News1 min ago
Women Against Women's Suffrage
It is pretty obvious why I'm posting this: I'm attempting, perhaps mistakenly, to draw at least some analogy between the debate then, when women were fighting for decades to gain access to what we now see as one of the most basic rights, the right to vote, and the recent resurgence of Civil Rights and BLM protests.
Whether or not that's justified, the history of anti-Suffrage is interesting on its own sake. Perhaps in a sense it's obvious that this was going to happen, but there is something shocking and disheartening all the same about the reaction to women's suffrage protests, and particularly so when it came from other women. The example below, The Ladies' Battle,
written by Molly Seawell, an American author, is but one of countless others. It's so jarring to read some of the passages today. And yet, are they that out of place in modern discourse?
Here's a passage on the effect of the WSPU (the suffragettes who relied on Civil Disobedience), for example:
"... it would be unjust to confound the section of law-abiding and dignified, if mistaken, suffragists with the shrieking and savage mobs that make one shudder at the thought of entrusting them with a vote... The present Government has shown a singular vacillation concerning the frenzied women who rioted for suffrage." (pp63-65)
Here Seawell relies on the deadliest political insult:
"The tendency of women suffrage is inevitably towards Socialism, the State doing everything possible for the individual." (p 71)
Or insults the intelligence or lack of understanding of those who wanted suffrage:
"Opposition to suffrage does not mean that women should not study public affairs, and take an intelligent interest in them... it would broaden their minds, and there would be fewer suffragists." (ibid, p106).
"It is my earnest hope and belief that the sound good sense of American women will defend them from suffrage, and protect... their personal dignity. I belief women suffrage to be an unmixed evil." (p119).
It would be a shame for such a weighty tome to have missed out another key Civil Rights issue, but Seawell does not disappoint:
"it is within the memory of living men that the Government of the United States... violated every principle of constitutional government, of common sense as well as common justice, by placing the ballot [and the same civil rights] in the hands of recently emancipated slaves... only a few generations removed from cannibalism, as to the highest type of the Caucasian race, with a thousand years of civilisation behind it." (pp17-18)
It would be comforting to thinking that Seawell was a lone voice in the debate, but sadly she was not. The book itself provides many examples that purport to demonstrate, if anything, the reverse, and that suffragism was a minority pursuit. And, besides, history up until then was on her side. In the UK we are still not yet 100 years away from the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928, which finally granted women and men equal rights at the Ballot Box. In the US they will celebrate their 100-year anniversary of equal suffrage in a shade over two months.
It is, I think, timely to recall just how difficult it can be to win battles that hindsight would lead us to wonder why they were even fought at all.
https:/
Whether or not that's justified, the history of anti-Suffrage is interesting on its own sake. Perhaps in a sense it's obvious that this was going to happen, but there is something shocking and disheartening all the same about the reaction to women's suffrage protests, and particularly so when it came from other women. The example below, The Ladies' Battle,
written by Molly Seawell, an American author, is but one of countless others. It's so jarring to read some of the passages today. And yet, are they that out of place in modern discourse?
Here's a passage on the effect of the WSPU (the suffragettes who relied on Civil Disobedience), for example:
"... it would be unjust to confound the section of law-abiding and dignified, if mistaken, suffragists with the shrieking and savage mobs that make one shudder at the thought of entrusting them with a vote... The present Government has shown a singular vacillation concerning the frenzied women who rioted for suffrage." (pp63-65)
Here Seawell relies on the deadliest political insult:
"The tendency of women suffrage is inevitably towards Socialism, the State doing everything possible for the individual." (p 71)
Or insults the intelligence or lack of understanding of those who wanted suffrage:
"Opposition to suffrage does not mean that women should not study public affairs, and take an intelligent interest in them... it would broaden their minds, and there would be fewer suffragists." (ibid, p106).
"It is my earnest hope and belief that the sound good sense of American women will defend them from suffrage, and protect... their personal dignity. I belief women suffrage to be an unmixed evil." (p119).
It would be a shame for such a weighty tome to have missed out another key Civil Rights issue, but Seawell does not disappoint:
"it is within the memory of living men that the Government of the United States... violated every principle of constitutional government, of common sense as well as common justice, by placing the ballot [and the same civil rights] in the hands of recently emancipated slaves... only a few generations removed from cannibalism, as to the highest type of the Caucasian race, with a thousand years of civilisation behind it." (pp17-18)
It would be comforting to thinking that Seawell was a lone voice in the debate, but sadly she was not. The book itself provides many examples that purport to demonstrate, if anything, the reverse, and that suffragism was a minority pursuit. And, besides, history up until then was on her side. In the UK we are still not yet 100 years away from the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928, which finally granted women and men equal rights at the Ballot Box. In the US they will celebrate their 100-year anniversary of equal suffrage in a shade over two months.
It is, I think, timely to recall just how difficult it can be to win battles that hindsight would lead us to wonder why they were even fought at all.
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Answers
They have equal rights by law Naomi, but they are not protected from human prejudice. As soon as someone from BAME origins goes public with instanees of racism, the response from a large part of the white population is to disbelieve them. In fact, a lot of those folk doing the disbelief are quite constant in their lack of belief. BAME complain of racism: Lies....
22:27 Tue 23rd Jun 2020
That's a long OP.
Read a bit, just wanted to say that comparisons need to be closely matched. Being denied a vote is clear discrimination. Even if there were reasons for doing so. Convincing yourself you are hard done by and it's because of your skin colour is more an attitude problem associated with the one feeling hard done by. Speaking out against the protests in each case are therefore a different kettle of fish.
Read a bit, just wanted to say that comparisons need to be closely matched. Being denied a vote is clear discrimination. Even if there were reasons for doing so. Convincing yourself you are hard done by and it's because of your skin colour is more an attitude problem associated with the one feeling hard done by. Speaking out against the protests in each case are therefore a different kettle of fish.
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