The vote and why it matters

The Fifth of May 2011, for anyone not actually in England, is voting day for local politics and for the referendum on whether we adopt the Alternative Voting system.

Now, I warn you that I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of Politics here. Notice the capital P, that makes it official politics, not just office politics or family politics. No, I'm talking about NOT talking about full-on, how-the-country-should-be-run, I'm-a-better-liar-than-you, give-me-a-big-fat-pay-cheque-please, kissing-babies and attending-charity-balls Politics.

But it is closely related, because at one time, it was Politics. It has not even been one hundred years since the first trickling of some women being allowed a vote. In 1918, which is still 7 years away from its centenary, women over the age of 30 were finally allowed a vote after women died for their cause, including the famous case of Emily Davison but also other Suffragettes who probably died as a result of the force-feeding measures employed in prisons against those utilising hunger strikes as peaceful protests. I'm not claiming that all their methods were peaceful, far from it, but from a 21st Century standpoint, I admire their strength and feel that everyone deserves the right to a peaceful protest about something they feel strongly about. Key word here being 'peaceful'; if you aren't hurting anyone else then I don't think anyone else should have the right to impinge on your freedom to do so.

Universal Suffrage, when women were granted the vote at 21, the same age as men, didn't come in until 1928. Out of all the history, the hundreds of years that we have democracy and law in this country, women have only been able to vote on the same terms as men for 83 years.

Less than 100 years of attitude shifting later, I am thrilled to find that there is no gender gap in UK voter turnout (according to European Social Survey 2002, source here, on page 21). I can still bemoan the need to vote, despite a slight upturn in voter turnout in the last General Election but I cannot express how happy I am on finding out that women are using their votes just as much as men are.

I may have seven years to wait, but when 2018 comes around I am damn well throwing a party to celebrate the centenary of the first British women getting to vote.