PeterAlan, on 2020-November-05, 20:51, said:
The 1970 General Election on 18 June was the first in which 18-year-olds had the vote. My 18th birthday was 3 days earlier, and I was determined to take part (as I have done in every election since).
My grandmother lived with us, and I took her along to the polls. She was then nearly 90 (her birthday, in a happy chance for this thread, was 4th July), and one of the 'lucky' women to be first enfranchised in 1918, the year she was 38 - others had to wait another 10 years. I remember how fortunate I was to be exercising the right that so many had to struggle so hard to achieve.
Decisions are made by those who show up and make a statement; it's trite but true to say that we can't all rely on someone else to do it for us, even in groups of millions.
But a woman's right to vote was not won at the ballot box but rather from a combination of circumstances (the war meant that women had been running the economy), activism (the women's suffrage movement had been highly effective) and political expediency (the emerging Labour party saw a tactical advantage to greater enfranchisement of both men and women). In general, activism, lobbying and political donations are a much more effective way of achieving change than simply voting. So you are right about not relying on someone else to do it but imho wrong about voting being the means of doing it yourself.