There were some shifts in our political landscape this week. The balance of women in congress rose, including two Muslims and two Native Americans. My own state of Pennsylvania elected four women for the first time.

This is a few steps away from where we were as a country in 1920. Women were granted the vote on August 26th, and my own mother was thrilled to have been born on the fourth anniversary of that event. There is a movie called Iron Jawed Angels that shed more light in the darkness of my historical ignorance. As many times as my mom emphatically reminded me that voting was hard earned, that the term suffragette did not come out of nowhere, I never understood what is meant to be silenced. Maybe I can't.

I recall the pithy argument of Jo March in Little Women on this topic. 

"I find it poor logic to say that because women are good, women should vote. Men do not vote because they are good. They vote because they are male and citizens of this country. Women should vote, not because we are angels and men are animals but because we are human beings and citizens of this country."

The proportion of women in Congress does not by a long shot reflect the population, but welcoming more voices from the female experience brings us closer to valuing all that women bring to the table. When men hear their wives, fathers listen to their daughters, countries attend to their female constituents, we wake up to what partnership really means. 

"And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man." Genesis 2