Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Received an arc from Net Galley for an honest review.
Expected Release: August 6th 2019
I never learned how truly important it was to vote until my senior year of high school in my advanced placement government class. I continued to learn how important it was to vote into my freshman year of college, and voted in the midterm elections for my state. I then followed the results for the midterm elections for both my state and the entire nation, I was so fascinated by what I learned. I don't think enough young people understand the importance of voting, however, I do think more young people are starting to take notice of politics. I'm hoping that will encourage more of the younger generation to vote.
I learned a lot from this book that was skipped in both my government class and the multiple American history classes I've taken. I have been taught the very basics on the history of Women's Right to Vote. I know about the 19th Amendment and who Elizabeth Cady Stanton was and what she did (mostly because she was my American hero in the fifth grade), but I didn't know enough about the actual events and protests that happened around the country and the abuse these suffragists dealt with. It's truly appalling.
I also enjoyed learning about the history my state, Kansas, had in the Women's Suffragist movement as a whole. I'm sad to say that my state failed in the past to pass the policies to help women and that we supported racist views, but these are things that I am glad that I know! These things weren't taught to me in school and while they are negative compared to what we know and live today, it is still important for people to know the history. Another thing I learned at the very end of this book was that "Kansas passed a law in 2011 that required new voters to present a driver's license, birth certificate, or passport." The book went on to explain that this pretty much killed the vote for new voters both young people and voters born outside of the United States. The League of Women Voters of Kansas eventually challenged this law and as of 2018 the law was, finally, overturned. Again, I had absolutely no idea about this law and it was something that should be discussed in school so we know the voting/political history of our state.
The one thing I didn't like about this book was how textbook it felt. I understand that it is a political nonfiction (kind of) and that it's purpose is to be informational instead of entertaining, but I still felt like the information was more copy and pasted from a textbook. I think the author could've taken risks with this and turned it into something both informational and entertaining at the same time. That way it could be more directed at younger voters, giving them the history of what women had to go through to vote. Knowing some of these facts, while still being entertained, would prove helpful, in my opinion, in getting younger people to vote.
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