If you’re a baby-faced 18-year-old girl like me here at the University, you can’t get into the bars, but there is one pretty incredible thing you can do: vote!

In 1869, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton organized the National Woman Suffrage Association to earn women the right to vote. Almost 50 years later, still fighting, 270 women were arrested for picketing the White House asking for the same rights to participate in government as men. In 1919, Tennessee was the last state to ratify the 19th amendment, giving half of the United States population the right to vote.

This victory was clearly deserved, and honored today, as women are the larger percent of the vote as a whole with young women actually voting more than young men in every election since 1996. The gender voting rate gap is evident when you look at the numbers.

Young women between the ages of 18 to 29 voted at higher rates than young men of the same ages, reaching a gap of four percent of more women voting than men in the 2012 election. Despite the fact that more women vote than men, we still have large strides to take in women’s rights, particularly in this election. https://www.census.gov/prod/2014pubs/p20-573.pdf

This news may come as a shock to some, as it seems the opposite would be true. “I don’t really see girls my age talking about politics much, I guess it isn’t interesting to them. Maybe they feel it’s hard to understand or like they can’t make a difference anyway,” said Christie Learned, a future Illini media employee and freshman in DGS.

But let me tell you ? and this is rare ? I have never been so happy to be disproved in my life.

Although this statistic on women’s voting rates lightened my spirits, nothing makes me more cynical than thinking about some of the people running in the presidential election presently. Our nation is facing some serious issues, specifically our female populace. As young voters, whose lives these issues will mainly affect, we have an obligation to learn about what is next for our country.

This next presidential election affects women aged 18 to 25 years old more than anyone else, considering the topics most commonly up for debate include what we should be able to do with our bodies.

Actress Lena Dunham posted a blog post to “Woman Are Watching” on five reasons why she votes. Her fourth reason read, in her feisty tone, “I vote because the number of backwards, out-of-touch, downright freaking unbelievably anti-women’s health politicians out there right now makes my blood boil.”

Women’s issues do not stop here. In 2013, women who worked full time earned, on average, only 78 cents for every dollar men earned. This is why the Paycheck Fairness Act, a revamped bill that has been in the talks of providing “more effective remedies to victims of discrimination in the payment of wages on the basis of sex”, is trying to secure equal pay for equal work for both men and women alike. https://www.aclu.org/equal-pay-equal-work-pass-paycheck-fairness-act) (https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/84

Senator of Kentucky Rand Paul, a Republican candidate, has voted against this act multiple times, comparing the progressive bill to — yes — the Soviet Union’s government. Senator Rand Paul then began to argue that the United States’ free market is already doing a fine job at setting wages for both men and women despite the evident wage gap across genders.

Readers, Senator Paul could potentially run our country in the next year, yet is opposed to a bill that would help women level the playing field. In fact, without a good turn up (something you can do when you’re 19) at the polls this year, our next president may be someone that will not bring progressive changes to women’s rights.

If we let the older generations vote for the people that will run our country, young women and men alike may be very unhappy with the results.

Stop trying to find 19-year-old friends that look like you, you 18-year-old girls out there. Instead, start reading up on who may potentially be our future president. Then take out your plain old 18-year-old IDs and register to vote.

Leah is a freshman in Media.?

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