Anti-Suffrage
Arguments
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Women's Suffrage Resources Home
Source:
http://www.history.rochester.edu/class/suffrage/home.htm
Written by: Meredith
Goldstein-LeVande
It was typical of many
psychologists and anti-suffragists to automatically associate feminism with
mental illness. In 1918, H. W. Frink wrote of feminists: "A certain proportion
of at least the most militant suffragists are neurotics who in some instances
are compensating for masculine trends, in others, are more or less successfully
sublimating sadistic and homosexual ones." It has, of course, always been easier
for traditionalists to label those who challenge the status quo as "Crazy" than
to confront their arguments. (Kaplan, 31) In the United States, in fact,
anti-suffragists, finding comfort in psychology, concluded that suffragists all
bordered hysteria and, thus, their arguments could not be taken seriously. While
some Freudians, particularly, Karen Horney, were sensitive to the social and
cultural factors which impinged upon women, shaping their personalities, by
the-mid-twentieth century "any questioning of women's place was readily equated
with neurosis by the Freudian psychologists and their popularizers." Two women,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were the founders of the women's
suffrage movement. This project will give a brief summary of their lives, their
work, and the meeting in Seneca Falls. It will also give a detailed account of
the ideologies of anti-suffragists that these women were up against.
FEARS THE ANTIS'
HAD IF WOMEN WERE CONSIDERED EQUALS
-
More strongly the anti's
conception of women's emotional composition aggravated their fears about
women's suffrage. Whereas men were described as rational and emotionally
stable, women were portrayed as "high strung," tense, irritable, and
potentially irrational. "Their delicate emotional equilibrium could easily
upset by a strain-like voting." "When women generally vote and hold office,
" warned one anti-group, "nervous prostration, desire for publicity, and
'love of the limelight' will combine to produce a form of hysteria already
increasing in the United States." Those women already involved in the
suffrage movement were pointed to as case studies of hysteria. "One male
doctor who opposed woman suffrage declared that he could not shut his eyes "
to the fact that there is mixed up with the women's movement much mental
disorder." "Another anti spoke of the insane craving of the suffragists to
imitate men and of her pathological contempt" for women's work." (Mayor, 67)
THE THREE
CONCLUSIONS THE ANTIS' AROSE AT DUE TO WOMEN'S "EMOTIONAL BEHAVIOR.
- Since all women
suffragists bordered on hysteria there was no need to take their
arguments seriously.
- There was a real
danger if other women cane under the influence the suffragists. "As one
Anti warned, "all woman are potentially hysterics." Men had an
obligation to protects other women from contamination of the
suffragists.
- A women's
emotional instability would make her a dangerous voter. She would let
her feelings rather than her intellectual concerns be her primary reason
for voting. "Since women obviously could not be trusted to behave
rationally, they would be extremely dangerous in a political setting."
(Mayor, 67)
OTHER ARGUMENTS THE
ANTI'S STRESSED AGAINST WOMEN AND VOTING
- In addition to
this, the antis stressed that women were intellectually inferior and
could not make educated decisions. "Women did not have the intellectual
capacity of men because their brains were smaller and more delicate. One
anti observed that "the fiber of a woman's brain is likely to be as much
finer as the phobia of her sin..."
- The other
explanation to women's intellectual inferiority was related to the same
basis for diagnosing hysteria. They argued that the women's thought
process was less equipped to handle logical progressions than were
men's. For example, an anti said that "women's mind arrives at
conclusions on incomplete evidence; has a very imperfect sense of
proportion; accepts the congenial as true and rejects the uncongenial as
false; takes the imaginary which is desired for reality, and treats the
undesired reality which is out of sight as non-existent-building up for
itself in this way... a very unreal picture of the external world."
Another anti said that "while women's minds seemed to move rather in
curves and circles, following lines more beautiful, perhaps, but
irregular and disconcerting, men's minds seemed to move along in a
straight line." (Mayor, 68)
- "Women in
politics would mean corruption and irrationality." But this argument did
not cease here; the antis took this even farther for their own benefits.
They warned that if women got the vote they would compete with men in
the male sphere and lose the qualities which made them feminine. An anti
said, "'The question to be decided...is simply this: Is it desirable to
have women become masculine, instead of retaining the characteristics of
her own sex?" Another anti said that over time those changes would alter
the very temperament of women. (Mayor, 68)
OTHER MISOGYNIST
IDEOLOGIES BEHIND THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST SUFFRAGE AND THREATS IT POSED
- While women
would become more masculine, antis argued that men would become more
effeminate. Male antis saw women in politics as a threat to their
masculinity. "Giving women the vote was views as a shirking rather than
a sharing of responsibility, and therefore a resignation of manhood."
- They predicted
the shifting of gender roles as expressed their views quite bluntly.
"Woman suffrage would produce a nation of transvestites." (Mayor, 69)
- Once traditional
sex roles were tampered with the family structure would annihilate,
argued antis. The antis argued that women had a separate but equal form
of power. They could shape their children's growth. The antis argued
that giving women political power was not the solution to women's
dissatisfaction. 'They advocated that women use the power they had
within the home to produce sons and husbands who were effective
extensions of themselves." (Mayor, 71)
