What the vote meant for me

As I ponder the meaning of my life and look back on what I achieved I turn to one of my trusted confidants, Google. I type ‘oldest woman to live’ and am cheered to discover Jeanne Louise Calment. A woman who lived to the age of 122. A hope flickers inside me. Maybe I have a lot longer to achieve all of the things I want? To actually write a bucket list and start ticking it off, but most of all to make a difference.

Jeanne Louise Calment born February 1875, the time of Renoir, Monet and Cezanne. Hemmingway wasn’t yet born or even imagined and women still weren’t able to vote. That wouldn’t be for another forty three years. 1918, just over a hundred years ago. I wonder what she would make of the world now. Jeanne. Not because of Corona Virus, but because so much has changed for women, but alas still not enough.

I don’t fear that my husband (if I had one of those) would send me to a mental institution when (or if) he tired of me.

When pondering my life, which seems to be a popular tv show in my mind (the repeats are becoming rather boring) I am relieved that I live now. I was able to study medical science at university and although the stigma of not being married still exists it doesn’t define my life. I have options and freedom. I don’t fear that my husband (if I had one of those) would send me to a mental institution when (or if) he tired of me. Obviously he wouldn’t tire of me, I am amazing! Although we would need a maid as I am not the best housekeeper in the world. He would have to marry my sister if he wanted a wonderful homemaker. Having said that, she doesn’t like to cook, so maybe we would both be confined to a mental institution somewhere.

I am able to work from home during a pandemic. I don’t think that could be said of those who lived during the Spanish Flu, which by the way was also 1918. I can earn my own living, buy my own house, wear pretty much whatever I want.

I hope she doesn’t mind that I am calling her Jeanne, or is it Jeanne Louise?

Thinking about the 122 years that Jeanne lived. I hope she doesn’t mind that I am calling her Jeanne, or is it Jeanne Louise? I know we haven’t been introduced and we never will as she died in 1997. But I wonder about the life she lived and how her life as a woman has changed. Were the changes remarkable to her? Did she even feel their affect? I imagine her throwing off her hat and saying ‘hurrah’ (in French of course) when the vote for women happened and discussing the changes and hope that they would be able to vote in France soon. But maybe it didn’t feel that remarkable? Maybe it’s the generations after that have really witnessed the changes.

Without a doubt the right for women to vote was a milestone that has rippled through generations making more and more changes that mean I can live the life I live now. With a room and house of my own.

Jeanne witnessed all of this. What it was like to have to be a woman tied to a man and also a woman with the freedom to live on her own.

The right for women to vote happenend in 1918 in UK and 1945 in France.