Marking The Day The House Voted For Women's Suffrage

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: 

This week marks the 100th anniversary of a big moment in voting rights. The House of Representatives passed the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote.

COKIE ROBERTS, BYLINE: No, no, no, no, no granting - no granting. We had the right to vote as American citizens. We didn't have to be granted it by some bunch of guys.

INSKEEP: OK. That, we should mention, is NPR's own Cokie Roberts correcting the introduction to this story. OK - acknowledging women's right to vote, which was affirmed a little more than a year later after enough states had approved it - big milestone for women's rights and the subject of this week's Ask Cokie, our weekly chat with commentator Cokie Roberts about how politics and the government work.

Hello, Cokie.

ROBERTS: Hi, Steve.

INSKEEP: OK. Now that we've cleared that up...

ROBERTS: We've got it straight. OK.

INSKEEP: (Laughter) Here's our first question.

ERIN BUTLER: My name is Erin Butler and I'm - live in McMinnville, Ore. It's so hard for me to understand why women weren't allowed to vote in the first place. Can you give us context for the evolution of the perception of women in the United States? What was their reasoning a hundred years ago?