Pssst, ladies....

Doesn't this pamphlet totally convince you not to vote?



In case this image is difficult to read, here's a transcript (emphases in original, obvi):

"Vote NO On Woman Suffrage

BECAUSE 90% of the women either do not want it, or do not care.

BECAUSE it means competition of women with men instead of co-operation.

BECAUSE 80% of the women eligible to vote are married and can only double or annul their husbands' votes.

BECAUSE it can be of no benefit commensurate with the additional expense involved.

BECAUSE in some States more voting women than voting men will place the Government under petticoat rule.

BECAUSE it is unwise to risk the good we already have for the evil which may occur."

Now, dear readers, all of these "reasons" are gems, aren't they? From the sooper-sciuntific percentages that definitely bolster this document's credibility, to the still-used-today reason that we shan't grant rights to minorities because because because... VeRy BaD ThInGs might happen down the road!

What's most interesting, I think, is the contradictory overall tone of the piece wherein allowing women to vote is at once No Big Deal since women can "only" double or annul the vote of their hubbies and yet allowing women the vote is Very Dangerous because it will place the government under Petticoat Rule!!

It's like, the folks who wrote this pamphlet were incredibly threatened at the prospect of women gaining this basic democratic right, but they were trying to act like they weren't threatened at all.


Fun Fact: In 1874, the Supreme Court of the United States implicitly found that women were neither "persons" nor full "citizens" under the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

In Minor v. Happersett, the Court cited the 14th Amendment's order that:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law, which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction, the equal protection of the laws."

After a lengthy and (in my opinion unnecessary, given their determination to affirm their already-held view on suffrage) discussion of citizenship, the men of the Supreme Court unanimously said out of one side of their collective mouth that women were citizens, and out of the other side of their mouth they "explained" that women just weren't the types of citizens who got to vote.

That is, they weren't the right types of "persons" that the 14th Amendment actually granted important rights to.

Fun times.