Comments on: Arguing About Women’s Suffrage

By: Zelophehad’s Daughters | Exploring a Misconception about Feminism: Women’s Superiority

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:32:01 +0000

[...] rational decisions, but some of the reasons were the exact opposite (as Lynnette pointed out in her recent post on women’s suffrage): women should not have the vote because the intricacies and difficulties of the political sphere [...]

By: Lynnette

Lynnette — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 21:51:41 +0000

Rechabite, sure–check out the YWJ Vol. VI (1894-5), p. 225-32 and 280-86. Sorry, I’m not sure which specific issues that is, but hopefully the page numbers will help you find them.

(And no worries about my name–”Lynette” is actually a much more common spelling, so it’s an understandable typo!)

By: Rechabite

Rechabite — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 19:06:25 +0000

And by “Lynette,” I mean “Lynnette.” (Typo. Sorry.)

By: Rechabite

Rechabite — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 19:05:41 +0000

Lynette, what’s the Young Woman’s Journal citation(s) for these quotes? I’d love to read the rest of them. Thanks!

By: Petra

Petra — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:47:40 +0000

Very interesting.

By: Lynnette

Lynnette — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 03:29:42 +0000

Thanks, all; I’m glad others found this interesting.

The comment I found the most striking was the one from Lillie Freeze, about how a frequent argument against suffrage was that women themselves didn’t want it because they were happy with the current situation. Her response was that not all women were happy, and the existence of some who were content shouldn’t mean that those did want suffrage shouldn’t be able to advocate for it. That’s certainly an issue in contemporary LDS feminism; you really can’t say that LDS women as a whole want or don’t want x, because there’s such diversity. So is it legitimate for some women to advocate for things that some (but not all) women want, in the name of women’s rights? I’m probably with Freeze on this, but it’s a complicated issue.

By: Seraphine

Seraphine — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 18:43:23 +0000

Interesting. Thanks for sharing!

By: madhousewife

madhousewife — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 17:03:43 +0000

Astute observation.

By: Liz

Liz — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 17:00:39 +0000

Reading through all your examples, it amazes me how similar the arguments are a hundred plus years ago (even though some are couched in more delicate language).

By: Mark IV

Mark IV — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:20:55 +0000

Lynnette,

I’m laughing, because I was thinking the same thing. Your penultimate paragraph describes my reaction to these quotes almost exactly. It’s interesting, how we just seem to continue plowing the same ground.

I wrote a paper once on the electoral system of Switzerland, where females were not allowed to vote until 1971. I think my conclusion was that the franchise is important for individuals so they can participate as citizens, but that it doesn’t matter much to the outcome of elections whether women vote.