They might not all be afraid of them in the sense of being afraid of serious abuse, though some of them may well be. Some, however, may just want to have peace in the household instead of an ongoing argument, however sure they are of being able to hold up their own end of the argument.
Women’s restrooms have a long history as an underground network
Informing some men of this might be a bad idea.
But then, the woman can take the picture, spoil her ballot, request a new one and vote it by her conscience. Though I’m sure a sufficiently assholish/controlling husband/SO could figure that one out as well.
(Note that the quote inside thorny_locust’s post above is from Kevin Drum, Washington Post).
I guess the one positive of “bathroom bills” is that it would keep men from being able to do anything about this, even if they knew about it…
If he went to the polls with her, that would be fairly obvious. She’d need some reason to be voting when he wasn’t at the polling location at the time. Some women could pull that off easily; others couldn’t.
Yes, sorry that I didn’t make that clear.
I suppose the number of men who won’t allow their wives/girlfriends to go to the bathroom when they’re out – or who will insist that they use a “family” room which the man can check first – is going to be small. But it might not be nonexistent.
Nothing is nonexistent when 9 billion human natures are involved. But “If [whatever] might possibly be misused once sometime on Earth some year we can never use [whatever] now” is a silly standard to adhere to.
If there really is info that women feel the need to pass amongst themselves as a sisterhood away from the prying eyes of the men in their lives, the women’s bathrooms in public places are probably about the best possible venue. So use them.
A small piece of transparency with a pre-filled oval to create whatever photo-op one wishes.
Of course, these things are easier to think of at the comfort of my desk without being under the influence of any malicious coercion.
True.
Sadly this reminds me of posters in women’s restrooms in airports giving a number to call if they are being trafficked. My wife has told me of several of these all over.
That’s what we’ve come to, folks.
These are in men’s restrooms in airports too. I saw one just recently in a men’s room in a non-airport setting as well. Damned if I can remember where, but it pretty well had to be a hotel, restaurant, or shopping center here in the greater Miami metroblob or in Key West with is blob-adjacent.
There’s a lot of trafficking in workers from low wage countries who get to a “better” country then get their passport or whatever papers taken from them and are pressed into de facto slavery working in some obscure behind-the-scenes job.
It’s not just the sex trade or abusive husbands / SOs.
While they’re not phrased that way, I’ve seen posters in women’s restrooms around here (I think maybe in the library) giving indications of trafficking and numbers to call; aimed apparently at least partly at others who might recognize that someone else is in trouble.
Also, fairly commonly, posters about who to call if being abused; often with tear off phone number strips – and usually with some of those strips having been torn off.
Neither of those types look like impromptu things left by individual women; they look like part of an official program. But it was pretty obvious why they were in the bathroom and not out on the poster boards visible to everybody. I don’t know whether they were in the men’s rooms, also.
For the record, I thought it was clear in your post - but I had stripped out some context and wanted to make it equally clear in mine. Apologies if I seemed to imply otherwise!
Actually, this is not true. They could use a technique called seeding: each batch of addresses they send out to a volunteer includes a fake name and address that actually goes back to HQ.
This practice is used by the owners of direct mail address lists. When you rent a mailing list, your contract says you can only use it for the specified purpose, e.g., number of mailings, type of mailings, etc. To check that the renters are not violating the agreement, the list holder includes a seed address that will receive each mailing sent by the renter.
Of course, I don’t know if the organizations behind the post card drives are doing this, but it would make sense for them to do so, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they did.
This only shows which messages were sent. It doesn’t show which ones were the most effective, which is what I was referring to.
I followed up with:
Okay, I just found the instructions, and they state “This message is the most effective based on many studies.”
The ones in the bathroom were definitely official. I didn’t notice similar ones in the men’s room, but I might have missed them. And I don’t know the exact wording.
There is a lot more of this kind of thing. A standard part of the yearly Medicare physical is a way of telling the doctor that you are being abused - elder abuse in this case.
I know it is good that there are means of asking for help, it is just depressing that they are necessary.
It’s illegal in most states to do that. Not that that prevents people from doing it, but it gives an abused person (who could be a woman, or an elder, or anyone else who depends on a controlling household member) some cover if she wants to be obvious enough that the poll worker stops her from doing it.
I worry more about women voting by mail, whose husbands may insist on watching them fill out the ballot.
hell, there are giant public signs in some airports (in the immigration area), sometimes in multiple languages, telling trafficked people their rights and what to say/do.