*X-posted on Michigan Liberal

What a fantastic idea:

Take Your Daughters to the Polls Day is a national campaign, inspired by the same folks who brought you the now infamous Take Your Daughter to Work Day. Right now, with women and women's issues being at the forefront of this year's election, what more apt time in our history is there than this to expose our daughters to the importance of democracy in action? Take Your Daughters to the Polls Day is the perfect way to let them know that they, too, can exercise their right to have a say and make a difference.

Personally, when I was a kid, I couldn't wait to turn 18 so that I could have my turn at making the polls shake. I remember feeling nothing but envy when my parents took to my elementary school's gym every so often, not to lob dodgeballs at opposing team members but rather to carefully select the leaders they thought would best represent them - not to mention me and my little brother - in the world of politics.

My sex, however, never played much a part in my desire to vote, until my educational journey brought me to the stories of Seneca Falls, Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Catt Chapman, and, especially, the suffragist movement of the early 1900s. To think, courageous individuals like Alice Paul and Lucy Burns endured harassment, verbal threats, physical assaults and eventual incarceration just to obtain the right to pencil in a box on a piece of paper. It is a right which, by all theoretical accounts, should be guaranteed to everyone, anyway, without the need for a long and arduous uphill battle. It boggles a mind that is not easily boggled.

I don't think that many people will disagree with me when I say that this could be one of the most important elections in our lifetime, and especially so for women, who face the pivotal moment of having their rights either turned way back or fully restored. The likelihood is extremely high that the next President of the United States will have the opportunity to choose one, perhaps even two new members of the Supreme Court, which could have a profound effect on the status of a woman's right to choose in this country. We also face the prospect of seeing our country's first female Vice President, or even President, if nature has its way with Oldie McOlderson. All these factors continue to reinforce the profound role that women play in our democracy, and what the cards will hold for our daughters as they rise to take their place in a world that has not always so warmly accepted the presence of women.

I hope that everyone with a young daughter out there will forget about buying her a Bratz doll for Christmas, and instead take her to the polls for a far more important gift. In spite of all the progress we've made - and I don't need to tell you that we've come a long way from corseted, rib-suffocating days of yore - we're still very much a society that puts a stronger value on breast implants than breast cancer awareness. When the world wants us to push our daughters to the (stripper) pole, let's push back by taking them to the polls.

When November 4 comes rolling around this year (and it's closer than you think), be sure to pick up your daughter after school and take her to vote with you. It is my sincerest hope that we'll be seeing Hillary and Chelsea, Jennifer and Kate, Barack, Malia Ann and Natasha, and yes, even Sarah, Bristol and Willow together at the polls.

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