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Nov 11, 2018

Oh Those Youngsters

Cassandra Levesque (D-Strafford 04), a 19-year-old Girl Scout, won a seat in the New Hampshire House of Representatives last Tuesday - running on the strength of her successful push to raise the Minimum Age to Marry from 13 to 16.



The Concord Monitor:

Levesque said she hadn’t originally planned on running this year – she has a busy schedule with online political science courses from Southern New Hampshire University and her position as a girl scout leader in Barrington. She is also still in the process of getting her driver’s license, and was worried about the commute to Concord, she said.

- and -

In 2017, as a senior at Dover High School, Levesque began her push to raise the marriage age – 13 for girls and 14 for boys – as part of a Girl Scouts project that ultimately earned her the organization’s gold award. Both her grandmother and great-grandmother entered into child marriages in their teens to escape abuse at home.

Diversity, bitches. 
Without it, we get stagnant. 

We've allowed our governments to be practically nothing but older white men. To be clear, I'm an older white man, but this is not about ducking my responsibilities, and I'm not indulging in self-loathing - the point is that we have to stop pretending we can have a healthy equitable society when the power structure is so unfairly out of balance. 

That oughta seem simple and obvious, but if we know so much, then we should understand that  artificially slanting things in favor of that Old White Guy Status Quo, can only make it better for fewer and fewer people - which means things get worse for more and more people.

Anyway, congratulations to Ms Levesque for chipping away at the monolith, lowering the average age of the New Hampshire legislature and skewing the gender split - all of which btw, contribute to raising the standards for that body and for the rest of us too.

Way to go, Cassie. Stay after it.

1 comment:

  1. If someone can find a 13 year old girl attractive as a mate, then that someone is hardwired wrong. There is no redemption, and no chance of rehabilitating that person. That person is a danger to children for his entire life.

    ReplyDelete