Guest Blog: Tara Chevrestt

I am going to drag myself to the polls this year…and cast my vote even though part of me feels it’s a crock. I live in the state of Utah, and I’m a Democrat. Utah always goes for the Republican candidate. Why bother, right? I mean, seriously?

And remember that year when one president won popular votes with a landslide, but another won electorials and became our president? Okay, the majority of the country wanted Mookie as president, but due to statehood and yada yada, Dookie won instead. Something wrong with this picture. Again, why bother, right? Even if my candidate is the most popular, if the other guy (or woman. I can hope.) wins Ohio, he gets it.

Well, here’s why I bother… women fought hard for that vote.

The fight began in 1780’s France. Matter of fact, some towns or states permitted voting as early as 1776 in the Colonial America, but take note of that: TOWN voting, STATE voting. As far as the big voting, such as president, taxes, laws, nope.

We didn’t get that right until 1920, and it was quite a fight to get there. Parades, banners, protests, imprisonment, force feeding, brutalization. Women were beat, women were banned from some places. For every postcard made supporting women’s right to vote, man released a postcard too, about why women should NOT vote: 1. They had a man to vote for them. 2. Their place is at home…etc.

Nevertheless if the fight began in 1780 and ended in 1920, that’s 140 years of fighting, of trying to prove to men we can and should vote, of being told no, of riots, parades, begging, jail…

It will take me all of ten minutes to dress, twenty minutes to get to the poll, maybe an hour to vote… After our ancestors spent 140 years getting me the right to just do that, by golly, I best drag my butt in there, regardless of whether my candidate is a shoe-in or not.

I owe them that much; Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, all the Elizabeths and Margarets of the past. I owe them, after all they went through on my behalf, two hours of my time.

What about you? Are you casting your vote and remembering how it was won?

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Elizabeth is a small-town Kansas girl who has grown up under her domineering father’s shadow. When she finds out that her father has denied her hand in marriage to the town’s most eligible bachelor–a man she’s long secretly desired–she snaps. Her father punches her for the last time. She realizes she has no future and with stories of suffragettes, women’s rights, and voting in her head, vows to be free.

She escapes to New York City where she meets Margaret. Margaret believes in the right to vote for women and engages Elizabeth to join in the National Women’s Party activities.

Operation: Opera House is underway. In a month’s time, President Wilson is due at the Metropolitan Opera House to give a speech. The NWP hopes that a peaceful protest will convince the president to gather congress in order to ratify the 19th Amendment.

As they prepare and plan, Margaret shows Elizabeth how to live and love. Under Margaret’s sensual touch, Elizabeth begins to heal from numerous emotional wounds. But on March 4th, 1919, their “peaceful protest” becomes a riot on the streets of New York.

A riot ensues in Elizabeth’s heart as well when her former flame shows up in the city…

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Tara Chevrestt is a deaf woman, former aviation mechanic, writer, and an editor. She is most passionate about planes, motorcycles, dogs, and above all, reading. That led to her love of writing. Between her writing and her editing, which allows her to be home with her little canine kids, she believes she has the greatest job in the world. She is very happily married.

Tara also writes as Sonia Hightower. Sonia writes the racy stuff and argues that she was here first. She just wasn’t allowed to be unleashed until the last year.

They both agree, however, that strong is sexy, and they don’t write the average, simpering damsel. They write about women who see what they want and obtain it.

While Tara and Sonia continue to fight over the laptop and debate who writes the next book, you can find buy links, blurbs, and other fun bits on their website: http://tarachevrestt.weebly.com/index.html or their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tara-Chevrestt-Sonia-Hightower/218383211513877.