Press Release

California Women Join California Nurses to Celebrate 90th Anniversary of Women’s Right to Vote

Event to Honor Women’s Victories, Values, and Votes Candidate Meg Whitman Dishonors Women’s Progress Through Decades Without Voting and Her Wall St. Agenda
 
Thousands of registered nurses expected to be joined by other Californians from community-based and labor organizations will converge in Sacramento, Calif. on Aug. 26, to mark the 90th anniversary of women securing the right to vote.  Women will march, many in period costume, from the Sacramento Convention Center to the west steps of the state Capitol.

The women will march in a celebration of women’s votes and values—and protest candidate Meg Whitman, who dishonors this legacy by having rarely voted much of her adult life and by advancing a Wall Street agenda which cares little for the needs of the most vulnerable among us, including women, children, and working-class families.

WHEN: Thursday, August 26, 4 to 6 p.m.
WHERE: West Steps of State Capitol, Sacramento CA

“We’re here marching in the footsteps of Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth, who risked arrest and harassment to secure our fundamental rights,” said Malinda Markowitz, RN, co-president of the California Nurses Association. 

“When Meg Whitman tells California women that she could not be bothered to vote, she dishonors the legacy and struggle of the suffragists, and fails to demonstrate the civil responsibility and commitment we should expect from someone who thinks they are entitled to be governor.  When Whitman presses to further cut back the public safety net, she disproportionately harms women, children, and the most vulnerable among us,” Markowitz said.

Whitman herself has said, as she did in an interview in March, “I was not as engaged in the political process as I should have been. I was doing lots of other things.” Among those things was running a company where she carried out sweeping layoffs and outsourcing of jobs, just as she is now proposing to do to public service jobs in California, which will also disproportionately affect women.