Tomorrow is the culmination of 230 years of struggle. (Long speech here)

[Feeling the Bern]

It began with Abigail Adams and her fight to open job opportunities for women.

When she passed, my heroine Elizabeth Cady Stanton took up the march for suffrage.

When she passed, her student Susan B. Anthony took up the march.

In 1869, the Wyoming territory passed universal suffrage for all people. By 1900, four states had done so (WY, CO, UT, ID).

Then, finally, in 1920, the 19th amendment is ratified, giving universal suffrage for all citizens 21 and over (in theory).

But the work was not done.

Women were still not equal; not equal in opportunities, in job conditions, pay, social treatment, marriage rights. A man could go to prison for beating a woman on the street, but not for beating his wife. A man made more than a woman for doing the same work (today, it's $.77 for white women, $.66 for black women, $.55 for Latinas).

Women were talked down to, condescended to. Women couldn't buy a car from a dealership without a salesman asking if she spoke to her husband first.

Male fashion designers created clothing for women that pretty much revealed everything men wanted to see (such as modern day hot pants, daisy dukes and two piece bikinis), while men's clothing was more modest.

Even with the passages of the CRA, women had to work twice as hard to prove they were half as good as men.

There were defeats, such as the failure to get the ERA ratified and the watering down of the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Act. . .but the march forward for women's equality never stopped and couldn't be stopped.

Tomorrow night, Americans take another step forward in that march towards equality and social justice for all. A woman will be elected president. A woman will break the highest and thickest of all glass ceilings. A woman will become something Stanton dreamed would happen.

The traditional WASP hold on power is slowly fading. Soon, we will have a non-Christian president. Soon, we will have someone of Asian descent as president. Soon, we will have a Native American as president. Soon, we will have a president whose first language isn't English. Soon, we will have a LBGT president. Soon, we will have an atheist president.

As this happens, the traditional white power elite will become more determined to hold their "rightful" place. But change happens. Slowly, bit by bit. Step by step. Soon, those what scream the loudest for "making America great again" and "taking my country back" will be the smallest of minorities, albeit one of the loudest.

Soon, those that mask their bigotry and intolerance in religion, after having been exposed in this election cycle, will be cast into the dustbin of history, as the younger generation, starting with my Generation X, are moving further and further away from religion of all kind.

Soon, the wrongs of the past towards women, immigrants, minorities, native Americans and every group of "the wrong white people" (Irish, Jew, Italian, etc) will be righted and those that worked to keep them down will disappear in ideology and power.

It is beginning. It has begun. Gays are no longer in the closet and can legally marry. Interracial marriage is no longer considered taboo.

And a woman, once considered in America to only have the rights to cook, clean and reproduce, will soon become the nation's 45th president. And while I do not completely trust her intentions as I am much more to the left than she is, I will support the things she does I agree with and denounce the things she does I disagree with. Just like I did with Barack Obama, just like I did with Bill Clinton. And just like I will do with the next Democrat that becomes president have Madame President, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Tomorrow, Elizabeth Cady Stantion, Abagail Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Helen Keller, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman and the rest that fought, bled, were jailed and died for the cause of women's rights, women's equality and women's suffrage. . .tomorrow night, your struggle takes a major step forward.

Tomorrow night is your night, ladies. Enjoy it, relish it, look the the heavens and thank everyone who fought to make this possible through the history of this country.

But before that happens, each and every one of you need to do something to honor those women who did the fighting. . .GET OUT AND VOTE!!!

[voteearlyvoteoften]

1. Solidarity