Women’s right to vote




Many of us truly hoped for something different under Blair. Say. No. More.

In Gib we have two parties. Nothing changes, apart from who’s mates with those in power. Many younger people here don’t and won’t vote.

In Spain, there was a proposed alliance between a minor party and the Popular (ha!) Party, but the deal was that politicians could be tried for anything they did wrong. Heavens! We can’t have politicians subject to the law. Natch, the deal fell through.

Apathy? I don’t know. But it increasingly seems to about one self-serving greedy class of selfish idiots over another. The end result is the same: less income, higher taxes, fewer public services. And lots of ridiculous propaganda.

The only meaningful vote I think I have made in my life was for Brexit. The bastards in Parliament are still trying to reverse it.

And … the second reason is, that being on the electoral register qualifies one for jury service. Now, I am nearly sixty. I can not spend three hours in a goddam courtroom without going to the toilet. The advisory letter basically tells you to starve yourself and not drink before you turn up so you don’t need the toilet. Great. Basically I’m likely to pass out or vomit in court.

I am not interested in determining someone’s guilt or innocence depending on who has got the better lawyer. I certainly don’t want to be targeted later as a member of the jury that convicted someone.

In my past life I have spent enough time in magistrates, county, and crown court. It’s not exactly a new thing for me. But at least reporters could sneak out for a pee.

There is basically no remuneration or exemption in Gib. And we can be called every three years up to the age of 100, or something like that. My partner has a contract (self-employed) three days a week. He would lose that money. For what? Civic duty? That could cost him hundreds depending on the length of a trial.

So on this not very auspicious International Women’s Day, when we can honestly celebrate nothing, and I mean nothing, I am flying in the face of everything my feminist predecessors fought for. But still, equal ops and all that, so is my partner.

I can’t imagine my fate being determined by ‘my peers’. Who are my peers? Snotty toffee-nosed snobs who went to university and voted against Brexit. People aren’t equal and never have been, regardless of the token housewife, black person, brown person, working class person that make up the jury. Perhaps I’m leaning against jury trials. Nothing to do with being called again next year.

Back to IWD (a bit like IUD). Now we have the vote, well some of us do, can we possibly do something about health care, contraception, abortion rights (yes Donald, go fuck yourself), education, prostitution and pornography?

About roughseasinthemed


8 Responses to Women’s right to vote

  1. Carmen says:

    I hear you, roughseas. It does get discouraging, I agree. Meanwhile, on the same day somewhere else in the world, another Nova Scotia blogger has a post up which celebrates sisterhood. I thought you and your readers might like to peruse –


    Women do good things in the world. 🙂
    (and I’m off to work to inspire my ‘charges’)


    • Of course women do good things. And don’t get paid/get paid peanuts. If that was men looking after leprous communities, would we ever hear the end of it? And would they do it without substantial pay? Which is exactly the point of my whinge on roughseas (gotta love having two blogs sometimes, two whinges on one day), women end up doing crap jobs, the usual gender stereotyped caring role, hence the pay gap. Be honest, the link to the sisters is stereotyping par excellence. Submissive (ie religious) and caring, nursing, etc etc etc, putting others first. I’ve had enough of that shit. Get the men to do it.


  2. @RSitM

    “women end up doing crap jobs, the usual gender stereotyped caring role, hence the pay gap.”

    Up with matriarchy. I think it should be given a chance already, as the P has had eons of time to get things right and hasn’t done a very good job.


    • I’m not bothered about any archy, oligarchy, patriarchy, matriarchy.

      Of course the P has done a crap job over thousands of years. I would just like a teensy weensy bit of equality. Not too difficult. Rights over my own body, lack of discrimination, no sexual objectification, prostitution, pornography (even though all that is soooo empowering), health care, education, and no, men on drugs and with ops are not women.
      Where was I? Oh yes. Dreamland.


  3. theoccasionalman says:

    I’ve only ever voted once, and that was for Obama in 2008. I’ve never served on jury duty, and I’ve moved so much that I’m not even registered to vote any more. I have mixed feelings about it, because for all that I doubt whether my voice is heard, not voting guarantees that my opinion doesn’t matter. Voting is a gesture of hope, however futile.


    • A gesture for the least worst? With age comes cynicism. Especially at the thought of being immured for weeks in a jury trial with no toilet/food access. My right to vote never came at a cost. Now it does. Too pricey. Thanks, but no thanks.

      Liked by 1 person



WordPress.com Logo


Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s