It is October, 2024. In 1848 the 19th Amendment was passed, giving women the right to vote. A victory. But in 2024 women are still fighting for equal rights. Next week Tuesday, there will be the presidential elections, Trump against Harris. Trump made it clear what he wants to do. Restrict abortions, even emergency abortions. He’d rather let a woman die instead of allowing the abortion. 

   The need for an emergency abortion and the decisions over their own bodies is the right of every woman in the United States, no matter their age, religious belief, sexuality,  skin color, or origin country. Every single woman has the right to make decisions with their own bodies. When Trump restricts abortion, he violates women’s rights.  

 The Trump campaign also includes leaders who believe women’s right to vote should be restricted. Through Trump’s presence they feel comfortable in saying those things, because before there weren’t those voices. Like the Republican Politician John Gibbs from West Michigan, who supports repealing the 19th amendment, which gave the right to women to vote. His argument for this was that women’s suffrage had made the United States a “totalitarian state”.  

   As a student at the Stanford University, Gibbs founded a self-described “think tank” (a term for an organization that gathers a group of interdisciplinary scholars to perform research around particular policies, issues or ideas), named the ‘Society for the Critique Feminism’ that argued women did not “posses(sic) the characteristics necessary to govern” and men were smarter than women because they are more likely to “think logically about broad and abstract ideas in order to deduce a suitable conclusion, without relying upon emotional reasoning”. These comments are not just unjustified, but also unacceptable and ridiculous. 

   Matt Walsh, a far right media personality wrote multiple posts on social media in connection with the attempted assassination on Donald Trump and the responsibility of the female agents in the Secret Service, “There should not be any women in the Secret Service. These are supposed to be the very best, and none of the very best at this job are women.” Just because women were involved directly in the Secret Service, which protected Trump, it doesn’t mean that they are to blame for the gap in the safety. Women are getting blamed and limited in their rights and seen as the weaker gender. 

  Other hateful posts from right winged personalities keep getting published, against women like Kamala Harris, the first women of color for the position as a president. Women  in important positions or candidates for important positions like Harris are exposed to hate and untrue comments about how they came into this position and that they don’t deserve it. Former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly posted on Twitter, “She actually did sleep her way into and upwards in California Politics”. This statement is based on the ex relationship of Kamala Harris with the San-Francisco politician Willie Brown in the mid-1990s. The relationship lasted only a few months and Harris was later appointed to the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and the Medical Assistance Commission. But before her relationship, Harris was making her own way as a prosecutor and she was successful because she was good at her job and not because she was dating a specific person for a short period of time. So it is visible that in those hateful comments is a spark of truth, but still, those comments are not justified in any way. And you can see a pattern: Most of those comments come from far right personalities, in other words Republicans and Trump-supporters. 

This harassment happens publicly, where everybody can hear and read about it. So dear ladies, you have a choice, you have the chance to go voting, vote for your rights and your freedom. Go voting and make use of your voice! Also you can go on demonstrations for your rights. If you just fold your hands and say, “This won’t help anyway”, then you are so wrong. How was the 19th amendment achieved? With protests and demonstrations and petitions. So do something for your rights, every voice matters! When you will do nothing, the future of women voting and working in positions of power like president or senator, will be in danger.