She Can Vote, But Is She Heard?

On Aug. 18, women in America should pause to note the 100-year anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Women campaigned for the right to vote for many years prior to the Civil War.

Not until 1920 did Harry Burns cast the deciding vote in the Tennessee legislature to ratify the amendment. Burns received a note from his mother to “be a good boy” and change his no vote to yes.

It took over 60 years for the remaining 12 states to ratify the 19th Amendment. Mississippi was the last to do so, on March 22, 1984.

The host of a new CPN podcast, Booth to Ballot with Daniella Gibbons, joined me in a recent Greenelines podcast to explain her fervor to elevate women’s voices not only in the voting booth but also on the ballots.

Listen to the full podcast here.

“There are so many broken places in society and within women,” Gibbons said.

“The Lord began to show me that the loudest voices crying out are crying from a place of rejection. There’s going to be a dynamic shift, and new roaring voices will be raised up. These women will carry a DNA of restoration and redemption. These women will walk with purpose to live out their dreams and carry things that others would not. This is happening in the natural and the supernatural,” she said.

Gibbons is concerned that the church lags in its understanding of properly hearing the voice of women in the church.

“I know what it’s like to be rejected,” she said. “I know what it’s like to be in a room full of male pastors and be completely passed over because no one would identify me as someone who was serving in a pastoral role. There is still a root of rejection of women. But I don’t want to ever be put in a position because I am a woman. I want to have a seat at the table because I have something valuable to give beyond my gender. We need to stir up our influencer gifts.”

It’s difficult to imagine that women had to fight so hard to gain the right to vote. It’s still harder to understand how women must continue to struggle for the opportunity to influence.

“God has written a storyline for my life,” Gibbons said. “I’m no longer going to allow it to be dictated by the enemy.”