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"Feminism got women the vote" has always been a trusty standby for feminist apologists who wish to pull the spotlight away from feminism's crimes and toxicities. For them, the fact that women formerly didn't have the franchise serves as Exhibit A that "women were oppressed." But the women's voices in this book would very much beg to differ. These women didn't even want to vote in the first place. Not only did they not consider themselves oppressed by not having the vote, but they would have considered themselves oppressed if they did have it! And that throws a very concerning light on feminist historiography, don't you think so?
You will enjoy the window into the past which this book provides, and it will amuse you to learn how very little certain matters have changed in nearly a century. Feminist women, and feminist politics, were virtually indistinguishable from what we know today -- we are dealing with the same people, the same behaviors, and the same timeless scenarios, now as then!
We have all heard that if women controlled the world there would be no war, right? Well check this out, from 1916:
"The essential dogma of the Woman's Peace Party (none but suffragists admitted!) was that the adoption of woman suffrage was a necessary and effectual step toward abolishing war. "If women had had the vote in all countries now at war," said Mrs. Catt, "the conflict would have been prevented." But history shows women at least as much inclined to war as men--a fact illustrated in the French Revolution, in our Civil War, in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, and in other instances too numerous to mention."Moving along in the same vein, we read of violent feminists:
"The incongruity of suffragists attempting to pose as a peace party is obvious to anyone with a memory and a sense of humor. Before the war broke out, American suffrage leaders were applauding, feasting, and subsidizing the British virago who instigated the setting on fire of 146 public buildings, churches, and houses, the explosion of 43 bombs, the destruction of property valued at nearly two million dollars (not including priceless works of arts), and many cases of personal assault. In 1912 they justified the destruction of the Rokeby Venus; in 1914 they professed horror at the bombardment of the Cathedral of Rheims. Is this insincerity or hypocrisy, or mere aberration of mind?"In the following, we catch an early glint of those radical feminist fangs we presently know so well. Note especially the bits about "personal and political" and "emotionalism", the reference to "complete social revolution", and the prescience of Mr. Gladstone:
"The confusion of social and personal rights with political, the substitution of emotionalism for investigation and knowledge, the mania for uplift by legislation, have widely advertised the suffrage propaganda. The reforms for which the founders of the suffrage movement declared women needed the vote have all been accomplished by the votes of men. The vote has been withheld through the indifference and opposition of women, for this is the only woman's movement which has been met by the organized opposition of women. Suffragists still demand the vote. Why? Perhaps the answer is found in the cry of the younger suffragists: "We ask the vote as a means to an end--that end being a complete social revolution!" When we realize that this social revolution involves the economic, social, and sexual independence of women, we know that Gladstone had the prophet's vision when he called woman suffrage a "revolutionary" doctrine."By way of counterpoint, here is Miss Edith Melvin describing exactly how oppressed she feels by not having the vote. She was no fluke; women like her were everywhere:
"I have never seen any point or place where the power to cast a ballot would have been of the slightest help to me. For myself I should regard the duties and responsibilities of thorough, well-informed, and faithful participation year after year in political matters as a very great misfortune; even more of a misfortune than the certainty of being mixed up in the bitter strife, the falsifications, and publicity often attendant upon political campaigns."Again, for the record, I am stating no personal opinion about the issue of women's voting rights. Let the fact be well noted, that I have said nothing either pro or con upon that subject.
Now, go and read the whole book -- all 55 pages:
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