Column: Women's Votes Should Be Based On Issues In November

This story was written by Caitlin Thornburgh, University Daily Kansan

I delete the e-mails I get from the Dole Institute. I volunteered for Rep. Dennis Moores office as a freshman to register students to vote, and I gave up after about 10 people. Im sick of watching election coverage because of the numerous comments about lipstick and pit bulls. I know what its like to be uninterested in politics, but that does not mean Ive forgotten the importance of a vote.

In high school, I took a tour of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., and got to see the suffragette sculpture that looks like a miniature Mount Rushmore. It has the faces of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, but it leaves a fourth place empty. Depending on who is giving the tour, it is supposed to be left for the first female president or to represent the fact that women still have more rights to gain.

In the presidential election, women cannot forget the fight that was won less than 100 years ago. Do not let frustration with the system be the reason you dont vote. Women should vote, but they shouldvote for the right reasons. Voting for someone just because she is a woman would discredit feminism. Whenever that fourth space is filled in, the face will be of a woman who fought for the rights of others.

Women have an extremely important role in this election.In order to live up to it, we have to vote, and vote based on the issues. My Western Civilization teacher brought up vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin saying that the Republican party assumed the women of America would be voting with their vaginas and not their heads. Shes right, and just because Palin is a woman does not mean she gets the votes of everyone with two X chromosomes.

Tina Fey, playing Palin on Saturday Night Live, said, No matter your politics, its time for a woman in the White House. She outlined the worst problem: Shouldnt it first and foremost be about the politics?

If youre a staunch conservative who believes gays are going straight to hell along with those crazy evolution believers andthinks that we should plow down every foreign nation with the precept of democracy and an extremely realistic machine gun, vote for someone who agrees with you! The constitution says you have the right to express your beliefs through your vote. Whether I agree with you doesnt matter. It doesnt matter who you vote for, as long as youre voting based on the issues.

Believe in it, change it, discuss it, rock it, use it, research it, register it, spread it. In whatever way you choose to say it, vote for the issues you agree with in November.