Some Days I Wonder If Feminism Tried To Accomplish Too Much

Here’s where we are 11 years into fourth wave feminism

Sad woman sitting on a cliff, illustration licensed from Deposit Photos

I read a story the other day that said married women might lose the vote in America. Left me stunned and reeling and I’m not even American, just your friendly next-door neighbor waving hello from Canada.

Lose the vote? How is that even possible, is what I kept thinking, staring at the page. Is this real? And it’s not real yet, but it could be. For now, it’s just a proposed law, but it will be real if the proposed law gets passed into law.

It’s called the SAVE Act, and it’s a law that’s been proposed to change the documents required to register to vote in America. If the law gets passed, Americans will need either a valid passport, military id, or a birth certificate that matches your current legal name in order to vote.

Which means if a woman changed her name at marriage, she’ll need a passport or military id to register to vote. Otherwise? Sorry, honey.

I read that a passport can cost over a hundred dollars in some states and I wonder how many married women living in poverty will be ruled out. Can’t even imagine a woman not being able to vote because her legal ID doesn’t have the same last name as her birth certificate because she’s married.