country.

In 1916, women’s suffrage was endorsed on a state-by-state basis—thanks to the two-million-women membership of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

The suffrage movement in the U.S. had been in existence since the 1840’s, but the opposition had proved mighty and successful. It was well understood that the demand to vote was far more than a philosophical plea; there was a women’s movement underway and to achieve its much wider goals, political pressure was critical. The right to vote was really the first step in a plan with far-reaching intentions. Again, because men understood this, suffrage was a harrowing and sometimes brutal fight. Read what the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association wrote in 1920, after the 19th Amendment was ratified:

“To get the word ‘male’ in effect out of the Constitution cost the women of the country fifty-two years of pauseless campaign…During that time they were forced to conduct fifty-six campaigns of referenda to male voters; 480 campaigns to get legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to voters; 47 campaigns to get state constitutional conventions to write woman suffrage into state constitutions; 277 campaigns to get state party conventions to include woman suffrage planks; 30 campaigns to get presidential party conventions to adopt woman suffrage planks in party platforms, and 19 campaigns with 19 successive congresses. Millions of dollars were raised, mainly in small sums, and expended with economic care. Hundreds of women gave the accumulated possibilities of an entire lifetime, thousands gave years of their lives, hundreds of thousands gave constant interest and such aid as they could.”

What was the fierce opposition truly about? Was it that men believed (as they easily proclaimed) that women were foolish and couldn’t be trusted with such power? Did they really believe that with the vote, witless women would destroy the country and world?

Susan B. Anthony gives insight into the reality. One of the leaders of the suffrage movement, she once said, “No advanced step taken by women has been so bitterly contested as that of speaking in public. For nothing which they have attempted, not even to secure the suffrage, have they been so abused, condemned and antagonized.”

What men feared was not women’s inadequacy, but their power. It was their voices they worked tirelessly to suppress. Throughout the ages, they had witnessed women’s resilience, their strength in the face of losses, their undaunted spirits, and their keen, problem-solving minds. Were all of that to be given a megaphone, control would be lost.

In celebrating Women’s Entrepreneur Week, we are celebrating women’s voices and all that comprise them: the vision, creativity, compassion, genius and inspiration. This week, I in particular, am honoring my grandmother, Hazel May Kassor, who was a tireless suffragette herself. I am honoring the fact that every day that I work in my own business, share my message, live my truth, I do so because of her and all of the women who sacrificed so much.

As you go forward, growing your business or developing plans to start it, know that you do not do it alone. Millions and millions of women held you in their vision a century ago; they saw you and all you could be. You kept them going, enabled them to take unfathomable risks…and win.

They were the ultimate inspired leaders.

I wager they would have been exceptional and wildly successful female entrepreneurs today.

Take their spirit with you this week, do great things–and pay it forward!