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Arguments Against Women's Suffrage

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Even though the pro suffragists “had national organizations since 1869, the anti-suffragists did not found their own group until 1911.” While waiting for an organizing the “suffrage opponents still bonded without an official institution.” Those opposing suffrage did whatever they could to influence the public; “artists created political cartoons that mocked suffragists, religious leaders spoke out against women’s political activism, and articles attacked women who took part in public life. Even without an official anti-suffrage organization “opposing women’s rights to vote was still popular.” After years of waiting “opponents of woman suffrage began to organize locally in the 1860s.” Massachusetts was home to leading suffrage advocates, but …show more content…
Even though men pretty much needed women to survive “many believed that men and women were fundamentally different and that women should not sully themselves in the dirty world of politics. Some women were also against suffrage “they argued that most women did not want the vote and that only a few, mostly radical, women would use it.” Others were worried that all women would receive their ballots at the same time, without racial consideration, education, or class distinctions. This frightened both men and women especially men in power, mostly the whites of the South. Out of the many against women’s suffrage, “industrialists, distillers, and brewers felt [strongly] threatened by the reforming potential of women voters.” They believed that women were in fact different than men and would vote according to their "natural maternal instinct to prohibit alcohol consumption, interfere in business practices, and regulate working conditions and hours.” ("Anti-Suffrage Arguments”). In the 1910s the National Association OPPOSED to Woman Suffrage published a pamphlet that stated many reasons why women should not be allowed to vote. Some of the reasons listed were, “because it means competition of women with men instead of co-operation, 80% of the women eligible to vote are married and can only double or annul their husband's votes, in some States more voting women than voting men will place the Government under

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