# Women's Suffrage: On What Basis Was it Opposed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 10, 2008, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927 "2008-09-10T12:25:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/1 "2008-09-10T12:25:45Z")
Back during the women’s suffrage movement, what were the principal arguements against it? Did anyone offer anything more than “it’s not proper” or “it’s not their place” or similar meaningless platitudes? NOTE: I’m not asking for a debate about women should have the vote, nor am I looking for reasons why they shouldn’t. I’m just trying to get inside the heads of those who opposed women’s suffrage. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/2 "2008-09-10T12:46:46Z")
I guess one of the aspects here is the notion that political influence should be granted to households, not individuals. The man would represent the entire household with his vote, making another vote for the woman unncessary. [This Wiki article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-suffragism) also mentions some of the arguments used against women’s suffrage, including the point (interestingly brought forward by a woman) that women were more inclined to enforce moral issues in the field of politics and should therefore not be allowed to vote. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/3 "2008-09-10T12:49:22Z")
In general, men back then just felt women didn’t have the intellectual tools to vote responsibly. This attitude didn’t go away all that quickly – I remember reading a book written in the 60s that implied that Warren G. Harding won the election of 1920 (the first after the passage of the 19th amendment) because he was so handsome that women voters decided to vote for him on that reason alone. ---
**Author:** ![SkeptiJess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/4 "2008-09-10T12:51:21Z")
It’s hard to get into their heads becasue our heads now are in such a different place. There was genuinely a perception (by many) in those days that deep thinking was bad for a woman. That too much intellectual consideration would cause hysteria (madness) or, even, physical problems with the lady-parts. So, by preventing women from voting, or mixing much in the male intellectual world, men were ‘protecting’ them from harm. There was also a perception that women would always vote the way their men told them to vote. This would give married men two votes vice a single man’s single vote. And a man with a wife and several daughters would get 3 or more bites of the pie vice a single man. These are the two arguments I can think of off the top of my head. ---
**Author:** ![SkeptiJess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/5 "2008-09-10T12:52:57Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > …[This Wiki article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-suffragism) also mentions some of the arguments used against women’s suffrage, including the point (interestingly brought forward by a woman) that women were more inclined to enforce moral issues in the field of politics and should therefore not be allowed to vote. There was almost some justification for this one. Women were instrumental in bringing about Prohibition, after all. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/6 "2008-09-10T12:55:22Z")
Today we have debate about whether the uneducated ought to vote. Some parties try real hard to set up barriers which have the effect or reducng voting among the uneducated. At the time of the women’s suffrage movement, women were, on average, less educated then men. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/7 "2008-09-10T12:57:09Z")
[ul] [li]Why should married men have two votes and bachelors only one? (And Mormon husbands would be able to multiply their vote who knows how far!)[/li][li]Women are mentally unfit for politics. It overheats their undersized brains.[/li][li]Women own the household and exercise their powers in that realm. Men have politics, war, and business. That is how God ordained it and man shall not disobey His Divine Plan.[/li][/ul]This is an interesting quote from the era or just before, from a prominent woman who achieved power without the vote at all: > [@Letter to Sir Theodore Martin](#): > > The Queen is most anxious to enlist every one who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of “Woman’s Rights”, with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and propriety. Lady \_\_\_\_ ought to get a good whipping. It is a subject which makes the Queen so furious that she cannot contain herself. God created men and women different – then let them remain each in their own position. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/8 "2008-09-10T13:00:11Z")
“We” are convinced they We are doing a great job. “They” are different to Us and are not to be trusted. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/9 "2008-09-10T13:26:53Z")
[Why Women Do Not Wish the Suffrage](http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/03sep/0309suffrage.htm), from the September 1903 issue of the _Atlantic Monthly_. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/10 "2008-09-10T13:39:23Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > I guess one of the aspects here is the notion that political influence should be granted to households, not individuals. The man would represent the entire household with his vote, making another vote for the woman unncessary. The problem with that is that it doesn’t take into consideration households headed by a woman; there have been cases where vote was granted by household (by “fireplace” was the exact term in the election of kings that led to Guipuzcoa and Vizcaya joining Castilla, I’m talking early Middle Ages in Spain) and this included those houses headed by a woman. Definitely an unusual situation, though. Mind you, people who thought of “the man” as representing “the household” wouldn’t even understand what someone mentioning the possibility of a household headed by a woman was talking about. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/11 "2008-09-10T15:06:41Z")
> [@SkeptiJess](#): > > There was also a perception that women would always vote the way their men told them to vote. This would give married men two votes vice a single man’s single vote. And a man with a wife and several daughters would get 3 or more bites of the pie vice a single man. There was also the exact opposite argument that women would vote differently from their husbands and giving women the vote would destroy families when wives and husbands fought each other over candidates. It didn’t make any sense then either. [A speech](http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/annashawrepublic.htm) that lists many of the arguments against suffrage and refutes them. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/12 "2008-09-10T15:11:59Z")
In the U.S. debates on suffrage, frequent reference was made to the Bible in “explaining” that God intended women to be perpetually subordinate to men, that “a woman’s place is in the home,” etc. It was thought that women would become coarsened or tainted by their involvement in the grubby business of politics, and would necessarily not be raising the kids and cooking the meals as their husbands expected them to. **RealityChuck** , I’ve often read the same thing about Harding and the election of 1920. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/13 "2008-09-10T15:44:17Z")
One still occasionally encounters that comment about Harding, mostly because he’s an easy and fun President to denigrate. In reality the two years between the Armistice and the election of 1920 were two of the most difficult years in American history (inflation, unemployment, violent labor unrest, race riots, the Red Scare, the onset of Prohibition, the controversy over the League of Nations, Wilson’s stroke, and even a thrown World Series!), and the Wilson administration was wildly, staggeringly unpopular. Cox pledged to continue its policies. That was why Harding won. > [@Nava](#): > > The problem with that is that it doesn’t take into consideration households headed by a woman; there have been cases where vote was granted by household (by “fireplace” was the exact term in the election of kings that led to Guipuzcoa and Vizcaya joining Castilla, I’m talking early Middle Ages in Spain) and this included those houses headed by a woman. Definitely an unusual situation, though. Perhaps not as unusual as it seems. In the early United States also, where there were property qualifications to vote, property-owning widows could sometimes exercise the franchise. (Never-married women with property were all but unknown.) The elimination of property qualifications actually worked against female suffrage, as lawmakers simply redrew the requirements as being a white (except in New England) male, without bothering to make an exception for female heads of household. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2008, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/14 "2008-09-10T20:51:28Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > …Perhaps not as unusual as it seems. In the early United States also, where there were property qualifications to vote, property-owning widows could sometimes exercise the franchise. (Never-married women with property were all but unknown.) > > The elimination of property qualifications actually worked against female suffrage, as lawmakers simply redrew the requirements as being a white (except in New England) male, without bothering to make an exception for female heads of household. [New Jersey](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_the_United_States#New_Jersey) gave widows & spinsters worth at least £50 the franchise in 1776, but politicians came to despise “petticoat electors” so much that women’s suffrage was revoked in 1807. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2020, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/15 "2020-08-26T18:35:25Z")
Bumped. A good overview of all the preposterous arguments trotted out back then: > **[The most ridiculous historical arguments denying women the right to vote | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/26/us/womens-equality-day-right-to-vote-trnd)** > > This Women's Equality Day, let's look back at the absurd, often depressing reasons people tried to keep women from voting. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2020, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/16 "2020-08-26T19:15:59Z")
In the UK property where property qualifications remained for voting till 1928, one of the arguments used was that it would increase the upper class vote bank. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2020, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/17 "2020-08-26T21:09:07Z")
The simple answer is that women were, and have been throughout most of history, second-class citizens with limited rights. Men occupied the higher levels of politics, business, education, arts and clergy and jealously guarded that privilege. Having actively kept women away from such positions it was possible to point to their lack of attainment as an indication of their lower aptitudes. Those attitudes do not shift easily, as this [public information film](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS37SNYjg8w) from the 1930’s clearly shows. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/18 "2020-08-27T06:29:41Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > The problem with that is that it doesn’t take into consideration households headed by a woman; there have been cases where vote was granted by household Similar issue in the UK, where female householders had the vote for local government, but not Parliamentary, elections (it’s a minor subplot in Arnold Bennett’s novel _An Old Wives’ Tale_) for quite some time in the 19th century. The extension of the suffrage for Parliamentary elections in 1918 was only to women over 30 or householders: universal adult suffrage didn’t come until 1929. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/19 "2020-08-27T06:50:08Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Having actively kept women away from such positions it was possible to point to their lack of attainment as an indication of their lower aptitudes. Those attitudes do not shift easily, as this [public information film](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS37SNYjg8w) from the 1930’s clearly shows. Quite so, and those attitudes remain to this day - can’t count how often I’ve seen arguments on this very board that point to women’s lack of ability because 'look at all the great achievements in history, all men". The fact that women have been forced to be glorified servants for all time is conveniently ignored. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2020, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927/20 "2020-08-27T07:53:09Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > In general, men back then just felt women didn’t have the intellectual tools to vote responsibly. Happens today… - [Coulter: “If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president”](https://www.mediamatters.org/ann-coulter/coulter-if-we-took-away-womens-right-vote-wed-never-have-worry-about-another-democrat) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-suffrage-on-what-basis-was-it-opposed/462927.md?page=2)